There are lots of alternatives. Agoda, Booking.com, and many similar sites offer short-term apartment rentals. Also, in much of the world outside the US, hotels are a better and surer bet than short-term apartment rentals.

Look at it like this: Would you pay $950 for the privilege of using AirBNB? I sure wouldn't. An "AirBNB Membership fee" on the order of $950 should seem absurd.

The alternatives are often better than airbnb too.

Even in the US, hotels are better and cheaper than airbnbs

For one person maybe. Otherwise not in my experience.

I would absolutely end any customer relationship with Airbnb for a $950 host scam. If they can’t fix that they don’t deserve your business and you are better off off their platform.

If a service stole $950 from me, the last thing I would be worried about is getting banned from the service

They would not get a single cent from me for the remainder of my life and in fact I would do plenty of things to cost them business at any chance I will get.

AirBNB is also not the only short term rental option out there. E.g. Vrbo

Maybe your market is different, but Airbnb is hardly a monopoly on either short term housing or vacation rentals these days. The entire travel booking industry has caught up.

Similarly to the OP, both my wife and I had to pull teeth for weeks to get the full refunds we were entitled to after booking airbnb units. We both had dozens of stays and 5 star reviews under our belts prior to those experiences dating back through 2013. In my case, it was a unit that the host admitted was infested with rats prior to arrival. In my wife’s, it was a unit that didn’t remotely match the photos of the listing.

At this point it’s my very last resort for booking any kind of stay, which is to say I’ve effectively sworn off the service. Since then, I’ve had no trouble finding vacation rentals elsewhere. For $900, yeah, I’d chargeback in a snap.

For most people I can't imagine that keeping AirBnB "happy" is so important that you wouldn't try to get $1000 back. But, yes, it's a problem when keeping AirBnB, Google, Twitter, etc. placated requires rolling over.

it was the case when they were the hot new disruptor. By now there are alternatives for house/apartment rentals, so they can't dick around and rip people off like that anymore. They've been called out on "cleaning fees", at some point may be forced to implement a sane cancelation window as well.

If this is how the service is going to work - why would I want to be part of it? I'm not interested in playing some VC's network effects game.

The era of free money is over for now, they're going to want business soon.

You assume you have a choice in playing. Most of the supply will never consider listing on multiple marketplaces, because its a massive hassle. $ABNB is up 48% YTD bucking the rest of the market, they have strong financials and are massively profitable. The growth-at-all-costs play DID work, and now you have no choice but to bend the knee. Edge cases like this will never materially affect their business.

> $ABNB is up 48% YTD bucking the rest of the market

Thats pretty cherry-picked. Lots of growth companies are bouncing back after being oversold last year. It’s also down nearly 50% from its 2021 high.

Just have a friend use their account. Or make a new account. Or use VRBO or a number of Airbnb’s competitors. Or use a sock Airbnb account to connect with a host and then negotiate directly.

There was a thread this week (?) about how AirBNB will ban you for traveling with a banned person

Great, maybe they get banned too and it's two less people playing a stupid game. I'm not going to tell anyone else how to live their lives, but cowering on my knees to tech bureaucracy out of San Fransisco is not how I'll live mine.

> how AirBNB will ban you for traveling with a banned person

Why do they need to know?

I've never been a host so can't speak for multiple listings, though there seem to be a ton of services that try to market to multichannel listing, so "never" seems a pretty strong word here?

But, if the interwebs are correct, airbnb has 7 mil rentals, booking - 6 mil rentals (vacation specifically, not hotels) and vrbo - 2 mil

https://hosttools.com/blog/short-term-rental-tips/vrbo-vs-ai...

whatever advantage airbnb has, they are no longer the only game in town *

* depends on the town

I doubt that after such an experience you'll want to use Airbnb again.

never doing business with AirBNB is worth every penny.

I will take $950 to never deal with AirBnB, thank you.

They've stold me up twice, I was left in a foreign city with nowhere to sleep. Host simply didn't show up, didn't pick up, just vanished.

Never again.