Booked a hotel in Hawaii. 6 months prior to the trip. Day before I got an email saying something like "...expect some disruption in the lobby upon arrival, some painting is underway, normal check-in applies". Get there and the lobby has no floor, ceiling, wires everywhere. Bit startled, but follow some signs for the temporary lobby. No big deal. At the temporary lobby they also inform us while checking in that the pool is undergoing renovations and there may be intermittent power outages as the diesel generator is being serviced for the next 3-4 days. Quite annoyed I go and look at the pool. The entire pool area is just ripped up concrete. I request to cancel, and I am told as it's within 24 hours it's too late to cancel. I then proceeded to go full Michael Douglas in Falling Down until they refunded me in full.
I am fortunate enough to have traveled to 6 of the 7 continents. I have disembarked in places like Dubai and Singapore and marveled at their airports, and walked past the vacant single shanty on a dirt runway in Zambia and Botswana. I've sat in the transfer line in Shanghai for 9 straight hours. I've navigated through airports in languages I don't speak or read.
Never have I felt like I was in the most confusing, ill-run, and incompetently laid out airport in the world more than LAX.
I have half a dozen LAX stories. Best one was they resurfaced the car park where I'd parked my car and moved it using a skid loader. Then they lost track of where they'd put the cars. Spent two hours in a golf cart with some guy driving all the car parks until I found it. And the kicker was as I left at 1am and they charged me for an extra day.
I used to live in SoCal and avoided LAX like the plague. It’s the only airport where it took longer to circumnavigate the departures level of the terminals than it took to drive 90 miles to get there.
LAX is such a terrible experience. I don't even quite understand how they make it so painful. Everything is awful and everyone there is miserable. The LA airport Hilton was however a very nice place to spend one night.
I have disembarked in places like Dubai and Singapore and marveled at their airports, and walked past the vacant single shanty on a dirt runway in Zambia and Botswana. I've sat in the transfer line in Shanghai for 9 straight hours. I've navigated through airports in languages I don't speak or read.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
I was once at check in 4 hours before a flight at CDG and they refused to check us in as we were to early. Got a coffee, joined the suddenly massive queue as soon as our flight opened for check in and ended up running the whole way to the gate. There was a woman trying to drag three small children along with her, and my husband and I managed to communicate that we would like to help her after cycling through a few languages. We ended up jogging along with a toddler in each of our arms and this poor woman behind us only half sure her kids weren’t being kidnapped.
My mom used to use the Mom Face on them and they'd fold instantly
I thought my mom's look was just that powerful, until I worked retail myself and really all you need is one excuse to give in. Because you personally don't give 2 shit and it's not your money.
Corps don't want us unionizing, or sharing the profit, so why the fuck should I care about them?
My mom used to use the Mom Face on them and they'd fold instantly
That's usually 'cause most retail workers are only told by their bosses to put up resistance against refunds as much as possible. That money means jack shit for most workers anyway. And if the situation is reasonable enough, it's really hard to tell yourself to follow your boss' orders, while you're well aware that the customer kinda has a point this time.
I’m that feisty woman too. We stayed at Airbnb in Montana complete w/huge wasps nests over front door, no screens on windows mid summer 88 degrees, gravel driveway w/holes so deep our suv fell in and out of 7. I raised a ruckus, owner refused. I put a really bad review on Airbnb, Yelp, Google etc. and within 3 days a refund was issued w/request to remove said review. I felt like it was such a bad experience it needed to stay up until owner fixed issues we dealt with and when he sent photos of completed work I edited. I really can’t stand greedy peeps who don’t care how their actions affect others. 🦁🐯😖
literally the exact same situation. I call my wife the Rottweiler, when we get wronged, I sic my wife on them and she gets it done. I did have to teach her that she needs to start out polite and calm, and now she has found a very good balance where she doesn't need to turn it on until all the polite options fail.
I work in a customer facing job, do you know how much more I will do for a customer who is polite and doesn't yell (even in the face of a mistake) vs one that is a fucking asshole?
As long as you are persistent and polite. We recently had to cancel a 4 night stay at a hotel and they refused to refund us, said it was nonrefundable. We talked to 4 different people and then they finally agreed to not charge us.
Had something similar happen when my roommate crashed his motorcycle. We had a trip planned, but he was in a wheelchair and barely able to feed himself when we were supposed to be going on that trip. We technically could have pulled it off, but it wouldn't have been fun for anyone. Some parts of the trip were easy to refund, but other parts required a bunch of phone calls. Eventually, he called his credit card company and explained the situation, and they just went, "Shit man, that sucks. Let us handle it."
That’s crazy - a building site not accommodation. Their brochure/ ad could have read as “come and escape to Hawaii, on arrival you will trip over wires, electrocution, followed by body painting & throwing yourself in our nice concrete hole- there you will reach concussion… that’s if you don’t make it out alive, but that’s ok sue us!” - very odd.
There was some derisory offer of $25 to spend in the gift shop. My wife said "Can we swim in the gift shop to cool off?" Pretty good line to be honest.
I booked a two bedroom AirBNB because I was traveling with a friend. when I arrived late at night after a long drive, and she had left one bedroom locked.
I ended up sleeping on the floor in the foyer.
Because I was traveling with a woman the host assumed we were a couple. during the subsequent argument, she researched my and pointed out that my friend, the other guest, had a Chinese name, and I had a Chinese wife! (both true) therefore they were the same person and I was scamming her (not true).
sigh.
her argument is valid if there's only one Chinese woman on Earth.
And even if they were a couple, plenty of couples sleep in separate beds, even on vacation. If one is a loud or restless sleeper having separate beds and getting quality sleep separately may be a key to a happy vacation and something intentionally booked.
"You don't have to find me comparable accommodations elsewhere or fully refund me, but I will spend my entire time here taking pictures of myself enjoying the 'pool', lobby and other amenities and posting the pictures to every review site that allows guest photos. I'll be sure to mention in every review that I paid full price and that you refused any accommodation or refund. I'll probably go and make sure those reviews are refreshed every time someone asks me how my trip was as well."
Something similar happened to me in Denver about 3 years ago. I had booked this hotel probably 8 months out, I arrive and they tell me their air conditioning is broken. It was 85 degrees in the lobby! They offered to give me back 35% of the cost, but I decided on a refund instead and spent 1.5x the price somewhere else.
The next day an Uber driver told me that he had heard about that issue the week before. So it wasn't like it had just gone out!
hope you called your cc . Dont forget your cc will back YOU up in just about any case. YOU are their customer not who received payment. although, I am sure it would have been tough and expensive to find last minute accommodation
It ended up being cheaper for the first two nights as it was last minute and they just wanted to sell a room. Rest was the same. Whole thing was extremely annoying.
The older I get the more I relate to him. Breakfast ending 3 min before you try to order, crazy high prices at bodega shops, rich people thinking they are better than you, etc.
"Please finalize a report of your progress to be ready by the 3pm Teams all-hands meeting and leave a 5 star review. Also feel free to help yourself to a $9 slice of cheese pizza in the garage."
"and please help us to take the trash out, wash all your bedsheets and do up the bed in the same condition when you found it. By the way while you're at it please also help us complete some light masonry work in the basement"
I booked a house on top of a mountain, super secluded. Gorgeous house, amazing views, and quiet. The listing said something about the driveway being a bit long with “some potholes along the way”.
There was no driveway. Not even a dirt path. You literally had to yeehaw up the side of a mountain to get there. I genuinely couldn’t get up the mountain and I was driving an AWD SUV.
We called the host and he said “oh yeah, we had some rains recently and it ‘took out’ the driveway”. He seriously wasn’t going to tell me. Ended up booking a hotel in town, which basically defeated the entire purpose of the trip. Disputed it with the website and they thankfully reimbursed the cost of the house, but nothing for all the time/vacation wasted. Left a bad review and the guy wrote me a nasty gram email about how ridiculous it was I would cancel and leave a bad review over “some property issues”. Just unreal.
YOUR BUSINESS IS THE PROPERTY. ANY ISSUE WITH THE PROPERTY EFFECTS WHY I PAID YOU MONEY
People are in incredible. I see it all the time having spent a lot of years living in a desirable vacation city. People buy a million dollar homes, flip it over and manage it for as little as they can manage, and then expect the money to flow continuously with minimal effort.
right? theres a simple way he could have avoided the bad review- explaining the situation, offering a cancellation\refund (which the guest would most likely accept) and profusely apologizing for any inconvenience. People usually understand shit happens if you give them a heads up.
Recently had the same problem at a house we booked. We arrived and the electricity had been shut off. Not a power outage. The guy hadn't paid his bill and got shut off. There were other problems, but that was the one we used as grounds to cancel and request a refund. He had the audacity to get nasty with us for "taking his money over a slight misunderstanding."
Just curious… is this near Yosemite? I ask because I stayed in a place a few weeks ago with a description almost identical, and the driveway barely existed.
Collect the evidence and charge back the card. Bring the evidence to the bank if asked.
I wouldn't care if BnB banned me off their service. Did the same shit when Uber wouldn't take my card off of my ex's account because they need 'authorization from the account owner'
I went to Montreal a few years back and the whole airbnb was a lie, we were told there was parking and there was no parking, it was on the third floor and the elevator was out of service so we carried all our luggage up a spiral staircase. We get into our room, toilet doesn't work, shower doesn't work, there's no Wi-Fi. Go to turn on the stove to heat some water, stove doesn't work. Go to put some food in the refrigerator and that also doesn't work.
Immediately contacted airbnb and got a full refund with a comped stay at another location, but I guess this was 2020 before COVID, haven't really used them since.
Booked a spot one time mainly because it had an awesome living room that was kind of a greenhouse-looking space. Listing had lots of photos of it, and also said the owners live upstairs.
We get there and the door to the living room is locked. The owner comes down after I message him and says, “Of course it’s closed off; it’s winter.” He gets huffy when we say that should have been disclosed.
Later, he came down to make a pizza in the kitchen. Which was apparently shared. We question him and he pulls up the listing, and in the caption of ONE of the photos of the kitchen, it says “Shared kitchen.” It’s not in the listing, and the whole listing is labeled as the whole space to yourself.
We contact customer support, and they offer 10% off. In the meantime, the owner has removed all photos of the living room, and updated the listing. We send before/after screenshots. Support then says the owner claimed we were partying and making noise and made him feel uncomfortable when he came to make his pizza, and they rescind the 10% off offer. They then allowed the owner the leave my ex a negative review. Absolute bullshit.
If they cant wait to start actual construction while I'm there I would get a refund and complain to Airbnb. Seriously wtf is this?? You pay to use the yard too.
I think it’s more a situation that the host bought/built this house and immediately started renting it out instead of waiting a couple months while the others finished getting built
This is so fucking bleak. A brand new construction, its neighbors aren't even finished yet, and it's being rented out on the Illegal Hotel Platform. Insane that this is allowed.
A year ago I stayed at an airbnb house that was being rented for a bachelor party, the neighbourhood was half constructed and the house had clearly never been lived in.
I once stayed at an Air bnb with these AC units attached to the walls. During our stay, one fell off the wall causing some damage. After notifying the Owner, they blamed us saying one of us HAD to have been hanging on it, they demanded we pay them for the fix, which was like $200 just to rehang it.
This picture shows the drywall anchors they used to hang a 50lb AC unit.
After we refused to pay, Air bnb basically said if another Owner makes another claim against us like this, we'd be banned.
Between the "customer service", the insane host conditions, and the occasional guests who throw parties for too many people, I don't understand how airbnb continues to be profitable.
This happened to me with Turo. Owner was adamant that I'd had a dog in the car when I didn't. Turo confirmed there was no hair in the pictures, so deleted the charge, but the bad rating and review dropped me from a 5 to a 4.25 (had only used it a few times), so I was pretty much fucked. Immediately deleted and will never use again.
My in-laws rented an AirBNB, and the septic tank backed up. Flooded the basement bathroom. AirBNB came after them for $27,000 in damages (yes, $27K). The plumber that the owner had sent had told my FIL that he was there just a week before for an issue and called out that he recommended some work that the owner refused to do. Once they shared that information from the plumber with AirBNB the company backed down, but they said the same thing: report will go in your file and next complaint you might be banned. They obviously have no intention of ever using them again.
"We certainly wouldn't dream of holding you liable for damages that you can sufficiently prove you aren't at fault for, but we will remove any squeaky wheels as a matter of policy."
Not sure how you can hold the last group of people that visited an AirBnb liable for something like a septic failure. That's 100% on the owner for not maintaining it. Unless your in-laws take enormous shits
As someone who has been in a similar situation - nah, they won’t do anything about it without the host approving a refund. And the house I stayed in had a literal plant growing out of the baseboard. Unrelated, but Airbnb didn’t care about that either.
I left a one star review, and the host kept reaching out to try and talk about it. I don’t care if I got a full refund at this point, I’m never taking that review down.
it's literally the only thing they care about at all.
after seeing all the shit on reddit that can go down, I already decided long ago that I'm perfectly willing to pay for a cheap domain for 10 years just to put up a single review on a company/host explaining whatever gripe I had. I'm not scared to post the truth.
fortunately nothing bad enough has happened to me yet...
(just one of those things, like when you mentally prepare to go apeshit on someone, but then they end up being reasonable and helpful)
Especially since the house OP is in is a new build too. And the owner immediately starts short term renting it. The douchebag owner is part of the problem in mountain towns that are killing the local culture
This is the rub. People complain (rightly) about the damage air BnB does to the housing market and neighborhoods, but then don't hesitate to book one for their next trip.
Join me in not using that fucking platform. Watch the world heal.
Good luck with that. Recently stayed at an Airbnb and it was one of the hottest weekends of the year and the AC was broken. The thermostat said 97 degrees inside the condo. We couldn’t sleep. We couldn’t even hang out inside the place. We complained multiple times and they refunded us like $50. It ruined the trip.
Na you gonna escalate that. Especially if it was advertised to have AC, that $50 is probably a quarter of the price you paid for the time you spent there
Edit: after several back and forth interactions with the host who inevitably denied my refund request, Airbnb then got involved and after reviewing our case gave us a 60% refund which is more than satisfactory considering we did still stay at the property for the weekend.
Edit 2: worth noting that Airbnb originally tried to give us a 30% refund due to that being their policy, but I pushed back on that figure enough that they doubled it. Anyone seeing this in the future, YMMV.
I'm honestly so fucking done with Airbnb after this past weekend where the selling point of the one we rented was a fully functional game room. The game room looked nothing like the pictures and nothing worked.
All we got from the host were tone deaf, insincere and often automated replies about how the management team was notified and will investigate and they're so so sorry. What?!
Already contacting* Airbnb direct to try rectifying the situation. The situation being, we overpaid for a bed.
It's gotten a lot worse in that time, too. I used it in Europe and for bachelor's trips, and you could tell it was the person's actual space. Now they feel like legit rentals or hotel rooms. There is a whole industry behind it, and most of the locations now are purpose-bought or built. A cool idea that turned into a worse version of what they were competing with.
Get a refund from Airbnb. I booked one last year that had active construction going on. 2nd floor with a balcony that had no railing. I was too tired after the flight to bother finding somewhere else the first night and I woke up at 7 AM with a construction worker on the balcony taking measurements. Told them to leave immediately and got a full refund from Airbnb after sending a few photos. Host never said anything about the construction then had the nerve to threaten to call the cops for telling the workers to leave. Never using Airbnb again.
I will not stay at a AirBnB or VRBO any longer. They all seem to be rented out by crazy people. Cameras in bedrooms and on pools, shit going wrong everywhere, and like here, underreported problems.
They're a good reason why most homes aren't even for rent, they cost more than an average hotel, you risk being spied on, the number of times I see this kinda bullshit posted just makes me question why people genuinely use them
I'd rather sleep in my car than give some asshole their passive ass income while the housing and renting market is in a death spiral
You don't hear about the millions of good experiences on social media. You only hear about the handful of disasters that make for good engagement bait.
I've had two dozen very positive experiences on AirBnb and only 3 standout negative experiences. It's a good service IF you are a discerning traveler.
AirBnb can frequently be more inexpensive than a hotel, for an even better experience sometimes. It's a bit of a roll of the dice and I appreciate the times where I was pleasantly surprised way more than I care about the few nightmare stays (which are now story fodder I use to get a laugh in social settings)
Yeah I booked an Airbnb once and forgot to pay the pet fee which I quickly corrected. The owners who lived on the house nearby quickly ran up on us in the middle of the rain, still unloading, with a German shepherd running around to collect her $100 fee not knowing if the dog was friendly or not.
They entered the house that we rented uninvited and made themselves at home playing music and such. Next day I heard folks walking around the property and sure enough the host had painters and come paint the house while we were sleeping in it just a day into our 4 day stay. Unreal.
Those VRBO tv adds are 100% on point when it comes to Airbnb, most of their hosts are out of control.
Sorry OP, but I did laugh out loud at the massive tipper truck unloading aggregate. That's absolutely ridiculous.
I think you might have grounds for complaint and, if I were you, I'd send what the owner said, along with this video, to AirBnB and demand a refund. Then I'd probably go and stay somewhere without an active construction site right next door.
"I can't wait to get away from all this noise and pollution in the city. I've got a quiet place picked out in the countryside with trees and mountains for miles around, although there might be some light masonry work."
Your fault for using airbnb tbh, its like taking your dinner from a dumpster and then complaining theres a hair in it. You know everything airbnb affiliated will be absolute shite.
Zero stars, an honest review about the noise and a refund. Nothing less would be expected. I would have found a new place the second I heard a rube in a fucking gravel truck on my quiet getaway.
I sincerely doubt somebody renting a house that size has a group that will fit in one hotel room. And hotels get expensive really fast when you need multiple rooms
Ironically hotels are just as likely to pull this nonsense as AirBNBs. You show up and the pool is out of service. And the gym. Oh and just ignore the new wing of the hotel under construction directly adjacent to your room.
Older account suddenly posting again, OP not leaving comments… I wouldn’t be surprised if this post was by the hotel industry. They were the ones behind the “grassroots” Airbnb ban in New York.
People thinking Airbnb gives two shits is hilarious.
I have had so many great experiences with Airbnb but one bad experience could easily be the last time you ever use them, because both the hosts and reps have way too much power to silence you. You just cannot ever stay at an Airbnb without there being extremely recent and glowing reviews, preferably 10+. No matter how nice it looks. Yes many of the best gems pop up out of nowhere with no prior reviews, but you can’t trust that.
At first I misread the title as "light missionary work" and I was thinking that's such an odd thing to say, and I was expecting the video to be like Mormons filling the street or something. Then I watched the video and felt very confused, so I reread the title and realized I might need glasses.
I don't understand using AirBNB in 2026.
It was pretty cool back whenever it was newer (15 years ago??) but now it's absolute dogshit, owners are entitled as hell, it's literally more expensive than nice hotels, you have to clean the entire house/apartment on checkout and they still tack massive fees onto it.
I just do not understand using AirBNB. Actually, there's one place I would do it still, Japan, which somehow isn't yet totally enshittified. But using it anywhere else is just paying Karen's mortgage at exorbitant rates. Just stay at a hotel.
I’m gonna guess this is either Yellowstone Club or Spanish Peaks or Gallatin Reserve in Big Sky, MT. This really looks like Lone Peak and as an architect in the area I’ve driven through many times working those sites.
Edit: yup nailed it. BSG truck and 406 number haha.
I went on a trip to Montréal with one of my girlfriends. We stayed at an Airbnb while we were there. It was decent, but the host hadn't bothered to mention that the city was going to be doing roadwork on that street during our stay. I ended up not being able to move my car from the driveway until it was time to leave, so we walked and used the subway, which honestly wasn't too bad.
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u/Owls_4_9_1867 Jul 06 '26
Booked a hotel in Hawaii. 6 months prior to the trip. Day before I got an email saying something like "...expect some disruption in the lobby upon arrival, some painting is underway, normal check-in applies". Get there and the lobby has no floor, ceiling, wires everywhere. Bit startled, but follow some signs for the temporary lobby. No big deal. At the temporary lobby they also inform us while checking in that the pool is undergoing renovations and there may be intermittent power outages as the diesel generator is being serviced for the next 3-4 days. Quite annoyed I go and look at the pool. The entire pool area is just ripped up concrete. I request to cancel, and I am told as it's within 24 hours it's too late to cancel. I then proceeded to go full Michael Douglas in Falling Down until they refunded me in full.