I am a Airbnb user since 2012. I used it in many cities and countries in the world. I was taking a look and I booked more than 200 nights on Airbnb since I started using it.
I consider myself a good guest, I don’t demand too much of communication with the host and I try to leave things in a good condition when I leave.
But also I am a Airbnb guest myself too with two properties listed there. One is my main residency in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. And the other one a spare studio apartment I have in the same property too.
A few weeks ago I was visiting Santiago de Chile with a friend. We stayed in an apartment located in Providencia, operated by the company: HappyHost.
Communication with the host was great during the stay, they allow us to do late check out. As habitual we left the property with things arranged and we even clean the little dishes we used.
A few weeks later I got a email from Airbnb related to the host: HappyHost asking for money for things “we broke”. The money the request were more than the total we paid for the whole stay.
For my surprise the host never communicated this with me to resolve it. And they demand things we did not even did, like leaving a lot of make up in a towel. And the price they requested for each item was absurd high.
I communicate with the host in good faith after seeing that email because I think it was somebody else and they confuse. They refuse to have communication over WhatsApp so I had to refute the charge in Airbnb.
After a few days revising the case Airbnb decide to fail in favor of HappyHost and charge me $45 for the “damages” we did.
I do not recommend to stay in Santiago de Chile in any property managed by HappyHost at all. This is sad because they have good listings but the service after that was not good. I left them a 5 star review and once the time for remove the review passed they submitted the appeal, so not they only got my money but also keep a good review for future guests.
I had another incident as a host with Airbnb during January this year. Long story short: they guest decided to leave our luxury property because there was some stains in one of the bed sheets, which we changed for a brand new between 2 hours of their check in at 10pm.
One more time we had to use Airbnb support and it failed in favor of the guest. In addition the guest blackmail me telling me to pay him extra money to remove a bad 1-star review he left.
This disappointment so much I consider not using the platform anymore. After many years using the platform I had only 2 incidents with support and both of them they decided to not fail at my favor. I think support was not useful, I could not communicate with somebody who speaks English or Spanish fluently. My case was revised by so many hands that communication was inefficient.
