"Today I [Screwed Up] By Using Airbnb": Guy Shares Horrible Experience With Airbnb, Sparks A Discussion

As convenient as Airbnb might be, it is far, far from perfect. Sometimes, it’s not just a gap in the quality that you think you’ll get and what you actually receive—it’s an abyss. And some Airbnb hosts are very shady in how they do things. The result? Angry customers and ruined vacations.

Redditor u/lightfighter06 shared the awful experience they recently had booking a room with Airbnb while they were visiting Kona, in Hawaii, with their wife. In a very bizarre twist, it turned out that the lodgings had been double-booked.

Scroll down for the full story, as well as the horrible Airbnb experiences that the other redditors shared in the thread. Has anything similar ever happened to you while on vacation, dear Pandas? What was your very worst Airbnb stay like? When you’re done reading, drop by the comment section.

Redditor u/lightfighter06, the author of the post, was kind enough to answer Bored Panda's questions about what happened. You'll find our interview with them below.

Bored Panda reached out to the author of the post, redditor u/lightfighter06, with a few questions. We were curious whether there were any updates, however, the OP said that there were "no further developments."

"Airbnb essentially offered approx 20% of the total fee as a good faith gesture which candidly, only added insult to injury," they explained.

"All rooms were booked except for a hotel half an hour away and it was $600. Without a promise of reimbursement, we didn’t want to take the risk as they were only reimbursing about $50," the author of the post told Bored Panda.

Unfortunately, other Airbnb users might run into a similar problem: the owner of the infamous property is still in business.

"We checked and Airbnb is still letting this guy list his property on Airbnb," redditor u/lightfighter06 said.

"I spoke with a friend who worked at Airbnb and he told me that it takes a lot of complaints to get delisted because there is so much competition for rental providers. We will never use Airbnb again."

According to the OP, "it was great returning to Kona."

"Unfortunately, this was our last night of the trip before we flew out the next morning."

Many of the members of the r/tifu subreddit, where the OP shared the story, had a lot of sympathy for the couple. Instead of a cozy stay in the room they’d booked, they had to sleep in their rental car in the parking lot of a friggin’ Walmart. And while that’s not the end of the world, it’s also not how you want to spend your mini-vacation, right?

At the end of the day, what really hurts is that the host was incredibly shady and didn’t have much remorse for double-booking the room. Seriously, how is it an excuse that “half the people don’t show up”? If you made a genuine mistake double-booking the lodgings (doubtful), the very least you can do is give the other tenants a heads-up about the ‘mistake’ and an apology. This situation really doesn’t make Airbnb, nor the hosts that use the platform, look good.

The author of the post wasn’t happy with the service provided by the Airbnb help desk. It’s easy to see why. Seriously, who asks the customer if they want to cancel the booking when the booking itself had been taken by a complete stranger? The couple got their money back, as well as some credit. However, they had no place to stay, as all of the hotels in the area had been fully booked.

Bored Panda has written about some of the horrible experiences that Airbnb customers have had time and time again. Many of the problems that arise come down to the fact that travelers have to deal with greedy hosts who prioritize making as much money, as quickly as possible, rather than providing an adequate living experience.

Airbnb listings are actually causing a lot of harm to the locals in many cities around the world. Being a host is very lucrative, so property owners naturally want to jump on the bandwagon. They end up making a lot more money with short-term rent with services like Airbnb than going the traditional long-term route. As such, many locals feel a very real shortage of rentable houses and apartments.

But it’s not like everyone’s just taking this lying down. Cities like New York, Boston, Santa Monica, and others, are actively fighting back against short-term leases using the law.

“We’re seeing commercialized, predatory companies that are trying to commercialize our residential communities in ways that are damaging to our citizens and our residents and our quality of life. It is predatory,” Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber told CNBC back in 2018.

However, this still isn’t a foolproof method. Some hosts still try to capitalize on short-term gains by doing things illegally. Many renters and travelers aren’t even aware that there’s anything wrong. Others, however, are asked to pretend like they’re the host’s friends or family members, coming to visit.