Airbnb

Fantastic way to find nice places to sleep whether on a road trip or overseas adventure! Hosts have been really great at maintaining safe and clean spaces for their Guests. Rented a vacation home for a month for my honeymoon and we had a fantastic time.

Airbnb is an awesome platform. I have used it very frequently in the last 7 years to book travel for work and personal trips. Love the variety of places I have access to, and the upfront clarity of cost that is absent at most hotel chains.

We have used Airbnb many times when traveling for work. There are so many options, full house, shared house, private room ect. Something for everyone.

As a host, I find that Airbnb is taking more and more time to pay my fees--now running about 3-4 days after the guest is already living in my home. Yet, they make guests pay in advance for their bookings, even if it's 6 months in advance. So, Airbnb is holding all this money worldwide, making huge amounts on interest from their advanced fees. I also found that Airbnb's $1M coverage is nothing but a sham. I had a couple and their adult daughters cause about $5K+ in damages, but Airbnb's insurance arm is the worst insurer I've ever dealt with. They only paid about $1500, saying most things were due to "wear and tear", even a broken chair and torn upholstery on a chair. Unbelievable! Their insurers' lack of customer service was disconcerting too. As an Airbnb guest, I find their fees to be excessive considering the fact they don't really do much but provide a platform for rental searches.

Where to start? Four hours and sixteen minutes on the phone to Air BnB customer service (officially logged in my phone), multiple emails back and forth (also officially logged), multiple tickets issued and three different case managers assigned (all for one issue that should never have become so complex), walking away having lost money as the paying customer buying the lifestyle Air BnB sold me... and at the end of all that, no solution! My accommodation was canceled on me last minute and that's what I get. To top it off, no way to escalate the issue to a higher level. Hands tied. I'm also an Air BnB Super Host with a 5 star rating. Unfortunately, I've had nothing but issues with this company as both host and guest. Looking to divorce this company ASAP. Terrible business practices, heavily reliant on a computer system that is ridden with bugs. To top it off, incompetent staff who are unable to operate the bug ridden system and prefer to take the easy road, get you off the phone as quickly as possible. Of course, there's the exception of a few kind souls who try to clean up the mistakes of their comrades, but still fail (I suspect their hands are tied too). Company is an internal shambles. CEO clearly doesn't care much for the longevity of this business. I would steer clear!

Apartment Bed and sofas were very uncomfortable .. couldn't sleep at night all week . There was no bath roll and water for guest . We paid almost 2200 for week and service was so poor . We were Charged 240 per night from Aug -9 and he changed date to Aug -10 for check in after booking was confirmed ... we did not receive our money back for one night .amd rate wa changed automattically to 287?? Location was listed 80-Absolute condo in receipt and we were checked in Different location , which was defiantly not 240 per night building ... Please do assure to arrange proper bedding and things for guest when you charge this much .we paid 2200 dollar for this poor service ... Such a terrible service I would never use this service ever again

The Cancellation Policy's of VRBO and what it notated online are not accurate. I booked and Cancelled within 12 hrs (over two months in advance) of each other and the "Full Refund" unto 7 days was not refunded because they said the Cancellation Policy Changed. I have a screenshot of the policy at time of booking and disputed have yet to receive any response from either the Host or Airbnb other than both indicating I must address with the other. The Airbnb customer service line is hard to locate and once you wait on hold for 10minutes, they direct you to another team or the website. Once I challenged the site on it's accuracy they updated the policy and never admitted to any wrong doing.

Airbnb does NOTHING for the commissions they charge and EVERYTHING to ensure their ratings do NOT reflect the true picture regarding their service. THE FIRST THING you should take note of is that AIRBNB has no ratings system for THEMSELVES, THEIR SERVICE--for the service they are providing HOSTS (landlords) and RENTERS whom they receive hefty fees from. The only way to learn about reviews FOR AIRBNB is to find sites like this one, and they all quickly reveal the true nature of the business. Unfortunately, most people--myself included, are concentrated on the individual ratings for the HOST, the person they are looking to rent from. Airbnb is similar to ebay in its early years, when there was no one to turn to if you had a problem, but WORSE, they ensure they avoid bad reviews by NOT ALLOWING reviews to be left UNLESS you stay when you arrive regardless of what you find upon your arrival. If you find the place a disaster, literally exclaiming OMG aloud, and either cancel the booking or the landlord cancels when you call to object about the conditions--YOU CANNOT LEAVE A REVIEW. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!!! Imagine the number of negative reviews they have filtered out! Walls crawling with roaches? Want to WARN OTHERS? You have to live with those roaches for the length of your booking--otherwise, NO REVIEWS allowed. Imagine you rent a place for a week in a place impossible to find last minute lodging and the HOST cancels your reservation while you're flying through the skies? NOTHING you can do--NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE A REVIEW. Complain about that and they will tell you, "It is their policy to only allow reviews upon the completion of your stay." Oh, and you better review it fast, there is only a 14 day window to leave a review of any kind. I hope someone starts a class action lawsuit against this irresponsible company! It isn't right that people end up paying 2-3 times the amount of money they should to find last minute lodging elsewhere due to last minute cancellations!

The absolute worst company I have ever been involved with!!They don't care about RENTERS at all. We booked a condo in Santa Monica and within 24 hours we realized that the address was not where we thought it was and indicated that to the host... she said she would credit us 100% if the unit got booked. She told us to cancel through airbnb as well...which btw only helps protect her (Allison) the host. By doing that it would be harder later we found out to get our money from our credit card company and it would have disrupted status of the host from "SUPER HOST". At some point I checked the dates and it showed that it was rented and they denied that it was for all of the days we had booked.....THEN WHY DID IT SHOW RENTED??? Mean while I researched the whole process of this company to see how it worked since the host had an extremely strict policy and was very unsympathetic. We were in dismay when we read on the airbnb website that the unit was illegal according to the Laws and Regulations for Santa Monica. It stated that vacation rentals are prohibited unless 30 days or longer. If a primary resident is not living on site throughout stay then it is prohibited for short term stay. I confirmed with the city of Santa Monica department. I then contacted the host with this information and wanted our full refund due to this law or we were going to report the unit. She then turned it around as though she was the victim and said she was going to sue us for blackmail.....REALLY!!!! She then said she would give our money back only if we signed legal documents stating we would not damage her reputation and who knows what else. We Never signed such a document. This was important because (she) Allison... is a realtor that lives in Florida all the while renting units in Santa Monica and all over LA. She blatantly lied on airbnb website and indicated that she lived in LA, had some bogus job there and a bogus picture was posted of herself. We contacted airbnb with this information and basically they said sorry.....we can't help you. REALLY???They will just let this kind of thing go on??? The host took all of her units off that was posted in the Santa Monica area but we still have not gotten the other half of our money back which is $800.00. She still has units in the LA area. We are on our third attempt with our credit card company to get money back. They recommended contacting Airbnb once again.This whole thing happened back in April and have spent wasted hours on the phone with airbnb with no refund!!! HOW IS THIS OKAY???? It has been such a waste of time. We are being assigned another "manager" now but I am not hopeful.Why should I be with the experience so far. STAY AWAY! Its not worth it if you have a issue! And as a renter it seems you have no rights. The host has no accountability whatsoever. Why do business with a company like that. THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT MAKING MONEY AND THATS IT!!!!

We had a number or problems with AIRBNB. First the rental. We stayed at 161 Moonhill Ln, Boalsburg, PA near State College PA for a weekend. This house was quite expensive at $ 1800 for the 2 days, Actually check in at 5:00 pm Friday and check out at noon Sunday), so more like 1 1/2 day. We are non smokers and this was a non smoking required house. The owners are smokers though and were staying in the basement smoking the entire time. All the rooms smelled like smoke and we could not sleep well. The home was very dusty and dirty. You cannot leave a review on the property without the owner consenting to reviews, so no reviews can be trusted. 2 months later I have 6 charges in excess of $ 6800.00 from airbnb. I contacted them and they said they were fraudulent but were unable to credit my account. My credit card company has credited our account but it sounds like this sort of thing happens often with this merchant. Avoid Airbnb art all costs. You may get lucky or have an experience like ours.

The Customer Service at Airbnb is horrendous. I recently went on vacation with a group of friends and our Airbnb was cancelled about an hour before check in time. Things happen and we don't fault Airbnb for the cancellation however our customer service experience since has been appalling. We ended up having to stay in an Airbnb that cost 3x the price of the original Airbnb. They originally offered us $500 to help us which wouldn't have covered the difference but we would have been happy. After the trip they denied offering us money, despite telling us they found the recording of the phone call where they agreed to give it to us. They told us the only way we could get a refund is from the host, the host we ended up staying with didn't do anything wrong so it shouldn't come out of their pocket. They have ignored requests to talk to managers. After weeks of back and forth they finally offered a $500 coupon for a future stay, as if we will ever use them again... If we would have cancelled an hour before our stay we would be required to pay so they should honor their offer. There isn't any protection for the customers. They had the opportunity to make things good and we would have been happy but they choose to fight for weeks and loose customers. Will use VRBO from now on.

I received an email stating that my email address had been changed and to notify customer service if we did not make that change. We emailed them, no return call or message. We contacted them again after attempting to log on to our account (we could not access our own account to shut it down and still can not to this day). No return call or email. About four days later, I received a call telling me that if I needed additional towels, to please let them know??? I then waiting for over 30 minutes for a customer service representative over the phone. She confirmed that my account had been changed and that a rental in Brooklyn was active. $867 on my credit card that was linked to my account. I felt great after speaking to her ~ she assured me that I would receive a call within 4 hours from the Trust and Safety department to gather the details for the investigation. She also told me that she "placed a hold" on my account so that no additional charges could be placed. Three weeks later after MANY phone calls, emails, wasted time on hold and additional charges on my credit card, I have NEVER received one single call or email from the Trust and Security Department. I continued to receive calls about my "stay" and even received a direct email from the Brooklyn host telling me that she gave me a five star rating. Airbnb did not even notify the host that she had a renter that had stolen all of my information and was using my name and credit card. I received requests in the middle of the night for codes to be entered to change additional information on my account, which I'm assuming was the same person that originally stole my information. Airbnb was notified of ALL of these events and has NOT done anything to investigate or help us in any way. Absolutely unbelievable that a company can function successfully in this manner.

To Whom it may concern I am writing to you regarding the use of the data published on this platform for a dissertation project, concerning the topic of consumer's motivation in engaging in eWOM activity the case study of Airbnb. I would like to kindly ask for your consent, if anyone does not want to be observed or named please contact me via thannicha.chowi@gmail.com Best Regards Thannicha Chowiwatthana

Anguegibson11@gmail.com Furious! Three days before I fly into Melbourne and the host has cancelled the 2brm air BnB apartment I rented. They said they would try and find another place for me to stay however there are no two bedrooms left in Melbourne and can only provide a studio. Will not do because I booked s 2brm for a reason. Then the host initially wouldn't cancel the booking in order to process a refund - until I made a complaint and demanded they did. End result is me booking a last minute 2btm apartment for $1500 more because there is nothing left available f or the weekend. Air BnB don't seem to care too much. What's worse is you have to pay for your air bnb up front - and now I have to wait for a refund. There are

For many years we have personally hosted B and B guests in our lovely historic Brooklyn Heights home. We earned a five star rating and have received unanimous reviews praising our home and hospitality, without one complaint. This week, however, it changed. A woman whose daughter lives around the corner rented our room for 22 nights to be around for the birth of her grandchild. She arrived on a Monday and spent the next three days and nights without making any complaint. On Thursday morning at breakfast things started to unravel. The following all happened at Thursday breakfast. 1.She said the room lacked the promised wi-fi. It was never promised. We have our upstairs' tenants wi-fi in our apartment and I told the guest that “it should work” in the guest room. She said that in case it did not, she would bring some Apple device that could extend the signal. But Thursday morning she said she had not brought it. 2.She said that because of the lack of a wi fi signal, she had to use her monthly iPad contract with a fixed number of calls (which she had been using for over 3 days) and that if she used it for 3 weeks she would have to pay for the extra calls. I told her to find out the cost and we would reimburse her. She never followed through. 3.She said the room was too warm. Because we had just gotten out of a severe cold spell I purchased a second oil-filled radiator for her room and it warmed the room very well. But Thursday she said the room was too warm, forgetting that on her arrival I had instructed her on how to reduce the heat from the radiators if it was too warm, by turning down the gauge or turning one radiator off. 4.She said to get some cold air she opened a window but then had to look out on our yard and a neighbor's house. Our yard is not landscaped. It is mid winter. Shrubs and trees are bare. Apparently she expected a gorgeous garden view in mid winter. 5.She then announced that she had balance problems and the short five step wide brick stairs leading to the guest room bothered her. (She had used these for the whole time and never mentioned anything. Also her daughter lives above a cafe around the corner in an old walk-up building, where she would have to walk up and down the narrow stairs one or twice a day to see her daughter but she never mentioned this either). On Thursday evening she phoned to tell us she had cancelled her stay and demanded a refund from AirBnB,which granted it to her without consulting us ahead of time. Since I had already been paid, AirBnB announced that I would have to repay the $2134. debt to them and that it would be deducted from my future bookings. This meant that I would have to host guests for six months or more without being paid in order to pay off the debt. I refused and therefore I am no longer able to use AirBnb. Her complaint (spurious): our AirBnB description misrepresented the apartment as being on the ground floor (which it is),and therefore according to their rules I was to blame. I sent AirBnB the above report in several emails, and sent photos of the front of our house yesterday, proving that we live on the ground floor. I requested that their director or resident review the entire file and photos. The lesson not learned here by AirBnB is that you cannot automatically, without evidence, accept the complaint and excuse offered by guests, and that the host, along with evidence, needs to be taken seriously before any hasty judgment is made. The other lesson is that this sets a precedent by which any guest can literally invent or exaggerate or distort information without being questioned or without providing hard evidence supporting their claim. Nearly all private homes (brownstones, Federal brick homes) in Brooklyn Heights are either up a short front stoop or a bit lower than the sidewalk. Only a very few are completely level with the sidewalk, depending on the steepness of the street. In our case our ground floor entrance is 3 steps below the sidewalk..one step inside the gate and then two steps down to our front door. Yet the guest told AirBnB that our apartment was not on ground level. It most certainly is! We have no basement and our entire floor rests on the soil. Though I asked AirBnB to give me the exact wording of her complaint they did not. It appears that it was based on a “misrepresentation” of the apartment being on the ground floor, and NOT on the interior brick stairs, but I do not know yet. The AirBnB rep said it was advertised as “a single ground unit” but that phrase is not listed anywhere on the description of our apartment. What is listed is the availability of a six month sublet in “a furnished garden floor-through”, which anyone in NYC knows means GROUND LEVEL. This was explained to AirBnB but to no avail. Again, this complaint was made on Thursday, three days after the guest's arrival, during which no complaint was made of any kind. This guest lied with impunity and AirBnB swallowed her story and ignored the above. I am no longer able to use their service, which means a loss of money, but for me principles come before money….though not for them. Sincerely, Lorna Salzman

I have been a host for many years and my guests have ALL been great, friendly, clean, and gracious. I have also traveled as a guest all over the world using airbnb accomodations. 99% of these experiences have been fantastic, with perhaps a few small issues that were caused by ME not reading the description carefully. HOWEVER...I have had a few TERRIBLE experiences dealing with the airbnb company service. 1) they are impossible to get a hold of. Plan on being on hold for hours. And then getting no help at all. They say they will let somebody know about the problem, and you will never hear from them agian. 2) Once they removed my listing from the website while I was in the middle of booking a guest reservation. I had no idea why and they never explained why they took my listing down. 3) They withheld over a thousand dollars of my payments for over ten days, and old released my money to my paypal account after my husband threatened to hire an lawyer and sue them. Again, no appology or even an explanation of why they kept MY MONEY for days and days after the guests had checked out. So, if you are a host, beware and keep close tabs on your payments. The people who are hosts and also guests are really the ones who make this whole system a pleasure.......they company has issues that need to be solved.

I'm from California and travel on business all over the world and use airbnb for weeks and months at a time and have mainly used airbnb for New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London, Johannesburg & Cape Town South Africa, and Melbourne & Sydney multiple times. I'm currently staying in a London home and it's my first bad experience. Starting with arriving to discover that the host left their huge dog that is constantly barking and crying, the A/c doesn't work, plumbing issues, house is dirty and not at all as it was shown iin images. AND then I discovered a 12 camera video surveillance camera that is recording me in every room! Creepy and illegal. It took 2 days for Airbnb to call me back after my original "Urgent" correspondence. The representative, April A. apologized and told me that that she wanted me to check out immediately to be safe. But it was 4:00am, I hadn't been to bed yet and had early business meetings and had no where to go. So she insructed me to find another airbnb rental and as soon as I communicated with a hot to confirm availability, to contact airbnb with the info so they could transfer my funds and take care of the booking on their end. Which I did, I had several hosts "waiting" to have airbnb contact them to transfer my funds only to have airbnb disappear and abandon me and my urgent issue all together. After over 2.5 hours on hold until my phone on roaming fees was hundreds of dollars... all without anyone answering the phone, or replying to any of my emails, It is now 5 entire days later, I'm STILL in this nightmare house because airbnb is yet to reply. I'm horrified at the negligence of what has transpired or rather... not transpired. I hope that whoever is on the airbnb social media division can get someone to finally return my calls/emails and own up to what they promised in getting me a new rental since I will be in London for 7 more days! reservation confirmation code (X25BKP)

The premiss of Airbnb's service is incredible. I will continue to rent through them until another company with an equally user friendly interface comes along. That being said, Airbnb's customer service is, in a word, despicable. When you are in a new city/country and having trouble with a listing they should be there to help- not there to make your already troubled stay even more difficult. I've found their customer service to be delayed in contact, stand offish, and sporadic in which policies they uphold/overlook. They over complicate every issue and make bad situations worse. I recommend always making bookings with a trusted credit card (Amex is mine) and know that you have a fall back plan when Airbnb screws you.

I am an Airbnb host, and rent my property out multiple times per year. I have been hosting through Airbnb for several years, and up until recently was quite happy with them. In the past, they seemed responsive to host concerns (damage, etc...) but their policies have changed. I recently had a threatening tenant, who caused significant damage to my home, and they would not return calls, did not acknowledge my damage claims, and were wholly unresponsive. Considering that I have been a model host (and renter) for more than 7 years, I am now looking to switch my business to an agency where my home can be better protected, like VRBO

Recently we rented a property for three nights in Shell Beach. I contacted the host several times before arrival to confirm arrival and received no answer. Finally, when we were standing in front of the door the host told me that there was a "misunderstanding" and she expected us for the next day. I told her that there was no misunderstanding since I had the confirmed reservation in my hand. She told me that she might arrive at the property in one hour and then opted out to call us whenever she would arrive. When I mentioned this was not acceptable I was told that I had a "bad attitude". I have used Airbnb six different times in different countries and noone was this badly behaved. Airbnb's attitude didn't help. The first call for help was not acted upon and three hours later I got another representative who had to call the host to find out that she indeed had cancelled. We were offered up to $250 for another accommodation but it was not mentioned that it had to be with Airbnb. All those choices meant we had to drive again after a long day on the road. We found a motel and were reimbursed the full amount of the cancelled Airbnb property. I must say that Airbnb handling of the matter left a lot to be desired. It was also very difficult to get a hold of them. I will think twice before using Airbnb again. In addition the property was not as described online. The beach bungalow was in the middle of a high densiity neighborhood of old cottages in need of TLC and the street ended in a dead end and had no access to the beach. The outside of the "bungalow" was dilapidated and uninviting and certainly not worth the rent asked for. Does Airbnb inspect the places and realize how hyped up some places are and how greedy some people get?

I stayed where the leaser of an apartment was a greedy user near a college in Los angeles; I paid for 3 nights, they threw my stuff out -on- -the- -street- on Day 2; the person the greedy leasee (notice I did not say owner) hired to clean spoke no English, the language we do business with in the U.S., and there were 5 people n a tiny living room; mine was aset of mattrasses on the floor. Buyer beware. When I called customer service so they could make it right, they kept handing me over to different people, and actually wound up doing nothing but wasting a lot of my time on the phone. AirBnB was so unfair, it makes me wonder how they are still in business.

We arrived after dark at a home in Corona del Mar Caif I booked the house for my daughters coming from Florida and Portland Ore with my 3 small granddaughters. The next morning wanted to fix breakfast but the large coil on stove was broken! My daughter did a load of wash in the garage she screamed out the machine is overflowing!! Call the host Fran said she couldn't get someone out to check issues for 2 days! We had the house for 4 nights! I must say we were disappointed! My daughter has been a member of Airbnb since 2009 and never had issues. We visited with the neighbor she said she was happy we were a family! Too many parties in the big house that she has called police

Three months before our trip, we rented a 5 bedroom home in Holly for a month. 56 days before our trip the owners canceled our reservation. Three other people were canceled who rented the same house one who only had 15 days notice. The owners (host) said they got a better offer, someone wanted to rent it for a year and so sorry if this inconvenienced us. In the meantime my husband and I as well as my 3 siblings and their husbands have to find another place to stay. There was nothing left at Air B&B 56 days out from our vacation that was large enough and fit our budget. . Air B & B suggested one place that was twice as expensive and another that was 10 times as expensive. They ruined not only our trips as well as those of three other people that booked the same house before we had. Because we had to make reservations elsewhere and no longer share a place we all had to cut our trips short to stay in our respective budgets. The only good thing I can honestly say is that Air B&B promptly credited our American Express card for our rental cost. We will never use Air B&B again. Fool me once...

the above statement that the only way to get in touch with Airbnb through being a member of their site is not true. They have an 800 # if you google it, anyone can call. FYI.

We had one positive and one horrible stay with Airbnb. Our best stay was in Amsterdam in a fantastic tiny apartment big enough for three travelers and with all the amenities including a magnificent rooftop balcony where we spent our evenings. We stayed in Mauro's apartment at Bosboom toussaintstraat 27 and we loved it!! Our nightmare began as soon as we left Amsterdam and arrived in London. The name of the person who brokered the rental was Karen. She DID NOT vet the renter as she said she did, because if she had she would have realized that the renter was crazy. When we arrived at the flat (after waiting for over an hour for him at our meeting place), he walked us to the apartment. On first inspection, the place was fine, but after looking more carefully (after Paul left), it was disgusting. I have photos of the dirty mess, the filthy bathroom, bathroom cleaner on the carpet, mold in the kitchen, ants all over the dirty balcony and a neighbor who spit on my head in the morning...what a way to start your day! Needless to say, we will be reluctant to use Airbnb again. We vetted the host and read all the favorable reviews her renters offered, however, she was not available when we needed her and she was forced to refund us all our money by the Airbnb Resolution Tool. As a business woman, she should have checked this renter out more carefully instead of rushing to make sure we "had a place to stay"....AND....we rented a hotel room because we were forced to leave the rental after Paul moved all of our belongings and entered the apartment, after he told us he would be leaving London for the week, to do his laundry!! VERY CREEPY!

I rented a house on Airbnb & the whole experience was wonderful. The house was just as described. It was fully stocked with everything we needed except food. I can't imagine using a hotel again for a multi-day stay.

A nice and easy way to rent places that are tailored to the needs of a specific trip. Whether I need a house, an apartment, something in a city or in the countryside, they have it all. I will say that some rentals are not always exactly what we expected. A better vetting process would be nice

Super easy platform to use, I appreciate that there are lots of customer reviews of the hosts on the site as that helps me feel more confident that I'll be safe in the place that I'm staying.

We have used Airbnb multiple times and it has always worked outstandingly. The location owners have been super helpful and informative and the rental units have been clean, well kept, and a treat to stay in.

Airbnb is a very interesting place to be, and it offers plenty of opportunities to stay beside the hotels any day of the week. I have enjoyed using Airbnb for my travels and I will continue to do so. My wife and I have met some very great people using this site and have really enjoyed the places that we have stayed.

My wife and I travel a lot and we often use Airbnb. It’s really easy to choose the location and budget. I also like that I can customize my experience with bed size, air conditioning, kitchen accessories, etc.

I've had a few bad experiences but the good far outweigh the bad. It's such great tool for international travel on a budget or with bigger groups. I'll be using them for life.

During the COVID pandemic we had to cancel a rental reservation. We received a credit for future use. Now that the pandemic is somewhat properly handled we booked two reservations and realized the credit for two of our rental was never applied. We have been dealing with AIRBNB thru their customer service. Of course their customer service is not located in the US, and their call center have no authority to do anything and we have been given the run around as they are refusing to either apply the credit or refund it.

I recently booked a vacation rental through Airbnb and the whole experience was so easy! Great options available online with great prices as well

Terrible for hosts. Does not have a way to enter local taxes, so we have to eat the cost and pay for it ourselves. NO CUSTOMER SERVICE CONTACT TO BE FOUND ON THEIR WEBSITE. I had to find a phone number on a website called "airbnbhell.com", because they do not want to talk to their customers. Very poor resolution of issues even when you do talk to them. No way to get renters to sign a rental agreement through their site/app. WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE I HAVE EXPERIENCED - I never thought I would feel this way, but VRBO is MUCH better.

I do not advise using Airbnb. Twice this year I had owners tell me at the last minute I could not have the rental promised to me months before. In both cases Airbnb staff were non apologetic. I did receive a full refund, but I had to scramble and was able to to only find new places in less desirable locations for more money. After lots of communication back and forth Airbnb did give me a small amount of money back as a rebate, but I won't be using them again in the future.

Airbnb is great until you have to deal with their customer service that may target your reservation for arbitrary "verifications" of information that messes up either your vacation or business travel plans. Airbnb could be regarded as having the "Twilight Zone" of atrocious / bizarre customer service with no accountability whatsoever. They have no phone numbers to make a complaint and they will hold up your reservation with total impunity.

Airbnb's website is very user-friendly. I love how many unique options there are for places to stay. Plus, it's really easy contact hosts with questions.