“Your Airbnb Host Just Canceled Your Stay”
Uhm, excuse you?!
Imagine being excited for your first ever trip to Abu Dhabi to enjoy the final F1 weekend of the season.
After a relatively short night flight, you arrive on Thursday morning, ready for the fun weekend ahead. You head out of the airport to pick up your rental car and you notice a message from your Airbnb host.
Your accommodation just got canceled last minute.
And with last minute, we mean last minute.
The message was sent at 10:51, while your check-in time was at 15:00.
The exact message from the host was as follows:
“All room full”
Uh, what?!
It’s every traveler’s nightmare to have your sleeping arrangements canceled on the day of.
And this is exactly what happened to Mike during his trip to Abu Dhabi with his dad and younger brother in November of 2023. Besides it being quite inconvenient to have to find a new accommodation so last minute, it was also a busy weekend because of the Grand Prix.
So yeah: good luck with finding an available room as well as one that doesn’t bankrupt you in a single night.
So what happens when your Airbnb host cancels on you so last minute? How does customer service help you and what about compensation? And of course: how can you avoid all of this in the first place?
Let’s find out together!
How Does Airbnb Help?
Luckily, you’re not left all on your own when your host cancels your stay.
Airbnb provides AirCover, where they “help you find a similar place, depending on availability at comparable pricing. If a similar place isn’t available or you’d prefer not to rebook, we’ll give you a refund.”
Great, let's see what they can do.
Turns out in our case, not that much.
Unfortunately, Airbnb Support wasn’t all that quick to jump on the case I opened with them. After contacting them at 11:40, I managed to talk to an actual person at 14:57, which left me no choice but to find suitable accommodation myself in the meantime.
Trying Not To Bankrupt Ourselves In The UAE
Finding a hotel in the UAE normally isn’t that difficult (Google says there are about 230 hotels and resorts, and Airbnb has almost 800 listings).
But, when a couple thousand other people have traveled there for the F1 weekend as well, options tend to be limited.
When we opened our hotel booking apps, we were seeing rates at upwards of €1500 per night.
That would mean a total of €6000 for the weekend.
Mind you, we originally booked the Airbnb for €407.44 for the weekend.
Yeah - thanks, but no thanks.
Luckily, we had rented a car to drive to the F1 circuit and to visit Dubai for a day trip. This became our saving grace, because we could also search for hotels in the area of Dubai. And luckily, we were able to find something that we could afford, right in between Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Thank you for saving us, Staybridge Hotel Dubai.
The only downside was that we had to pay a bit more than our original booking.
Airbnb Compensation
After we landed back in The Netherlands, we set out to see if Airbnb would be willing to compensate a part of our additional costs. In the end, we had to pay around €300 extra to stay at Staybridge Hotel Dubai compared to our original Airbnb in Abu Dhabi.
After going back and forth a bit with their support representatives, they were able to offer us a voucher for $200, which roughly translates to €180.
This unfortunately didn’t cover all of our extra costs (we of course also had to drive back and forth for an additional 2 hours every day), but it’s better than nothing, right?
A big thing to watch out for is that your host cancels the booking from their end and doesn’t get you to do it for them. In that case you would only get a partial refund depending on their specific cancellation policy.
Our host did try this with us, but we didn’t fall for it. As a result, we got both our original booking refunded, plus the compensation of $200.
Not too bad, I’d say.
Does This Mean I Won’t Book Airbnb again?
Honestly, no.
Yes, it was an unfortunate situation, but the support representatives were really trying to help (even though they were a bit slow to respond). And one bad host doesn't mean that you have to lose faith in the platform as a whole.
I’ll still be booking my accommodations with Airbnb.
Not only are the options often cheaper than traditional hotels, but you get to stay in unique places with a local touch. They just hit differently and I’m looking forward to more Airbnb stays in the near future.
Since then, I’ve been to Egypt without any problems and the coming trips to Oman and Canada will also include a lot of Airbnbs.
Keeping my fingers crossed for no last minute cancellations though 🤞🏻
How To Prevent This In The Future
As you prepare your accommodation through Airbnb, pay close attention to the following crucial factors.
Firstly, make good reviews your priority when looking for a place to stay. If you find yourself in a situation similar to mine, where the average accommodation price is exorbitant for a specific weekend, consider this: I settled for accommodation with less than ideal reviews, and this was the result. I kind of saw it coming and so should you.
Next thing, look at the overall feeling you get when going through the pictures and the descriptions. If the pictures and description are of very average quality, this might indicate that the host is not so great as well. This, of course, doesn’t mean that every listing with a short description is a bad one, but if hosts want you to book their accommodation, they usually put time and effort into displaying it as beautifully as possible.
Additionally, if you really want to make sure you don’t suffer the same fate as I did, you might want to keep in close contact with your host in the days leading up to your stay, double-checking that they can still host you.
Better safe than sorry!
So What Did We Learn?
Hosts can cancel on you last minute (and it doesn’t seem like they get a penalty for it). Make sure to let them cancel the booking so that you get your money back for the original accommodation.
Pay close attention to the reviews and the overall feeling of a listing. If it doesn't give you a great feeling, it's probably worth choosing another place to stay.
Airbnb is willing to compensate some of the additional incurred costs, but probably not all. Still reach out to them and give it shot. Kindness goes a long way in these situations and it’s always better than nothing!
Have you ever encountered a similar problem? How did you end up solving this? I’m super curious about your last-minute travel panics! You’ll always end up finding a way, but it can be quite stressful, right?
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and see you next week for another edition of Mapping Memories!
What an experience! and thanks for the helpful tips, luckily I've never had that happen to me. Uber cab drivers on the other hand do it all the time :-) but the repercussions are limited!