Airbnb been sold. Price rocketted!

[NavigatingAdolescence]

I’m furious. Had an Airbnb booked for August months ago. Owner has messaged tonight to say they have sold the property, it’s still an airbnb, asked me to cancel my booking and rebook.

Except the owners have it up for 2.5 times what I originally paid. Have asked them to honour the original booking price but no response as yet.

Fuming. Have I any recourse here? With such little notice other properties and hotels are ££££. There’s a reason I booked early! 😡

Definitely has been.

[quote SpaceRaiders]@Constantcrayfish I don’t think you understand how the back end of platform works. Morals don’t come into it. As an operator you can negotiate back and forth with a potential guest over a number of days, holding the booking for them. Often what happens is they hedge their bets. The hold expires leaving you without a booking for those dates especially, if it’s last minute. Hence why majority of operators work on an initial pre-approval then first come first served basis.

Op knew prices have rocketed, there isn’t sufficient availability elsewhere, she had an opportunity to book with new owners with a discount but dithered. I don’t think that’s on the new owners, unfortunately that’s on op.[/quote]
You’re quite right that I have no idea how th back end works - was the OP’s original booking automatically cancelled in the system when the property was sold? Or did the new owners have the option to keep it? And presumably, based on what others have said, the new owners could have pre-approved only the holders of the existing booking for a defined period of time (eg 24 hours) even if somehow forced to take their existing booking off the system? There are still morals involved, but it sounds like they have actually done the right thing (in the context of having hiked the price up though).

Glad you’re still getting your holiday, OP.

Thank you. Apparently they can’t transfer bookings between owners. The original owner’s message made it sound like an admin process to rebook with the new owners (ie the new owners were keen to continue the bookings) but the initial response from the new owners made it clear they were openly marketing it.

Yesterday’s messages could not have been more apologetic, acknowledged that I would have had no idea it was being sold and they’ve promised to add some extras to our stay and “make sure we’re looked after”. Airbnb have sorted the cancellation of the original booking (fining the owner) and of my back up panic booking, so I can breathe again.

Thanks to everyone that posted.

So pleased that you have managed to sort it out OP, it sounded very stressful

@Constantcrayfish The argument about morality in this particular instance is completely absurd.

But thankfully it’s now been sorted. But let’s not forget the other party who had booked those dates legitimately who’ve now had their stay cancelled, they must be somewhat peeved!

@Itsanewdayforme

So pleased that you have managed to sort it out OP, it sounded very stressful

Thank you. It really was.

[quote SpaceRaiders]@Constantcrayfish The argument about morality in this particular instance is completely absurd.

But thankfully it’s now been sorted. But let’s not forget the other party who had booked those dates legitimately who’ve now had their stay cancelled, they must be somewhat peeved![/quote]
I booked an alternative (lesser) place because I believed the new owners had the right to maintain that booking, particularly as they initially said it was “first come, first served” when I identified the dates had been sold. As I say they decided that as I was unaware of the sale and had been in correspondence with them about those dates that they should have blocked the dates whilst I considered (relatively briefly) the increased cost. I believed they were holding those dates for me having offered a lower price than they were marketing it for. (The 2.5x increase in price was possibly, my husband suggested, to avoid people booking so that existing bookings could be worked out. They actually dropped the price as offered to me (still 1.5ish times the original price) on the site without blocking those dates, hence the other booking being made.

I’m obviously glad to have what I had planned confirmed again, albeit at a higher price, but it’s not really my fault that someone else’s relatively last minute booking was cancelled.

[quote SpaceRaiders]@Constantcrayfish The argument about morality in this particular instance is completely absurd.

But thankfully it’s now been sorted. But let’s not forget the other party who had booked those dates legitimately who’ve now had their stay cancelled, they must be somewhat peeved![/quote]
I don’t think it’s remotely absurd to hope that other people treat each other decently and fairly. I think it’s sad that you do.

I'm never using AirBnB again.
It seems to attract the shysters and dodgy end of the landlord group.
For work and leisure we've had a run of dodgy last minute cancellations and 'reasons', none of which replace the fact you need accommodation.
I've emailed Airbnb over a cancellation - the owner told me it was 'flooded', yet same place with different pictures was relisted a week later for 2x the price I had booked it for.
Never again.

Constantcrayfish I’m curious does your morality work the other way around?

I think many would be very surprised at the amount of time wasted, personally responding to multiple enquiries over a number of days, checking train times, accommodating special requests, provisionally booking taxis for transfers only for that potential guest to completely disappear without proceeding with the booking.

I’ll give you a relatively recent example of one incident. Guest 1 wants to book for 21 nights. There’s a conversation back and forth for a few days due to a time difference. Check taxi costs from airport. Guest gives me their word they’ll proceed to payment the following day. In the meantime, Guest 2 also wants overlapping dates, but for a 12 night stay. I decline their enquiry on the basis that I’ve said that Guest 1 can have the property. Next day I wait, Guest 1 flakes, he doesn’t proceed with the booking. By which point Guest 2 has already booked elsewhere. Guest 1 hasn’t done anything wrong per se, plans change. Or perhaps they saw a better deal elsewhere but their actions unwittingly lost me a 12 night stay. And only 5 nights were then subsequently booked. This happens all the time on Airbnb. The platform has been created to encourage guest/host interaction. Whilst it’s good in some respects, I’m not really interested in idle chit chat. It wastes huge amount of time.

From a business and legal standpoint new owners did nothing wrong. I mean this kindly and I felt for op, but no service provider is obligated to hold a booking without payment. And that has absolutely nothing to do with treating someone with fairness. If hosts were to hold bookings for each and every enquiry without payment, they’d quickly go out of business.

@SpaceRaiders

Constantcrayfish I’m curious does your morality work the other way around?

I think many would be very surprised at the amount of time wasted, personally responding to multiple enquiries over a number of days, checking train times, accommodating special requests, provisionally booking taxis for transfers only for that potential guest to completely disappear without proceeding with the booking.

I’ll give you a relatively recent example of one incident. Guest 1 wants to book for 21 nights. There’s a conversation back and forth for a few days due to a time difference. Check taxi costs from airport. Guest gives me their word they’ll proceed to payment the following day. In the meantime, Guest 2 also wants overlapping dates, but for a 12 night stay. I decline their enquiry on the basis that I’ve said that Guest 1 can have the property. Next day I wait, Guest 1 flakes, he doesn’t proceed with the booking. By which point Guest 2 has already booked elsewhere. Guest 1 hasn’t done anything wrong per se, plans change. Or perhaps they saw a better deal elsewhere but their actions unwittingly lost me a 12 night stay. And only 5 nights were then subsequently booked. This happens all the time on Airbnb. The platform has been created to encourage guest/host interaction. Whilst it’s good in some respects, I’m not really interested in idle chit chat. It wastes huge amount of time.

From a business and legal standpoint new owners did nothing wrong. I mean this kindly and I felt for op, but no service provider is obligated to hold a booking without payment. And that has absolutely nothing to do with treating someone with fairness. If hosts were to hold bookings for each and every enquiry without payment, they’d quickly go out of business.

It’s not the same thing though is it? OP wasn’t just any random prospective guest. They had made a booking months ago, without any idea that it might be whipped from under them, so they had a reasonable expectation that they were having their holiday in the accommodation they had chosen. When told the price had increased, they asked for 24 hours to think about it. It’s nothing like your example.

The market is red hot. As proved, the booking could be relet in hours. Giving the people who, quite understandably, thought this was their already-arranged summer holiday, a single day to consider whether they could pay a higher price is straightforward decency. When the new owners bought the property presumably they were aware that there were existing bookings. Personally I would feel very shabby if I intended to just chuck these on the bonfire without giving those people first opportunity to rebook with me.

I completely understand that. It was the language that implied they were holding the booking. They asked if I could change dates and I explained I had non-refundable tickets for things already booked. And that the needs of my party would be hard to meet elsewhere. I was as close to being a sure thing as it’s possible to be. I only booked elsewhere because they then said it was first come first served. It caused me horrendous stress for 36 hours, including a number of hours emailing, phoning Airbnb etc trying to resolve the issues. That can’t be my fault for expecting something I booked 6 months in advance to be delivered.

The market is red hot. As proved, the booking could be relet in hours.

Only once they dropped the price for me.

We don't book AirBnB for anything that can't be easily replaced with a hotel for this very reason.

We've had entire holidays cancelled at 2 weeks notice. Of course, they were very sorry.