So, as you may have guessed by the title, not everything has gone perfectly with our travel arrangements. Why? Because people are greedy dicks. Some of them, anyway.
Let me dig into the nitty gritty. Just by the way things worked out, Jan and I switch off responsibility for finding and booking places to stay in three month increments. Again, by chance, this means booking a two month stay in one location followed by a one month stay in the next. There’s no reason for this, really. It’s just convenient.
So my job was to pick a place for November-December followed by a shorter January spot. The next two months? Cake. We agreed to make a move to warmer climate and mutually agreed that Lima, Peru would be a great choice. We wanted to shift back to the U.S. afterwards to get our mail and maybe see some people post-holidays, so we picked Albuquerque, NM (which, as an aside, I can now spell without looking. Go, me!). Places were selected, funds exchanged, and airfare was purchased. I did all of this in September because I like to have maximum choice and the ability to time my travel fares.
Anyway, I double-checked my airfare and it turned out I would be rolling into Albuquerque on NYE versus gaining the day I lost on the way down and showing up on New Year’s Day. Rather than reserve a hotel for one night, I contacted my Albuquerque host to see if I could add an extra day to the booking. Why not?
That’s when things got squishy.
My host made some dodgy comment about the current tenant wanting to stay on and that she would get back to me about January by end of day. WTF? She didn’t get back to me by end of day, and I was so mad, I wrote a super angry email that Jan made me delete. And then I waited another day.
No email. Now I was getting super worried because I had non-refundable airfare to Albuquerque from Lima, Peru on a holiday. I needed to know where I was laying my head on NYE. So sucked it up and sent a super-upbeat, Jan-approved email asking for an update. She came back with how the tenant wanted to extend and how she had intended to rent the place to relatives when I wanted it, but let me reserve it anyway. Oh, I should cancel and get a full refund. Not her, me.
Huh. Jan dug through the Airbnb rules (I get to worked up to read when I’m stressed, so it’s great I have a partner), and thought that I may be eligible for a credit if she canceled, and that her rating would go down if she canceled versus me doing it, i.e., no super-host status for her.
I didn’t see a way to force her hand. Airbnb’s help selection is a maze of deflection that seems geared towards forcing issues down to tenants & hosts, and staying hands off as much as possible. I guess that keeps their costs down, but dang. That left me in a pinch.
Fortunately, I have a large Twitter account and I’m vocal. Twitter is a great, public way to get attention, and it’s my go-to choice when a corporate site isn’t geared towards its customers. I highly recommend reaching out to @Airbnbhelp there versus trying to figure things out through the site. After some back and forth with me, they reached out to the host and made her cancel the reservation, and freed up my funds right away.
So, good on Airbnb for digging out the big corporate sledgehammer. It should’ve been an easier process — on-site chat, perhaps? I guess my big takeaway is buyer beware on these short-term rentals and always communicate through the site so there’s a message trail. I know I’ll browse through super-host only spaces from now on because by definition these folks haven’t dicked over their tenants.
To put a bow-tie on January, we do have a new, more centrally located space with a host that seems super-friendly. Our choices on the Airbnb site slipped though, so unlike our original choice, this place is too small to have out of town friends stay. Bummer.
We’re now looking ahead to February. More to come…