Airbnb - would this concern you?

[georgedawes]

I've booked several Airbnbs and always had a good experience, but I've got a slight concern over our forthcoming trip.

It's been booked since late 2018 for the end of Aug. All reviews good, but seems to have been taken off as a listing since early this year, and no reviews since then.

It could just be that they're renting elsewhere or just honoring existing bookings whilst stopping new ones, but I'm worrying a little in case we turn up and it's not available. Rental is in Spain.

Any tips? I've sent a friendly message to the owner.

Odd you don’t mention whether you have tried to contact the owner!

Oh sorry - just seen you have

How long ago?

Wait and see what the owner says. I had similar with a place we'd booked through spain-holidays and what happened is that the owner was going to sell but was planning to do so after the bookings that had already been made. And we went and it was fine.

Had a similar experience on a different booking platform last year, turned out the owner didn’t have the correct license to be a holiday let, after some back and forth with the booking platform and some very ( unintentional I’m sure!) funny messages from the owner, I got the credit card company on to it. Got my money back and booked somewhere new. I had a month to organise it and was just lucky that I could find something that suited. Did you pay by cc by any chance?

Paid by paypal. Airbnb would refund me I'm sure if there was a problem, just don't want to be stuck in Spain in holiday season with nowhere to stay!!

It wasn't long ago I contacted the owner, so not worried about being ignored yet. Just wondered if others thought it seemed odd and/or if I should be doing something else.

Perhaps they are living in it themselves and only put it out for booking when they were due to go away for their own holiday.

Possibly, although google says they live in a different place. Could be renting to family or a friend of course though.

Have you asked them why they are no longer listed? I dumped TripAdvisor with a booking still outstanding as I was so fed up with the way they rip off guests who book via them. Tried to email the guest to say that the booking was still OK but my email was blocked by TripAdvisor!

PayPal will always refund.
Can you find the property on SM? I wouldn’t leave it till last minute.

It's still showing on airbnb as a booking for me, but doesn't look like it is available for new bookings (this is I believe normal for the site).

I'll have a google for the property elsewhere, good tip.

Not heard back from the owner yet but I only messaged a few hours ago when I re-read the listing. I've had a good read of airbnb's help pages and feel a bit more reassured they'd help if there was a problem though.

Have you contacted Airbnb?

No, as I said I'm waiting to hear back from the owner first. I will do if I don't of course.

Unless you don't get a reply from the owner before you travel I wouldn't worry. Airbnb hosts might unlist a listing for any number of reasons. If they were intending to stop hosting they would have cancelled outstanding bookings.

Similar happened to me once. She had reached the quota allowed by local laws for letting. At least that's what she told me. All was fine thankfully.

Maybe they are now letting through another site that has cheaper fees?