A Canadian man’s Airbnb “horror story” is going viral on social media, and others claim to have found themselves in a similar situation.
Brandon Li co-founded Power, an online resource for clinical trials. Originally from Toronto, he’s now based in San Francisco.
For the past 10 years, he has been staying at Airbnb locations when he travels, but lately, he’s mostly stayed at hotels.
In a series of X posts on Tuesday, Li recounted what happened to his Airbnb booking in London after a three-hour flight delay while travelling from Bordeaux, France, with his wife.
“I messaged our host that we’re going to miss the check-in window,” he stated. “There’s a fee. It’s weird since it’s self-check-in, but okay.”
He shared screenshots that show that he had booked the apartment from Sunday, June 9 to Saturday, June 15 and that check-in was at 4 pm. Li said they arrived on a rainy Monday at 2:30 am BST.
“We get to the Airbnb, and the lockbox doesn’t work,” he stated. “I message the host to escalate.”
Screenshots of Li’s booking information (@brandonhli/X)
The host said they had changed the lockbox code since they missed their check-in window.
“But what about our convo?” asked Li, and then heard nothing from the host.
In a message to Daily Hive, he added, “I couldn’t understand why they’d change the lockbox after a certain hour… especially since we had booked for the week.”
Brandon Li (@brandonhli/X)
Desperate, Li booked a nearby hotel, but when he tried to contact the host the next day to see when they could check in, he got “no response.”
That’s when he contacted Airbnb to explain the situation, ask for a refund to cover his last-minute hotel costs, and investigate the problem “to see if this is fraud.”
“Their response is classic,” Li said.
Ok.. so maybe the rep can’t make this decision. I ask for a manager
“Ok, the manager will call you in an hour”
We are now 3am
I ask if we can talk to a manager in the morning since it’s already quite late
“Sorry, I need to hang up now because it has been escalated”
???
— Brandon 🎉 (@brandonhli) June 10, 2024
According to the company’s website, if the host cannot resolve the issue, Airbnb will help guests “find a similar place, depending on availability at comparable pricing. If a similar place isn’t available or you’d prefer not to rebook, we’ll give you a full or partial refund.”
However, Li says the response he got was, “Sorry, it’s against policy,” and that the issue had been escalated.
He then discovered that the host had claimed Li and his wife were a “no-show” and had refused a refund request.
“So… they’re just going to take all our money and not let us use the space for the next week?” he asked.
I should add that this was not their original position
It took them 18hrs to decide that yes, I should probably be allowed to check into this stay that I have pre-paid for
— Brandon 🎉 (@brandonhli) June 10, 2024
He described the situation as “frustrating.”
“They kept defaulting to saying it was up to the host’s discretion,” Li said. “No accountability until it got escalated a few times. Ultimately, they’ve been lovely and resolved the issue, but it didn’t change the fact that we were left without options at 3 am in the rain.”
He said that after sharing his experience online, he received messages from people who had a similar experience with the same host.
“I had the exact same host in London and an almost identical experience,” wrote a person named Benj, who shared screenshots.
@brandonhli/X
According to Benj, they had let the host know they’d check in late, only to discover that the lockbox code had been changed.
“Found a hotel at midnight. Host and Airbnb refused to refund me at all or cover the cost of the hotel,” they wrote. “Ended up losing out on over £600.”
That’s C$1,051.
@brandonhli/X
Li said his Airbnb “horror story” has touched a nerve.
“You can see that the thread has almost become a customer support lighthouse for everyone’s horror stories,” he said.
Although Airbnb has offered a refund and will cover his next stay, the situation is still “TBD” on whether the company will cover his hotel costs.
“As one friend put it: you shouldn’t need to go viral just to get a resolution,” he said. “I wonder how many others had to eat their costs.”
Daily Hive has reached out to Airbnb for a comment.
Do you prefer hotels or Airbnb when you travel? Let us know in the comments. You can also share a travel horror story with us at [email protected] for a potential news article.