Nope. I got screwed bad over this. took my parents on a trip to london over NYE a few years ago. Had a pretty expensive AIRbnb rented. obviously nye is totally sold out. Including basically all hotels. They canceled a few hours before the flight.

Luckily I found a hotel literally last couple rooms and very very expensive for what it was.

I couldn't get airbnb to do shit besides give a refund for the airbnb reservation and I think maybe I got 250 or 500 or something negligible.

They 'try' to find an alternative on the platform but wouldn't pay for my hotel (s now need 2 rooms). And since there are no airbnbs available... let alone in the city and similar.

I have never stayed airbnb again only hotels.

if they allow hosts to pull that crap they should pay for alternate hotel lodging.

Similar experience here. Had booked a fairly expensive place in the country for my extended family, over a holiday weekend, to celebrate a milestone birthday for my mother. Host cancelled a couple of days out and literally nothing else available anywhere in that region.

After causing a sufficient amount of fuss because of the urgency of it all it eventually got escalated to someone more senior but the result was the same. Best they could do was a refund, no recourse for the host, with the extra salt in the wounds with the parting words of something like "I can provide you no further help today as it's a holiday weekend and I am leaving now and will not return until Tuesday". To this day I still suspect that the host simply got a higher priced offer given it was a popular weekend that had an unseasonably great weather forecast and so they cancelled on us. No effort to find us alternate accomodation. No refund sufficient to cover the costs of doing it ourselves at such late notice. Nothing that came close to addressing the fact multiple families had now wasted their money on plans they couldn't do.

Unfortunately it's not the first time it had happened either. The story has been the same, the only saving grace in the other situations is we'd been able to work out our own Plan B. I'd never use Airbnb again unless I was confident there was a Plan B I could execute on with only an hours notice. That limits its usefulness to out of season and in areas with a multitude of options, or where I am at least ok significantly adjusting my planned location.

I had the exact same experience, and support literally did nothing for me. It was terrible, and I no longer use Airbnb as a result.

Airlines can also do this. They just have to refund your ticket, but good luck buying a replacement same day.

This is actually a travelling hack.

Airlines overbook and will try to get out of it by refunding your ticket. Refuse the refund. They'll up the price a few times. You can get up to an upgraded ticket on a later flight + hotel stay if the stars align.

It's worth knowing that most courts worldwide consider a ticket or reservation to be a binding agreement to provide the services, and to accept liability when the services cannot be provided.

That means if they boot you from the flight or hotel room, they have to pay for your costs to find a replacement.

Yes, many companies have terms that try to limit their liability, but those terms usually aren't enforceable.

EU rules allow this with at least 14 days notice. Less than that, and the airline needs to provide compensation — €250, €400 or €600 depending on the length of the flight.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...

Good tip!

Also in my experience airlines will go out of there way to help and rebook. Sometimes it is the next day though which sucks but isn't totally apples to oranges ;)

Should add a similar rule for AirBNB

No. They may give you a voucher, however for us the voucher was only $100 (so far less than the additional cost of rebooking at the last minute) and secondly, the voucher had restrictions on which bookings you could use it on, and it expired within a month. I.e. It’s fairly useless.

If the host cancels, you lose out the opportunity, but only get back what you've already deposited and a voucher (which doesn't cover the higher cost of a new booking!)?

that sucks. I think a host should only be allowed to cancel if they offer another place with similar features (like room number, and location) for the same amount of time.

Yes, they do. Hosts are strongly disincentivised from cancelling on guests at any notice, for any reason. On the one occasion where the apartment I own and let on Airbnb was unavailable at short notice, as the boiler (new, recently serviced) failed spectacularly, I ensured the guests were in equivalent accommodation or better (ended up better, as the only thing I could find with a few hours notice was a nine bedroom house), as cancelling would mean losing my superhost status (only book with superhosts and you will more likely than not avoid the cancellation problem), and failing to provide an adequate service could result in a poor review, which again could not only cost me superhost, but also tank the business - negative reviews hugely impact your search ranking and conversion rate.

So, while there isn’t a huge amount of recompense in the event it happens (I’ve been on the receiving end, literally arrived for them to tell me that sorry, they can’t do this week - it sucks), they do penalise hosts who do this, and will almost always take the side of the guest in any dispute.

Not really other than if it's close enough to the checkin time once I've had them help me book a hotel and comp it but it's still a massive pain

> Not really ... > help me book a hotel and comp it

If they comped it, that sounds very much like they helped you a lot. Not sure how anyone could describe this as "not really" helping?

I meant not really mechanisms to stop it and it was once in several times of it happening to me. Other times they've just recommended other airbnbs that were far less of a fit instead

They KINDA do, but their support is so horrible and slow you have to book a hotel room for a few days or figure something out while you spend a few days working the details out

Happened to me once, booked a hilton and they reimbursed me

How many days did they reimburse you for? The OP is talking about 29+ day stays.

If your long term stay is cancelled a few days before it can be pretty much impossible to find an alternative. On both occasions that this has happened to me, Airbnb has offered only a $100 voucher.

The reality is long term stay on Airbnb is a risky bet. Still often worth the risk, but something to be aware of.

Ahh yeah it was only for a few days, and that’s when I was going to really cheap airbnbs like 6 years ago. Hasn’t happened since then and I use airbnb ALL the time (I do lots of 1-month stays as well).

I would guess that the same can happen with all other alternatives. Perhaps not for a hotel but who would want to stay in a hotel for a month? (Also that would be a huge expense)