AIBU to let you all know that Airbnb hosts have shit happen sometime?

[Jujujuile]

Two guests booked in from tomorrow for the weekend and my boiler’s gone wrong! The engineer has just told me it’s dead. Thankfully I have the funds to pay for a new one, but I have to wait for it to be installed.

With the paperwork / receipt to prove this has happened, telling airbnb is no problem. I’ve also called the person who booked to say sorry, and understandably she was very angry.

Airbnb hosts have a bad reputation for this, but I just wanted to put my side of it.

Guests can and do cancel at the last minute, and most never think of any inconvenience they may cause the host.

Depends what you set your cancellation polity to.

Anyway, shit happens and this is one of the risks of booking via AirBnB rather than a hotel.

At this time of year you don't need the heating, so it's just an issue of hot water. Do you have an immersion heater?

I have an old boiler, it is serviced every year and old boilers tend to be more reliable, but I imagine one day it will die and it will not be economically viable to fix.

Seaweed??????

New stuff goes wrong too.

I’ve just had an irate tenant in a house abroad because the fridge, which is under a year old and still under guarantee, went wrong. The repair man came that day and said it would cost more to fix than to replace so we replaced it that afternoon. The house manager went down with cold boxes to store the stuff to keep it cool until the new arrived. New fridge delivered, house manager moved all the food back into the fridge.

How could we possibly have given better service?

Airbnb was originally about couchsurfing and staying with people. It's great in some ways that it has turned into such a professional outfit with guests expecting fully professional service at all times, but it has changed the original vibe a lot.

When I walked out of an Airbnb in Barcelona last year because it a) had no windows and b) smelled of sewage, Airbnb were amazing sorting me out with a replacement (nicer) flat. I'm sure they have been just as helpful to the guest you just had to cancel on OP.

Sorry, Soup! I read it as a typo for 'hut' but I see now there's just a missing 'e' in 'hotel'

*I should say we didn’t wait around to get it repaired under guarantee by the maker because it would have taken too long to wait for their certified engineer to come.

Juju, I completely get where you're coming from. Everything is completely skewed to the customer and it can be really annoying. We run a small accommodation business and were fully booked when the Beast from the East hit earlier this year. Guests were ringing up and cancelling well outside our cancellation terms, they all wanted refunds even though they weren't actually contractually due them (bad review on Tripadvisor gets bandied around a lot on such occasions). I refunded everyone, we were down nearly £1K on the week.

When we had frozen pipes in 2010 I ended up finding alternative accommodation for all our bookings and paying the difference if the alternative was more expensive.

DSis was on holiday in Morocco a few years ago - got to the check in desk at their hotel to be told there was a booking mixup. There was also an American couple behing DSis at the desk who started kicking off, getting abusive, and took the last room. DSIS and her husband ended up in a luxury apartment instead of a hotel room, with all their meals comped for the week, because they were polite to the staff, and understanding that errors sometimes occur.

This stuff works both ways. I often wish their was a Tripadvisor where accommodation providers could rate guests............

Jujujuile I’m interested in your comment that it is equally inconvenient for you if guests cancel at the last minute. I would say that most AirBNBs have cancellation policies so that if guests cancel within a certain date of the stay they still have to pay what is often quite a large percentage of the cost.

I’m presuming that there is no reciprocal arrangement whereby guests are compensated if the host cancels at the last minute?

I once have stayed in a luxury hotel which had plumbing/boiler problems ( Grade 1 listed building in historic city). Boiler packed up over the weekend , no replacement part available at short notice so many guests had no hot water for showers etc. They gave us a 30% discount and profuse apologies. It was not that bad in the end. Hotel was nice. Location was excellent and we could boil kettle for warm water when needed.
Just one of those things.

@ Raglansleeve We moved here just before the Beast from the East came to town. The pipes froze and we couldn’t use the toilet in the upstairs room, now the airbnb room. The condensate pipe on the boiler also froze, so we had to turn the boiler off. Luckily we hadn’t started taking guests then.

I am getting the pipes lagged soon, so that this doesn’t happen again. Because we don’t want this to happen again when we have guests here.

I can understand someone being upset but to be angry is pathetic. Do they think you made your boiler break down on purpose.

For the person who asked if boilers often just stop working well of course they do and I am pretty sure you know that. My husband is a gas engineer and a lot of his work is call outs to boilers that have "just stopped working". Strangely they don't breakdown to a timetable.

Me and DH love Airbnb and use it all the time - at least once a month. We have never had any problems although I do realise that a stay can be cancelled at short notice but we take that risk.

One place we have stayed in over 5 times the owners say that people often cancel at the last minute. One lot of guests were meant to be staying for a month and cancelled 2 days before. They get all their money back. So would all the enraged posters on here be annoyed at that? They may well have had a genuine reason for cancelling bit like the OP had one.

I think it was good that you spoke to them OP because you certainly did not have to. I also don't think it is your responsibility to find them alternative accommodation. How long does it take them to log on to the Airbnb site and look for other places?

The hatred for Airbnb on here makes me laugh. Do people think they are too good to stay in one? We get a whole flat or house for less than an hotel room. We can sit on a comfortable sofa and watch tv rather than having to sit or lie uncomfortable on an hotel bed to watch. We get to make as many cups of tea or coffee as we like rather than being restricted to the 2 tea bags and sachets of coffee in the hotel room. We get to eat what we like for breakfast and, more importantly, at the time we like rather than being told by the hotel what time we can eat.

We also get to sleep without being disturbed by twats coming back to the hotel at some ridiculous time laughing and shouting at the tops of their voices, slamming doors and then sounding like a herd of elephants in their room.

If the only downside is the slight possibility that the owner might have to cancel last minute then we will take it

Op yanbu here, it is out of your control.

The only other course of action I can see if offering the guest the use of the accomodation with a discount while the boiler is broken, with them understanding this means no hot water or central heating (perhaps supply an electric heater?).

@ Missfezziwig

Hosts are allowed one cancellation a year, without penalty. We have to show evidence of the problem - bereavement, illness or issues with the accommodation are amongst the acceptable reasons. We can’t do this because we have changed our mind, or we get kicked off the site.

I'm not a lover of Air BnB at the minute as I live in the city centre and they seem to be taking over our little street house by house - every time something comes up it gets bought by someone planning to short term let. However...

I still feel for the OP in this situation, and it's not a problem exclusive to AirBnB hosts either. Family member runs an actual bed and breakfast, fully registered etc. Boiler broke down last week - regularly service, under a servicing contract. No warning. Circuit board and pump both gone at least, potentially other parts needed too but wouldn't even know that until the new circuit board is in. It's been deemed beyond repair, but even if they tried to repair it they'd be waiting several days for parts. Sometimes large items like boilers break with no warning and when they do a new one can't be produced from thin air instantly, no matter how much money you're willing to throw at it. Relative is lucky in that it's summer and they do have an immersion, but anybody with a combi in that situation is stuffed.

In that sort of situation going nuts at the host/owner is pointless.

Couldn't you have phoned and explained? Given HER the option to cancel or come and stay (with a huge discount) i personally would rather stop being dry shampoo and have a quick cold shower if its only for a day or two than canc my hol

Mrs Fezziwig, most of the properties I have stayed in or even looked at refund ALL of the money if cancelled within 48 hours.

As I said, the owners of a place we have stayed in quite a few times and become friendly with, told us they have had quite a few guests cancel last minute, one lot who were meant to be staying for a month with no reasons given

We use Airbnb quite a lot both in the UK and in Europe the second one we aver stayed in we arrived to meet the owner who apologised profusely that the heating had broken down and an engineer had been out but needed to order a new part. There was an immersion and an instant shower so we still had hot water.
He offered extra logs for the real fire and asked if we wanted some electric heaters. It was summer so we said no to the heaters yes to the logs, very romantic, and just cracked on with our holiday.
One time we stayed in one in France we managed to slightly damage one of the window shutters, when we pointed this out on our departure the owner said not to worry they expect small things like that happen.
Another time we thought we had booked but something had gone wrong with the system so the booking was not actually made. when my DH phoned for arrival instructions the day before we were due to stay because we had not received an e-mail he was told the booking had not gone through but that the flat was still available and to just pay on arrival.
We have stayed in lovely places and have been lucky enough to met great people.
Airbnb is not like luxury hotels and a little goodwill on both sides goes a long way.

I may be fined $100 for the cancellation - I’m not sure yet. Will just have accept that and move on.

I do Air BnB, but it is my whole house, just during the summer.

People,I have realised, do not understand Air BnB. The 5 star review process is ludicrous. Anything below 5 star is seen by Air BNB to be below standard. So they threaten to remove your listing if you get 4's.

Asking for money from people who cause damage is made next to impossible, as the timing stipulated by Air means they know you are claiming and so write you a bad review. Which means your listing could be removed, and the end of your livelihood.

I had a carpet, brand new,a week old, ruined by a stain recently. They said NOTHING about the stain, which we could have removed had they told us. Then gave a 4 star review that meant Air contacted us to tell us we needed to improve our standards!!!

And now every guest mentions the stain. But with a 4 hour turn round we can't really do anything about it.

So yes, shit happens.

Also, airbnb do try and find guests an alternative place when this happens. I’ve had them call me when a host threw a guest out for complaining about the accommodation.

That lady is now my friend as well and some of the other people who have been here. All my guests bar one, have been lovely people and some of them stay in touch.

@ loveka - I feel your pain about the star system, I’ve had a few fours but mostly fives. I was hoping to be a superhost this time round, but that won’t happen now because of the cancellation.

I think people here are being very harsh to any business. We are now so used to our wants being fulfilled as soon as we have them that we have forgotten that things happen and some things do take time to fix - whether you are a business, a landlord of a full time let, running a hotel or B&B or just letting out a spare room occasionally. I like AirB&B as you can find out a bit about the hosts before you go, so you have a feel for whether this is a business (more likely to have things done preventatively) or someone who lets out a spare room (could be more fun to stay but maybe not a room I would book if I had to be in that location that weekend for something like a wedding and accommodation was thin on the ground in the location). I would appreciate the personal call to let me know. I hope that they get other accommodation and calm down and realise that it is just one of those things.

This is why I don't use AirB&B, either. Really don't care about 'the other side', just want accommodation sorted so I use professional businesses.

We have stayed in an Airbnb a few weeks ago. Dp who has never stayed in one before and even up to the day we left was very nervous and talking about if it was rubbish he would pay for a hotel is a total convert.

Villa, own private pool and dp who likes to sit around the pool with a beer was able to just pick a beer (san Miguel 3€ for 10 from the local supermarket) from the fridge. Saved a fortune. And we could sit around the breakfast table in night wear.
Very relaxing