No WiFi in Airbnb

[EatingRipeCamembert]

How much refund would you request if there was no WiFi in your Airbnb?

We're here for six nights, four of us, phone signal barely works in the area.

Having no WiFi is having a big impact on our holiday, teen & young adult DC are cut off from contacting friends and we can't watch TV or films in the evenings.

We can't do the things we'd usually do in between going out.

I'd never have chosen somewhere without WiFi, the property is listed as having it and the host has been very casual about it not working. I asked for it to be fixed but the host says she can't give me any assurances. I've asked for a partial refund and she's said she'll need to ask her brother, but hasn't got back to me.

I've seen that Airbnb has a facility to request a partial refund, I have to suggest the amount.

We paid around £1700 for 6 nights, what's a reasonable amount to request for a partial refund?

Is the issue that you don’t know where you can buy an eSIM (do you even buy them or are they built into the phone?) or that it doesn’t solve the issue? If the latter then you’re picking the wrong battle.

Could you ask for a refund if you leave early and move to your next destination sooner? It doesn’t sound like any of you are having a good time.

FWIW I would hate a holiday without Wi-Fi so I agree they should give more of a refund

It would be helpful to quote the bit that you're replying to rather than leaving others to second guess.

Ok, sweetie 😘 my post was made immediately after yours, so seemed pretty clear to me, but you do you.

Blackmail? That's fighting talk!

We have an Airbnb in Southern Europe. Generally good wifi and good beds are a priority for most guests. We have the best wifi provider for our area, not the cheapest but very reliable. Hence we have never had an issue but if we did we wouldn't dream of dealing with it as your host has. I don't understand why people are in the hosting business when they are so hostile to reasonable complaints.
Negative reviews are very damaging to Airbnb hosts as the algorithm on where you appear on searches is based on review ratings. I wouldn't hesitate to give a slating review in your case. Yes it is a vital problem and if the solution is so simple why haven't they provided it for you. The exclamation mark alone would incense me.
Hope you've managed to have a good time despite this upset.

The host replied yesterday afternoon with this:

Hello, you can buy it on internet : esim.holafly.com
This is easy to do.
You can go to a Free Wifi zone and down load it.
We apologize for the inconvenience caused
regards

It was nice to see an apology at last! As some PPs have said, I'm not sure how well this will work as phone signal is bad. We were too busy out yesterday and last night so didn't try it. Might try on one phone today, see if it's any good.

Presumably the eSim just uses the existing mobile phone network? Or does it somehow connect you to something better?

No it just connects you to whatever local network as if you were a French person with a French contract.

I’m rural and my Wi-Fi is pants, literally the lowest speeds they are allowed to give you. I’m on copper. There is a Vodafone mast on a hill yonder and I hot spot my work laptop to it. It’s it’s 30 times faster than bt on the speed checker.

I'd say a refund needs most of it as it wasn't as advertised. At the very least a dongle should be supplied within 12 hours of you reporting it.

Presumably as you are still there you are using all the other amenities you are paying for. If it was that important to you you should have left and found somewhere else to stay, then you would have grounds for a refund for the nights you didn't stay.. You can't just stay and use everything else and then demand a £600 refund for just WiFi not working when presumably everything else has been fine. That's outrageous!!! (However I do agree that the host response should have been better)

There's usually more than one phone signal because different providers will use different masts. Often in rural areas the signal will be with be poor with one network provider but great with another.

@EatingRipeCamembert I'm not sure if it's too late to be of use, but I strongly sympathise with your kid who loves podcasts as I use them to unwind a lot these days. If you can get somewhere with WiFi (cafe or whatever) for a hit he should be able download a tonne to his phone to listen to offline. Most podcast apps (BBC Sounds and Podcast Addict for sure) can do this.

@Florabella I guess that's what the host thought too! In hindsight I think I should have asked for less. I got a bit carried away by PPs suggestions of 50-100% and was fuelled by frustration at the host responses.

The host responses to my request for the partial refund was rude though, and very unprofessional. They could have kept their language neutral and said simply 'We think this is too much but we're willing to offer x amount of refund.' Or 'We're sorry the WiFi isn't working but as that's beyond our control we don't believe a refund is justified.'

Interesting that a PP says the official Airbnb response is to refund 30% for a missing amenity. In my case that would be £488 and so I should have requested closer to that.

I would have liked to have stayed elsewhere but I'd have been concerned about how that would work. Presumably I'd have had to pay for second accommodation with no guarantee I'd have had a refund for the first accommodation. I also didn't have enough money available to pay for alternative accommodation. Without WiFi and with only a poor phone internet connection there was no way to research alternatives.

Fortunately we're all enjoying our time here and have put it out of our minds, we're playing card games and going out a lot.

OP, l think you got it right with your initial figure. You were in negotiating territory, so needed to set the bar high. Had you suggested a smaller figure, you were likely to have been further beaten down. The stress with these type of things when you are supposed to be on holiday is awful. Enjoy the rest of your stay. ❤️

This happened to us at Easter. We got a £100 refund.

That seems fair to me. The grabiness of some posters horrifies me. Suggestions for 50% discount for one thing wrong while still enjoying all the other facilities is just so unfair to the small business owner.

Not half as unfair as a "small business owner" seemingly making no effort to provide something they promised as part of the contract, and then getting stroppy about it when pressed for it to be provided.

I did say that the host's response wasn't good and yes she should have responded quicker, but I don't see her actually being stroppy. Just putting a firm response in place to an over the top refund claim.

I don't think 50% is grabby. It's an essential service. Having no WIFI has changed the OP's holiday, and has a huge impact on how they are able to spend their time.

The owner has been dismissive of the problem and rude in their replies. In addition to this the OP is anxious about retaliation from the host and their family, which is an awful thing to have to worry about on what should be a relaxing holiday.

So you think wifi is 50% of a holiday? They are still using the beds, the bathroom, the kitchen, the living area, the electricity, the water etc, etc, etc. if it was the big an issue they should have found somewhere else and left on day 1 explaining to Airbnb that no WiFi made it unusable. They chose to stay and use all those facilities.
I would normally say no refund for lack of WiFi as it is usually outside the host's control, but as the host knew in advance (possibly not far in advance) then £100 seems fair, particularly as there is now a solution in place

I strongly suspect that your roaming mobile phones will get a better signal than a local SIM. When I'm in England, my phone just uses the O2 network. When I'm abroad it uses a range of providers (presumably the one with the strongest signal at that moment).

My ILs in Ireland had a house once where they could only get a decent signal in their dining room. DP and I, with our English mobiles, could get a good signal throughout the house.

They stayed after the first day because they expected the host/owners to sort out the problem. Perhaps the owner should have been explicit that it wouldn't be sorted for the duration of the stay rather than leaving the guests dangling and making them think it was only temporary!

Perhaps the owner was trying to find a solution and should just have been a bit better in keeping in touch.

Absolutely, so again, owner's fault! They'd have been better offering alternative solutions etc from the start rather than glibly saying "sorry wifi doesn't work" and then getting stroppy.

I don't think you were wrong to ask for 50% - having WiFi was a requirement and you wouldn't have booked the air b and b.