This happened to me the first time I used AirBnB in 2016. I was attending a music festival in NYC, booked an AirBnB a month in advance in Brooklyn. 4 days before my flight the host cancels on me and I got a surge of anxiety. I tried to find other hosts on such short notice. I found someone one day before my flight (he rented out his apartment for 3 days and just stayed with a friend, also his first time using AirBnB).
The experience of getting cancelled and having no repercussions to the host was extremely off putting to me. I had no idea on what to do at the time, as the site loves to not handle edge cases that completely sour your experience with the product. Why they simply couldn't have an error screen that said, "your host cancelled? please do the following and checkout these hosts who ARE available and reliable."
This was my first and last time using AirBnB. Maybe it changed now, but I tell everyone I know to just rent a hotel instead. Such a shame too because I love AirBnB when it comes to engineering but the product itself I will never use again.
The experience of getting cancelled and having no repercussions to the host was extremely off putting to me. I had no idea on what to do at the time, as the site loves to not handle edge cases that completely sour your experience with the product. Why they simply couldn't have an error screen that said, "your host cancelled? please do the following and checkout these hosts who ARE available and reliable."
This was my first and last time using AirBnB. Maybe it changed now, but I tell everyone I know to just rent a hotel instead. Such a shame too because I love AirBnB when it comes to engineering but the product itself I will never use again.