Also watch out for a bait and switch on Airbnb. I'm actually sitting in a nice apt now from airbnb. So I am happy with it. But there is another host who is trying to get me for an $1800 cleaning fee. What happens is you book a room in advance for a month. Then the host waits until 12 hours before the point of no cancelation to say "its not available but there is another one for a lot less cost that is a lot worse.". You say no before the cutoff window but then he lowers the cost to bargain basement levels. You accept. And he accepts by booking a different apartment under the haggling text message agreement. Naturally you move to requisition the disagreement as he said he would. But he stalls until the last minute and unsweetens the deal until you cancel. Boom. He has your money and can point to the fine print and his strict cancellation policy that the trouble he went through to clean the room and get it " fixed up" justifies the $1800 charge for a room I didn't set foot in.
Moral if the story. If you don't get prompt reply and if any changes occur after booking. Stay away from that host. They are fishing for free money playing the rules of Airbnb.
Airbnb is supposedly going to get back to me about this disagreement, and there is a ticket to deal with it. But its been 5 days after the event and I pinged them twice with email. My other option may be to contest the charge on my credit card. Scammers are everywhere that rules and large sums of money can be found. And many of those scammers will be right there along side you jockeying for victimhood status.
Just call your bank and you'll get your money back immediately. The chargeback process is hugely biased in favor of the cardholder. You can even win the chargeback if you had stayed in the place and it was not as advertised. If you start filing a lot of chargebacks, though, you'll likely be flagged by the card network.
Just talk to Airbnb. They have really good customer support and if a host is doing anything fishy they will offer full refunds with an additional credit for a future booking.
I encountered a similar situation in Portland a couple weeks ago and Airbnb was great!
Moral if the story. If you don't get prompt reply and if any changes occur after booking. Stay away from that host. They are fishing for free money playing the rules of Airbnb.
Airbnb is supposedly going to get back to me about this disagreement, and there is a ticket to deal with it. But its been 5 days after the event and I pinged them twice with email. My other option may be to contest the charge on my credit card. Scammers are everywhere that rules and large sums of money can be found. And many of those scammers will be right there along side you jockeying for victimhood status.