My father and his girlfriend wanted to book a reservation while helping my two children and I move. I was not at the location during check in yet but my father called me shortly after he tried attempting to check in at 2:10 as check in time was 2pm. As they pulled into the private driveway my father stepped in dog poop getting out of his truck. Then upon entering the house it was still not ready and the cleaner was there. My father called me after explaining what happened and saying that he did not want to stay there so I reached out to John stating
“Is there a way to cancel this reservation? It says to cancel before 2 PM but after arriving after 2pm my father stepped in dog shit in the driveway and the cleaners are still not done cleaning. He no longer wants to stay at the location. My apologies for the inconvenience hopefully there is something that can be done.”
To which John replied
“The cleaner is finished now and you are welcome to return. She only had the bathroom to finish when you arrived. The rest of the house was ready. Since this was a last minute booking, we did the best we could to make things ready for you. The previous night's guests and their two large dogs left late, putting us in a bit of a jam. I hope you will reconsider and return.”
I was quite surprised he didn’t even apologize for what had happened just blamed the other guests for leaving late and us for booking last minute. If another problem was to arise while staying there we now see how that problem would be handled. I just responded saying that I didn’t feel comfortable pressuring my father to stay there.
This is where the frustration and run around begins with John not being up front with us when I asked about being refunded.
John
“AirBNB sets the refund policy and I can't change that part. Try and cancelling on the site. I know that they do charge some fees for cancellation, but I am not exactly sure what.”
Me:
“It seems when I go to the help center it says it must try to be resolved between the host and the customer before going to Airbnb.”
John
“I can offer a partial refund of what AirBNB sends me, but I cannot do anything about their fees and the taxes the city charges. Another thing you can try is to change the reservation to one night and see if that works. That may give you the largest refund. If that is not sufficient, you will need to call the resolution center to see what more they can do.”
Me
“They are saying that now it was up to you and you only want to refund us one night. Is this true? I’m not sure Who is being dishonest, you were telling me that it is Airbnb’s decision while they just called and said you decided you will only refund us for one night.”
John
“No, I said I could offer you a partial refund. I couldn’t do anything about their taxes and fees they had to do that. When they called me, I told him I was willing to get a partial refund of one night. And I made sure that they were refunding the taxes and fees in addition. Their policy was to give no refund at all. I think this is a fair compromise given the circumstances.”
Ignore this review if I’m crazy but to me the statement “I can offer a partial refund of what AirBNB sends me, but I cannot do anything about their fees and the taxes the city charges.” and “AirBNB sets the refund policy and I can't change that part. Try and cancelling on the site. I know that they do charge some fees for cancellation, but I am not exactly sure what.” makes it sound as though he is not at fault for not refunding us for one night. If he would have been upfront and told us that he would have not refunded us one night I wouldn’t have wasted my time going back-and-forth between the two. It’s also funny that he put the blame on us booking last minute for the house not being clean but then chooses to not refund us one night as if it was a big inconvenience for him to try and cancel shortly after check in. As from the reviews it seems to be a nice place to stay but beware if any problem occurs John is not one to hold himself accountable for any problems that occur and will not even offer an apology.