Adela nearly ruined our vacation, but only ended up taking our money without providing any service. This is what happened:
We contacted Adela over chat and told her that we were a family of two adults and two children (2 and 6), but that we would only need one room. She said that she would be able to accommodate us. So we booked the room as two adults and Adela accepted our reservation.
Then, three days after our booking, Adela demanded that we also pay full price for each of our children. Adela had a right to charge for whomever she wants, but we were taken by surprise since she did not mention charging for our children during our initial chat and she accepted our reservation for two adults.
She said that she was ready to receive two guests (the adults), but not our children if we didn't pay up.
We were in transit when we received her demand and occupied with catching shuttles and flights, and had limited internet access. At our earliest opportunity, we tried to cancel our reservation. But we were a few hours after the deadline to receive a full refund.
We wrote to Adela right away and she said not to worry and that she would issue us a refund. But after waiting and waiting, not only did we not receive a refund, she claimed that we never informed her of our intention to cancel. Adela refused to give us our money back despite her promises and took our money without providing anything in return.
We feel that our interactions with Adela were not in keeping with the spirit of AirBNB. When things go right, everyone is happy. But when hiccups happen — and they inevitably do when one is traveling — you want to have confidence that the host will be able to handle the situation with kindness and sympathy, or at the very least, with honesty. We worked in good faith and were upfront and honest, but Adela proved that she cannot be relied upon to follow through on her word.