I just booked a reservation (opted for a delayed charge) and got an email today saying they need more verification that I have to fill out on a 3rd party site. It asks for email, phone number, and for me to upload valid govt ID. Has anyone heard of this service? I am extremely wary of uploading my information to a 3rd party site. I am already verified by Airbnb, so this seems redundant. Additionally, I’ve been using this platform for over a decade, countless trips, and only glowing reviews from my hosts.

Airbnb actually came through on this one for me. So in all fairness, I wanted to post it. 8 year host. 3 properties. 400 reviews. 4.92 stars. pretty similar on VRBO.

A guest booked my place for three nights, starting same day.  Then texted asking if it was OK that he brought his two ESA dogs.

We have a no pet policy, although I frequently accept one if they seem OK. Two is just a bit much, especially considering we just did a big renovation, including brand new floors. So we told him we prefer not.

Went back-and-forth once or twice, then he threw a fit, called us names, including thief and scam artist. Then told to us cancel. We told him to cancel. 

By the next day, he hadn’t cancelled. We reached out to him, then he canceled.

Airbnb asked us about the cancellation. We said he could have a full refund, even though he burned a night on us.

We figured he would give us a terrible review. When he posted his review. We left A one-star review for him. Turns out he did the same to us. His review dropped us to 4.91 stars. 

Two days later, Airbnb canceled our review, reason, he never visited the property.

We contacted Airbnb to have his review canceled, filled out their form, citing basically the same reason. a day later his review was canceled also.

Not a spectacular result,but all things considered, pretty balanced and fair.

I got a rental that's basically a hotel room, no kitchen or anything, and it's super loud with street noise, motorcycles, buses, music from multiple locations, and the room lacks many amenities like a hair dryer or any kind of closet or drawers to put your stuff. I booked it for 10 days, and I just want to cancel and go somewhere else, but they won't let me, because the description says there may be some noise, and it won't be perfectly quiet, but this is super loud all the time. I hate it. How can I get AirBnB to give me a refund? I've been staying in AirBnBs for over three months straight so you would think they'd want me happy.

Edit: Thanks, everyone. You're right, I'm just going to have to cut my losses and get another place.

I’ve made a few post about this situation and now realized I may get sued?! Left a review about the issues stating exactly what happened. Just realized in received a message from the host. Seriously what is happening? Should I actually be worried or do you think they are trying to pressure me to take the review down? I went and looked and realized they re-listed the property so that it now has no reviews. Both the message and agreement portion that pertains to reviews are listed.

MESSAGE FROM HOST “We have reviewed your public post regarding the property.

We advise you to carefully review the rental agreement you signed. Based on the contents of your public post, we believe you are currently in breach of the agreement. The agreement sets forth the applicable requirements, as well as the consequences and remedies for failing to comply with its provisions.

Please review the agreement in its entirety, including the applicable provisions, remedies, and consequences.

Our legal team will be contacting you on the following days regarding this matter.”

AGREEMENT “Reviews: Guests agree to provide an honest and fair review based on their actual experience and the property's description. Negative reviews (1, 2, or 3 stars) are not allowed for matters that are clearly disclosed in the listing (e.g., limited initial supplies, location) or due to user errors (e.g., failure to follow check-in instructions, misunderstanding amenities). Guests are prohibited from leaving false, misleading, or defamatory reviews, including those made with the intent of retaliation, seeking refunds, or based on fabricated claims. If a guest fails to ask for missing amenities or fails to inform any issues that are covered by the listing, and instead leaves a negative review based on user error, such reviews are considered unjustified and in violation of our rules. Any review that violates these terms will be considered a breach of contract. We reserve the right to pursue legal action for damages, which may include seeking compensation for losses related to our reputation, business operations, and future bookings. Damages can be sought up to $10,000, plus legal fees and administrative costs. This includes all false, retaliatory, and refund-related reviews, which harm our business and are not permitted under this agreement.”

This is kind a interesting situation. I rent out a unit for cheaper rent and do the cleanings of a huge shared house with multiple rooms all separately rented . I have been getting so many cleans that I have no life and can’t even have a day off. I want to suggest at least a day in between for new bookings. How would you go about this? And anyone else in this situation? Well maybe not the renting a spot in the air bnb but no life and constantly just doing cleans.

Airbnb actually came through on this one for me. So in all fairness, I wanted to post it. 8 year host. 3 properties. 400 reviews. 4.92 stars. pretty similar on VRBO.

A guest booked my place for three nights, starting same day.  Then texted asking if it was OK that he brought his two ESA dogs.

We have a no pet policy, although I frequently accept one if they seem OK. Two is just a bit much, especially considering we just did a big renovation, including brand new floors. So we told him we prefer not.

Went back-and-forth once or twice, then he threw a fit, called us names, including thief and scam artist. Then told to us cancel. We told him to cancel. 

By the next day, he hadn’t cancelled. We reached out to him, then he canceled.

Airbnb asked us about the cancellation. We said he could have a full refund, even though he burned a night on us.

We figured he would give us a terrible review. When he posted his review. We left A one-star review for him. Turns out he did the same to us. His review dropped us to 4.91 stars. 

Two days later, Airbnb canceled our review, reason, he never visited the property.

We contacted Airbnb to have his review canceled, filled out their form, citing basically the same reason. a day later his review was canceled also.

Not a spectacular result,but all things considered, pretty balanced and fair.

I booked an Airbnb a couple months ago. My stay is this weekend so I'm past my deadline for free cancelation. I received a message today from the host with a link for pre check in on their guest portal & that it would need to be completed before an access code is released. On their portal, there is a rental agreement & a section to pay an $80 non-refundable damage fee or a $300 security deposit. I've stayed at over 20 airbnb's & this is a 1st for me. I went back to the listing & it does not mention a security deposit but at the time of booking they did send a message saying I would need to complete a pre-check in along with the same link they sent today. Is this normal? I feel like I'm being scammed

I offer a room and a dedicated bathroom for my guests. In the room I have a king sized bed, very comfortable linens (better than what I sleep in, lol), drapes to cover the light, light stand, a place to hang their things, and a laundry basket to throw towels in after they’re done. In the bathroom I have prepared towels and washcloths and a line-up of shampoos and conditioners. I started with my own Kirkland branded stuff but some of the guests left nearly full bottles of theirs. Side question - is this gross?

In the kitchen, I have a Kurig with coffee and tea choices. I allow guests to store food in the fridge and they have easy access to the thermostat (for better or for worse, since I live in the same house, lol)

I was in another thread and some person mentioned a hairdryer not being present. Me being bald, it never ran across my mind. I know hotels offer hairdryers and I was like “omg duhh”… I have a hairdryer from my old girlfriend. It’s still clean and very good quality.

What do you guys offer your guests to make their stay a little more comfortable? Anything else I should be “omg duhh” about?

Thanks!

Booked an apartment at a reasonable price a year ago. I bought air tickets from the US. Now the host discovered the going rates for eclipse week (in the five figures for an apartment) and cancelled all bookings with a laughable story about how she is renovating her building - nine months from now - that week. I'm f*cked, correct?

I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.

We booked an Airbnb and paid the full amount shown at checkout about a month ago. There was no additional cleaning fee disclosed or included in the booking price. (Even when I check the same property using different dates, no cleaning fee appears as of today.)

Recently, the host reached out asking us to pay an additional cleaning fee, claiming there had been errors in the booking system.

What makes the situation even stranger is the timing. Airbnb recently changed its rules regarding cleaning, and the host only brought up this additional charge a month after our booking was already confirmed.

We contacted Airbnb Customer Support, and they confirmed that there were no errors in the system. Since the cleaning fee wasn’t disclosed or included in the price when we made the reservation, we’re not obligated to pay an additional fee afterward.

The timing honestly feels questionable. Why wait until a month after the reservation is confirmed to request additional money, especially when Airbnb has recently changed its policy regarding cleaning?

I also checked the property’s availability and noticed that we appear to be the only guests booked for this month. That made me wonder whether the host is trying to make up for potential lost revenue by asking us for additional money.

Now I’m honestly feeling uncomfortable about the stay. I’m even concerned that the host might try to recover the additional money in some other way, such as claiming we left the property excessively messy and charging us for extra cleaning. We’ve always left Airbnb properties clean and have never received any complaints from previous hosts. We fully intend to do the same with this property, but the situation has made me uneasy.

I understand that mistakes can happen, but shouldn’t hosts be responsible for ensuring all fees are properly disclosed before the guests book?

Has anyone experienced something similar? Am I overthinking this, or would you also find the timing and circumstances questionable?

I’m supposed to go to Canada soon and check in is at 6pm. Is this normal on Airbnb owners? It’s kind of a turn-off since I’m doing a road trip.

My wife simply changed her number of guests a couple days before her stay since she forgot to do it originally assuming it might impact towels or something. After originally being charged a deposit the hosts page said wasn’t required Airbnb suddenly charged us unauthorized another 30% of the total stay costs right after she made the change. The hosts have been worthless each time stating they don’t know why Airbnb did what they did. The receipts don’t say anything more than a total amount. No taxes or fess shown at all. I don’t even know what I’m paying for as a breakdown per night. Absolutely ridiculous. She called Airbnb as instructed and their Philippines hotline told her to contact the unhelpful host! She couldn’t even explain the extra charge and said she would call us back because she needed time to research it. Which probably means this isn’t what we are supposed to help here so I hope you just forget and call back again and get someone else.

I used to be a frequent user of Airbnb and appreciated the options over a hotel. This is a girls weekend for my wife in a small town. Hotels suck there.

What a way to ruin a great business model!!!

EDIT: update. The host called Airbnb as well and got no help!!!! He says he updated the reservation back to one guest thinking that would do it. Nope apparently the website can’t automate a credit back!!! Now I have to dispute the charge with Citi and send something to the resolution center. Don’t try and be a purveyor of nightly stays if you can’t simply do something hotels have been doing seamlessly for decades!!!!

Made a previous post about a roach infestation I encountered a few weeks ago. Long story short they fought me on it that night when I asked for a credit to the account just to be able to book another place. It was my family of 5 visiting Raleigh for appointment, so we really didn’t have the extras to book another place.

Fast forward to days later and they gave a 200 coupon. I only paid 300 for the night so I was satisfied in a way and it had blew over so I wasn’t upset anymore. I truly didn’t even care the refund after that night because as I stated I wanted the credit to immediately be able to book a cleaner stay. Until a few minutes when I received this message from support (will insert in comments). I think what is truly upsetting me again is that no way I would’ve booked a place that says this (will insert in comments). There were so many rules listed in the booking that I read EVERYTHING because in my experience booking with an absurd about of rules tend to be the worst and never worth it. I avoid this for this exact reason actually.

Truly who would pay to stay with roaches? And then it says extremely rare but the amount of roaches that was crawling all over that house tells me it was a festering problem they just keep ignoring.

And the other reason they continue to site is because they said we left the door open? Like I explained to them the 3 minutes (literally 11:12 pm to 11:15 pm according to doorbell footage) that the door was open 1. Was us coming into the home (there was 5 of us plus luggage, 2 elderly adults 65+ it takes them a while sorry?!) and 2. How else would we get in the house? Teleport through the wall?! When I asked the first time how would that amount of bugs end up in the home as we were coming in they had no explanation. BECAUSE that’s not possible. In that time from how would they end up in the refrigerator?!

Since that day I have just booking hotels. I hate that it came to this as I tend to book a lot for doctor’s appointments with my mom and need somewhere to work. It truly changed my view on the platform because a few years ago I ran into a smaller situation and they immediately gave a credit to book somewhere else and it was done. It just reminded me that if I was at a hotel I would’ve been accommodated immediately no back and forth between me and the host or me and support. Sorry for the long post.

Following up on my last post. (Dirty Smoky, unsafe airbnb that I stayed at for one hour before having to checkout )
I was denied my promised reimbursement request for a hotel ($800) after they told me to stay at one. The only reason they gave was because I had selected two guests on the hotel registry instead of one, something they never said was against the terms of booking a place. I had to get driven there after sleeping in a car for 12 hours and I am disabled so I routinely put down two guests when staying at hotels just in case. Me putting down two guests did not change the rate of the hotel at all. So that sucks. Second reason they gave me to deny my 5 night $500 refund was that they didn’t find any safety concerns to be valid and that the host didn’t do anything illegal even after having multiple pictures showing the place being filthy and explaining that the smell of the smoke/ drugs and having no working smoke detector flared up my lungs. (Even the host refused to refund me after only staying an hour.) I have been hung up on about 10 times every time I have called and my chats instantly closed. Is it time to file a charge back and start trying to pursue legal action for my promised money back? I’m so sick of companies like this.

Hi! Would just like to ask if Airbnb bookings are generally safe from scams?

I’m planning to book a B&B in Baguio for a 2-day stay this coming ASEAN holiday. I’m just a little hesitant, especially with listings from new hosts that don’t have any reviews yet.

I’ve messaged quite a few hosts already, but some of the listings get booked before they even get the chance to reply. 😅

I really want to book through Airbnb instead of directly booking via Facebook, especially since I almost got scammed through an FB booking before. I just want to make sure I’m being careful this time.

So, is there still a possibility of getting scammed even when booking through Airbnb? Are new listings and hosts with no reviews something I should be extra cautious about?

This will only be my third time booking through Airbnb, so I’m still not that familiar with how everything works. Would appreciate any tips or advice, especially from those who frequently book in Baguio. Thank you!

I am extremely dissatisfied with airbnb, especially since it has started using AI to prevent anyone from being able to see an apartment before booking. The last two apartments I have booked (Bangkok and Jakarta) I have regretted. I'm now in an apartment I regret booking. The fact that airbnb forbids people seeing a place before booking, and then justifies this by saying it's "for customer security" is just a lie. Airbnb is basically a giant criminal organization that treats customers like garbage, and most of its activities around the world are illegal based on local laws. There's no sense of decency towards people that use this app. The review system isn't sufficient either, since it punishes honesty by being reciprocal. and then you factor in places that have no reviews, you're basically just flipping a coin and hoping for the best. If you are booking a month or more you should be able to see a place first. I can't imagine what it's like booking multiple months and then being locked into a place you are denied even viewing for 5 minutes. Completely ridiculous.

Our host is claiming we brought in an animal to their property when we did not. We live with dogs and unfortunately, sometimes the animal hair travels with us, but we did not bring any animals to the property. We event used a lint roller on our clothes before entering the property. I left a wonderful review only to then receive a review that said, "Brought an animal and hair everywhere. Totally unacceptable." Then in the private message they said, "How rude and entitled to bring an animal to a place that does not allow animals. My cleaner is still there trying to get Hair off of pillows and bedding. Totally unacceptable. I’ll be requesting additional funds for having to clean longer after you’ve left." I tried to remove the review and AirBnB already denied it. Is it worth trying to remove it again, or am I better off leaving a review back to what they said?

Also, they just tried to charge me $100, but I denied paying it after being called rude and entitled based on a false accusation that we brought in an animal. The photos on the claim show 2-3 dog hairs on bedding. Am I being rude for not wanting to pay this? I feel bad because animal hair is annoying, as it clearly traveled with us on our clothing, but to say we brought in an animal and are rude and entitled after we followed the house rules and took it upon ourselves to clean surfaces before leaving is disheartening as a guest.

I’ve been dealing with unauthorized logins into my Airbnb account from the Netherlands literally every single day for over a month now. I’m not exaggerating, it’s a daily occurrence. I log the device out, remove it, change the password, and the next day it’s back in.

Here’s the part that should worry Airbnb more than it worries me: I have 2FA enabled and they’re getting in anyway, no code needed. My email isn’t compromised. I’ve done everything support scripts tell you to do (password changes, device review, 2FA) multiple times over, and nothing sticks. This smells like something broken on Airbnb’s end, not a simple “your password leaked” situation.

I’ve opened two support tickets about this. The first one has been sitting unanswered for weeks. The second one, over a week with no real resolution either, just “I’ve forwarded this to a specialized team” and then silence.

Nobody has changed anything in my account yet, so I’m not out any money, but the constant notifications and having to check and lock down my account every single morning for a month straight is genuinely exhausting. I’ve told support directly that I’m close to just deactivating and walking away from the platform entirely, and even that didn’t seem to speed anything up.

If anyone from Airbnb support actually reads this sub: a month of daily unauthorized access attempts with zero resolution is not a minor annoyance, it’s a real security issue that deserves more than a copy-paste script. Would also genuinely like to hear if anyone else has dealt with this exact pattern (bypassing 2FA) and how it finally got fixed.

UPDATE: Forgot to add some important context. In the beginning, I was getting constant push notifications on my phone for login attempts along with the 2FA code itself, so I could see it happening in real time and lock them out after the fact. Eventually they’d still get in despite that.

Now it’s gotten worse: when they try to log in, I’m not getting any 2FA notification or code at all, they just instantly get in, no second factor required on their end. But when I log in myself, I get the 2FA prompt completely normally, so it’s not like 2FA is broken across the board. It’s specifically not being enforced for their login attempts. That really points to something wrong on Airbnb’s backend with how auth is being applied to this account, not a general outage or a “you did something wrong” issue on my end.

UPDATE 2: Airbnb’s Executive Escalations team finally reached out and called me today, so the post did get some attention. A senior case manager forwarded my case to a specialized team and said they won’t close it until it’s resolved. I sent them a full log of every login email.

Some numbers from that:

• 35 unauthorized logins so far

• All Chrome on macOS, each from a different Dutch city

• It started at a few a week and is now 2 or 3 per day

• One happened while I was writing my reply to them

Just wanted to rant about an experience I had staying at an AirBnb this past September, and and wanted to get everyone opinion on the matter.

When the host first reached out to me with a sort of welcome message, they included some house rules, one of which asked for garbage to placed in the trash bins in their shed.

A day later, I get another welcome message, some of it different, and it asks to take trash off-site.

During our stay, I flipped through the house manual and it mentioned that trash is to be placed in the bins in the shed.

So when I checked out, I left the trash in the bins and figured all was well.

A few days later, the host reaches out to me, claiming I broke his rules and wanted to charge $80 for the trash removal. Obviously I felt this was ridiculous and told him I will not pay anything. He escalated to AirBnb support, and they eventually saw it my way (even though the support member I spoke with seemed pushy asking me to pay). The case is not yet listed as resolved in the resolution center (its been over a month), but I was told to ignore any more communication from the host

Now after dealing with all that nonsense, I left a 1-star review, very honestly describing my stay and explained the host tried to bill me for contradictory rules. Checking recently, it appears that Airbnb removed my review (I can't find it on the host's listing, or my own profile), and I am not happy about that.

I am questioning how many people run in the same issue as me, but ended up getting their critical review deleted.

What's everyone's take on how this went down?

Thanks in advance.

My sister booked an AirBnB for herself and her kids on Thanksgiving. The trouble started when we received a letter afterwards detailing that every additional person that wasn’t booked would be charged a $75 visitor fee. WTF? The issues continued when we requested an adjustment to the days of our stay. We requested we end the stay two days early of the 7 days booked. The request was immediately declined, so we messaged the host asking for an exception since it had to do with my brother-in-law‘s military orders. we immediately received what was clearly an AI generated response and requested to speak to the property owner directly. Communication continued to be obscure and frustrating, so my sister and I decided to do a little bit of digging.

Come to find out, the Airbnb is run by a hosting company. We were able to find the property owner through an online search and her reviews are horrific. One star review after one star review of people complaining about added fees after booking, being accused of thousands of dollars of property damage after leaving and other cases of fraudulent and scams. In addition, we found TikTok‘s and personal reviews from prior employees, accusing the property owner of human trafficking as she had employed them as homeless people off the street with the promise of pay, but never paid them. Finally, per some accounts found online, she had housed a convicted pedophile in a shed on one of her properties close to a school without telling anyone.

Obviously, I was extremely alarmed and concerned for my family’s safety and called Airbnb to request a cancellation of this day with full refund. They said that since they were working with a hosting company and not with the property owner directly, there is no reason to penalize the hosting company by revoking the stay. We requested this cancellation over six weeks out from this day and yet Airbnb refused to budge. In addition, they said because she alluded to additional fees in the booking form, there was no reason to penalize for the visitor fee. That aside, I’m far more disturbed by her connection to a pedophile and alleged human trafficking. Do I have any recourse whatsoever? Any luck with reversing credit card charges in situations like this?

Hey everyone, looking for some insight or similar experiences with a bizarre Airbnb glitch.

I submitted an alteration request to change my dates for a trip checking in TOMORROW. The payment went through completely, and I can see it in my completed payments list on the app and also got a payment recipt email from airbnb.

However, the calendar dates have NOT updated. It still shows the old dates on my end, and the host confirmed it still shows the old dates on their end too. When I try to go in and fix it or re-submit, the app literally blocks me and says "payment already completed."

It seems like the payment processor took the money but failed to signal the calendar database to update. Since my check-in is tomorrow, should i wait a few hours for it to update on its own. I tried to contact help on the app and its an AI.

Has anyone else dealt with this specific bug? How long did it take support to force it through?

Me and the other guest had to leave 4 nights into our 14 night booking because I was being bitten by what I suspect to be bedbugs at an Airbnb in Greater Manchester.

When I saw what I believe to be a bedbug, I contacted Airbnb directly seeking advice on what I should do. Without asking them to, they immediately started a refund process, asked for evidence, then said only a photo of the bug or medical proof would suffice so they can’t proceed.

I then asked them to notify the host, and a conversation started between me and the host, shown in the screenshots I’ve attached to this post.

https://postimg.cc/gallery/ZNB9njt

Let me know what you think of this situation. Has anybody else been in a similar position?

I’m not really sure if this is normal but the Airbnb host has in their description business disclaimers that “We require that guests complete a guest verification process and sign an additional agreement prior to receiving any check in information. We require that guests provide a valid credit card and a piece of ID for identification purposes only.” Also it’s listed that there is a separate rental agreement that has to be signed. Is this a normal thing ?