New ask Hacker News story: Tell HN: Airbnb has no system in place when a host cancels on a renter

Tell HN: Airbnb has no system in place when a host cancels on a renter
72 by pxue | 38 comments on Hacker News.
Today our host cancelled a place we booked 6 month ago with zero communication, at time of check-in. We landed at our destination and ready to check into our Airbnb that we booked almost 6 month ago, for an entire month. The airbnb is managed by a company, who I assume manages the entire building. The host promptly tells us it's no longer available, and that we should accept their offer of either refund or another listing that's in a completely different location, with no picture or reviews, but promised that it's "similar" Of course, being hesitant, we said no thanks, we're happy with just a refund. They proceeds to tells us to contact airbnb, and then ghosts us. We open a ticket with Airbnb, calls them, and they proceed to give us the run around and tell us to just book another stay. So what else are we going to do? be homeless for a night in foreign city? So of course we try to book, except it's last minute and the only listings available are the once you must contact the hosts first. Good thing we arrived at 11am and not 6pm. or we'd be literally f*cked for the night. Why am I complaining? Airbnb, you should do better. I am a startup founder, I understand these types of situations has probably zero affect on your bottom line. So you probably never prioritized the need to spend engineering time "fixing" it. You also probably look at your metrics and say, well these situations happen to <1% of our overall bookings, it's not a problem. But PG says, the best startups are the ones who solve intense immediate pain for a small number of people. Well, my confidence in you is absolutely shaken, and now I'm not so sure your position in the space is so infallible anymore. Because eventually this will happen often enough that "the small number of users with intense pain" will give arise to a newer and better version of you, and you will be legacy. In the end, we booked another place last minute, had to spend 2x the amount and received a refund (well let's see in 10 days). If I was in a much lesser able financial situation, I might not have been able to float a few thousands of dollars on my credit card, and may have literally ended up homeless.