Airbnb host not responding - should I be worried?

[AirbnbhostAWOL]

We are heading to France on Saturday. For the first 4 nights we have an Airbnb booked in our favourite beach town in Brittany. We booked it in January and have been really excited; it's a beachfront property in the centre of town. We've walked past these properties loads of times and I've always said how much I'd like to stay in one.
Anyway, I was looking at the Airbnb listing last week and I noticed there had been no reviews for the property since last September. Prior to that it has received pretty good reviews for 5-6 years (100 reviews in total). The host has another property in the same town; exactly the same thing. Lots of reviews that end in August 2023.
I then sent the host a brief message on Saturday morning just saying "hi, just checking all is still ok for our stay next week". I have not had a reply, and I can see the message is unread.
Obviously this is worrying. I contacted Airbnb via instant chat last night, but all they kept saying was "your reservation is confirmed, don't worry" and that I need to give the host longer to reply. I do understand that there might be reasons they can't reply immediately, but it's the combination of that, plus the lack of reviews that are concerning me.
How long should I leave it for her to respond before contacting Airbnb again?
There is almost no accommodation left in the town we want to stay in, and it's all more expensive, so if the worst comes to the worst I need to know asap to stand a chance of rebooking something.

Ah yes, true, after this length of time you'd probably see a 'we went all the way over there, place was shut down, no sign of the owner' type of review...

clutches at straws

On the bright side Airbnb will have to sort out an alternative if you get there and can’t stay!

Any word yet?

If not I'd hound her. You have every right after being ignored

I've scoured Google and done reverse image searches and no sign of it anywhere else. It's odd, up until August 2023 she had very regular reviews, which she often responded to, and everyone talks about how friendly she is. But in my digging I have also found references to her wanting to do a bathroom renovation, but she was struggling to find a builder. So I've wondered if that's why no reviews? But she has another flat in the same town with the same situation - no reviews for a year. We booked in January so I didn't even think of it!

And then I just looked back at messaging for all the other places I have stayed, and some didn't message at all - it was just the information becomes available on the listing 48 hours before. And I've never panicked before.

My mum thinks she is just being Parisian (it says this in her bio, but the apartment is in Brittany) and is annoyed that we are hassling her 😀.

(Still no response obviously)

The problem is that there is nothing else vaguely comparable on Airbnb at this short notice, in peak holiday season. We will get somewhere I'm sure, but it's probably not going to be in the town we wanted, and definitely not beachfront.

I also worry that if I stayed in another place in the same time I'd inevitably walk past it every day (it's on the main promenade) and my peri menopausal rage would overcome me and I'd egg her house or something 😂

Oh this is strange.
Based on the fact the dates are all blocked out I wonder if she has decided to no longer rent through air bnb for new bookings, hence she may not check the messages as often. Now she has actually seen the message I would have hoped she would get back to you though!

It's the first four nights of a two week holiday, so I'm dialling back the panic - whatever happens we will be in France having a lovely time. We have the ferry booked, and the car, and the kids are no longer babies, so I'm sure it will all be fine

From what I have read the financial penalties for hosts cancelling become more serious the closer to the reservation date you get. So it doesn't make sense that she would see my messages, and think "bof, I'll just cancel at the last minute"

I am imagining her in a chic Parisian appt shrugging and saying something about stupid English people bothering her with their anxious queries.

@AirbnbhostAWOL It will probably be ok, but I understand why you are worried. I would be the same, given the lack of reviews. There could be all sorts of reasons why she hasn't yet replied to you, but if everything is ok, why not just send a quick reply?

It's possible she has sold her properties and the new owners aren't as quick about getting back to you, or she has been very ill and someone else is dealing with it on her behalf. You would have thought that if there were something really untoward, you would have been told it was cancelled long before now though. So fingers crossed

What did you actually get back in response to your original booking? What is something automated or a more personal reply?

If no reviews at all on two properties from the same owner since the same date I'd assume they are no longer being let out, perhaps something has happened to the owner, and someone else has read the messages in proxy.

I'd give it until tomorrow morning latest before going back to Airbnb for help. Your messages on the website have been read and not replied to, your whatsapp has been read and not replied to. It would take a couple of minutes for the host to send a holding message back to say yes all fine and I'll be in touch later in the week or whatever so I'd assume at this point that you are not staying there.

I've just messaged Airbnb. I've asked for confirmation that there have been other stays at the property (which is what they vaguely said on Saturday night, but the woman I spoke to didn't have great English, and didn't seem to really understand my issue)

When I booked in January I had a brief reply, but it was definitely a personal message from the host. She said she would be in touch with details nearer the time

This is the Airbnb response. From the same person I spoke to on Saturday night. I will confess to not feeling massively reassured

That sounds positive OP - fingers crossed it will all be fine. I haven't ever had an experience where my AirBnB wasn't available at all, though I can see it must happen from time to time, but hopefully it's unlikely.

It's so bloody stressful isn't it?

I had a large house booked (not on air bnb) in between xmas and new year. Apart from the initial response to my booking months previously, I got no answers to several queries leading up to arrival.

I ended up googling the owner, doing some internet super sleuthing that resulted in me finding out his son was his business partner, and managed to contact the son. Turned out the owner was trekking in Nepal (the booking was fine)

I've had two air bnb bookings cancelled last minute and air bnb were very helpful. They paid the difference in price between the places we had originally booked and the new more expensive places they offered us.

The Airbnb person called after I received that message. She triple confirmed that there are currently Airbnb guests in the property.

Check in says "host greets you" on the listing so I'm looking forward to that 😁

If there are guests definitely in the property right now, there shouldn't be a problem then (hopefully). It maybe isn't the same owner though, if she's not replying. Maybe someone else was looking at the text on her behalf though and needs to speak to her. She may be on holiday herself and someone is doing it for her

The messages from Airbnb sound positive.

Very very bad form not to respond to messages from your guests though! Irrespective of what's going on in their life or who else looks after it.

Having said that if she has back to back bookings she probably has a tonne of messages she's trying to keep up with and she's deprioritised yours as she's dealing with her current guests and the ones coming after them...

The app triggers hosts to contact their guests with details 48 hours out so hopefully that's when you'll get a response.

Yes, and it's really at odds with what everyone else says about her on previous reviews. Super responsive, friendly etc etc.

Actually, we stayed at a safari tent in the forest of Dean once, same thing, all the reviews said how wonderful the host was. But she had taken the kids on holiday and left us with her deeply unfriendly husband so we had a very different experience! I hadn't considered this could be a similar thing. (It was fine, he was just a very grumpy man with zero interest in looking after his Airbnb guests)

I opened this thinking you were being unreasonably stressy but it is odd!

I recently had an AirBnb issue and their customer service were falling over themselves to help; including triple the amount of compensation i asked for! You will find a solution if you need to i’m sure, but i hope she puts you out of your misery soon.

I am no longer worrying about it. There are guests in there, she hasn't cancelled, and maybe as pp's have said, she's on holiday and someone else is monitoring her messages and choosing not to reply to them 😜
We should receive check in information on Thursday or Friday, and on Saturday afternoon I shall be sat in the beachfront garden sipping a glass of rose. And if not I'll be sat somewhere else in France with a glass of rose.
(I can't delete the slightly random emoji in the middle there)

Well, turns out I should have been worried. She cancelled with less than 48 hours notice, citing personal reasons. Directly under my two messages asking her to confirm the booking. She hopes we will visit her apartment another time 😁

Anyway, can I also just say that Airbnb have been utterly fucking useless?? Obviously there's nothing else similar available. The only place we can find is not very well located, does not have a sea view, is smaller and the kids will have to share a bed. It's also only available for 7 nights, not 4. Oh, it has no reviews and doesn't supply bedding! Anyway, it's £150 extra and Airbnb won't pay the difference. They offered us £20.

On top of this we asked them to speed it up by contacting the host to confirm the booking as we can't wait 24 hours obviously, and they are just ignoring us.

@AirbnbhostAWOL That's a bummer. Your instincts weren't wrong then. I'm surprised Airbnb haven't been at all helpful. I think you were going somewhere else after the 4 days where this has fallen through. Can you find somewhere else in a different place. Not the same I know, but that is just shocking. How long will it take for you to get a refund processed?

What the hell OP! That's dreadful. I hope you can push back and get AirBnB to take action - twitter/X sometimes help? What a total nightmare

@Silvers11 yep! But I did contact Airbnb three times in the end, they triple confirmed it was fine even though the host wasn't responding, but they never actually contacted her of course. There wasn't anything else I could have done, because if I'd cancelled then I would have lost all the money.

I have looked up and down the coastline of France!! There is very little available. The kids are so excited about a beach stay, so we want to be on the coast for the first four nights, and they do know and love this particular town, so I think we're going for the sub par accommodation in the town we love, rather than risking a shit flat in a place we don't also love if that makes sense. I feel quite deflated but also know it's a very first world problem, so I'm trying to keep very positive. I also genuinely worry I'm going to have a glass of wine and egg Collette's beachfront property 😂

But, I have nothing positive to say about Airbnb. They have off shores all their support since we last needed assistance, and the difference is incredible. They genuinely don't seem to give a shit anymore. I feel really bad for the people in their call centre, it's not their fault, it's the policies and scripts they have to work from. I do worry that in a genuine emergency, if you felt unsafe or whatever, you'd basically be on your own. It's making me seriously reconsider using them in future.

@AirbnbhostAWOL Hope the place you have found is confirmed and you manage to have a good holiday in spite of everything.