I have stayed at Airbnbs a couple of times over the years, but mostly when I’ve been traveling with just a part of our family. Historically, when we’ve been traveling all together as a party of 8, we’ve been traveling domestically in the United States, and we’ve typically used our stash of hotel points. But a few years ago my family and I went to Europe and with the strict occupancy limits in Europe, we didn’t really have a way to use our millions of hotel points, since we’d have to book 3 or even 4 rooms!
So we turned to Airbnb, and after a paralyzing search, we settled on a couple of different places for our stay in Lisbon and Barcelona. I booked them recently, and for the one in Barcelona, we paid about USD$480 for a week’s stay. The price was a little bit lower than surrounding units but I didn’t feel it was WAY lower than other comparable units. But then I got a disturbing message from one of the hosts:
Message from our Airbnb host
Here’s the message I got (roughly translated from the original Spanish via Google Translate)
Thank you for choosing our home for your vacation. However, I wanted to tell you that there is a problem with the rate, because we do not make such low prices, at least they should be € 500, they are equivalent to the price of our weekend rate (€ 400) plus cleaning (€ 100). I have to check the prices of your reservation. Can you tell me if you have received a discount?
then
Hello again Dan. As I mentioned before I do not understand why you get a price so low for my house.
My base price is € 59 / day in winter. The minimum weekly price is € 800, but in summer it increases depending on the week. Specifically, my June rates are € 1000 per week, in total. We apply a 10% discount for stays of 7 days or more. YOUR DISCOUNT IS APPLIED TO YOUR RESERVATION. I have not been able to verify in any way where the price of your stay comes from, what I do know is that it does not fit into our rates. All previous and subsequent reservations are for a price higher than yours, even if they are shorter and midweek. Regretting it a lot I have to reject your reservation for this amount. We could make you a 25% discount due to the possible error of the rates but not 75%.
For me it is a very embarrassing situation, I think that as a host you will understand, and I would not like to lose your reservation, you have good ratings and I would like to stay at our house. I propose to pay € 100 per day, cleaning included, in total € 700. For now, regretting it a lot I have to cancel your reservation.
I hope you get in touch with me to clarify this matter. I apologize for any inconvenience you may have caused.
What to do?
I’m not naming or linking to the host because I don’t want to publicly shame him yet, but I’m not sure what to do. I don’t really want to pay an extra $400, but at this point I don’t feel like I can “force” him to take my reservation, since at that point there is so much the host can do to make things miserable for our stay (including just not letting us in). I guess he can take the black mark on his profile and cancel it. I will probably call Airbnb but I doubt their customer service will be much help.
UPDATE: What Ended Up Happening
Since this happened a few years ago (I periodically repost posts that are still relevant and this scenario could still very well happen in a current Airbnb booking), I have an update on what happened. I decided to not book this particular Airbnb, and we ended up staying in a different place which worked out fine. I did end up getting a few coupons from Airbnb and then I just booked another place. As far as I know, there are no updated protections from this happening other than I believe hosts get dinged if they cancel too often, so this is definitely something that could still happen.
Ever had anything like this happen to you? What would you do? Leave your thoughts in the comments
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
He is a BS artist
My base price is € 59 / day in winter. The minimum weekly price is € 800
With 59*6= 354 how does he come up with a “minimum weekly” of 800
Report him as he probably pulling this on other people too and needs to be stopped
Agreed
I think it is an Airbnb software issue. I talked to my air bnb host in the USA about how she updates her info and she said that she has problems from time to time when the changes she makes is not updated correctly. Even though she had rented her townhouse for more than a year, for short and long term stays, she was still trying to get the hang of using the website.
I think your host was trying to explain and really offer a compromise.
Yep! Reported it to Airbnb and got the stay at the original cost.
The only thing I worry about with that is if he’s somehow disgruntled and that causes major problems when we get there. Either he ends up trying to charge us for things he said we “broke” or maybe even just doesn’t meet us to let us in or something.
For that reason, you shouldn’t stay there. This guy sounds like a fraud. Does he think you can’t do math (59*7=>800)? You know what ‘phantom air space’ is? I’m sure you do. Consider this ‘phantom airbnb space’ and don’t fly it. Report this listing so others don’t fall into this trap.
Seems like they made a mistake with entering the prices on Airbnb and/or forgot to adjust them. Seems like an honest mistake and they tried to explain it and propose a compromise since you were stuck in the middle of their mistake. Doesn’t seem like they are trying to fleece you. That’s how I read the situation
Airbnb hosts have option to add long stay discounts, early bird discounts, add pricing rule sets
These options also compound, so it really could lower the final cost
At least the host is being up front
They could come up with excuse like the toilet is broken, contact airbnb send some evidence and cancel your reservation penalty free
I have had similar issue but have always honored the reservation
It’s a disservice to others not to name the property, since this owner is playing games, if it’s happening to you it has/or will happened to others who may not speak up. Provide copies of the correspondence and notify Airbnb to make it right.
I may do that down the road depending on how things turn out
Sounds ok to me if he got back to you immediately.
Not ok if he got back last minute.
Life is not find the loophole and shaft the other person. We all make mistakes. You can cancel and find another place.
I agree with your general sentiment. It’s unfortunate that it’s hard / impossible for me to say whether this was an honest mistake on his behalf or if, as others have suggested, this is some sort of bait and switch thing
Can’t you check his rates for other available dates to see whether his story is reasonable?
Yeah – I thought about that too. I spot checked a few just now and they are much higher. Obviously I have no way of knowing whether they were always like this or recently changed. One thing I’ll say is that it’s been at the lower rate (that I booked on) for my dates for at least a few weeks – like I said, I’ve been having some pretty serious analysis paralysis for quite awhile 🙂
This actually happened to us a few times because we were looking at dates that went beyond the dates the hosts set for their prices/availability (usually beyond 8-10 months from present date for us). When hosts do not specifically set them, AIRBNB automatically applies some weird algorithm (I think it just applies whatever lowest cost the host has used in the past). Weird, but it does happen. If their prices are now in the higher range for future dates, I’d just chalk it up to honest mistake since he got back to you within a day. If the higher rate annoys you and it feels too shady, move on 🙂
If you sniff that lunchmeat in the fridge are you going to wonder about the source of the acrid smell and then eat it anyway, or wonder about the source of the acrid smell and then not eat it?
Of course , why would you want to stay in the home of someone who absolutely doesn’t want you there? It’s a weird thing to “win” as I would never stay there after that exchange.
Yes – I am concerned about that as I mentioned in my post
If the host got back within a day, it is probably a honest mistake, similar to hotel mistake rates.
I doubt it is a bait and switch. Few would pay in such a situation.
Airbnbs are really small businesses. If his/her story is genuine, they stand to lose a lot of money. Asking the host to honor a genuine mistake rate is like docking an employee’s salary for a honest mistake.
The hosts can always cancel reservation. Even at the last minute. This is a problem with Airbnb and cancelled reservations without compensation happen frequently. So in this case, the host saw he can get a better price and will simply cancl your reservation.
That’s not true. As host if you cancel those dates are blocked and you get $100 penalty
Decline, cancel, report and move on. If they’re not a BS artist, then they made a dumb error. The host sets the base fee as well as the cleaning fee in their currency and it’s converted to your currency by Airbnb. Any discount like the first time promotional one is absorbed by Airbnb, not a discount to the host.
The tacit threatening of your rating is truly BS and include that in your report.
You might have to eat a higher cost at an alternate accommodation, but if this is how troublesome this host is at this stage, likely there will be more trouble if you actually rent from them.
I had an Airbnb host basically extort more money from me and use a number of other tactics (attempts to push me into communication outside the Airbnb app, and making almost every sentance appear to be a separate conversation which made it difficult for the Airbnb reps to research). Airbnb reps were invariably located in the Phillipines and were almost unresponsive if not completely disinterested in help me out. I lost $750 dollars and was too afraid to go to the rental (in Mexico) because the Host seemed so brazen and rude. I almost want to say she was a Mexican mafia or some kind of criminal. I got no help from Airbnb USA at all.
Happens to me all the time on VRBO. Typically when booking far in advance.
IMPORTANT: Do not cancel. Depending on his cancellation policy you may be subject to fees. Tell him you’re regretful for the misunderstanding he’s caused and that if he doesn’t want to honor that price, then he needs to cancel the reservation. This properly places the burden on him for any penalties associated with cancellation.
AND (having been through this before) AirBNB will send you an email informing you of the cancellation and offering you a 10% credit above and beyond your original booking to find a new place. And if you call or email them staying you can’t find a suitable replacement within that 10% threshold they will likely authorize you to go higher with no stated cap, though I suspect it’s about 15 – 20%.
Thanks! That’s a good tip and hopefully that will work out for me
To be honest I’m rather disappointed at the very negative views being taken by the majority of responders to this post. Bear in mind that this a translation of his message (Google translate and similar are far from perfect). Consider also that the Airbnb platform itself is also not infallible and coding errors do exist. I am a host who has been a victim of an Airbnb error and I can assure you that it took about six weeks of persistence on my part to get Airbnb to ‘investigate’ and finally admit their error (they even closed the case at one point) before they compensated me and I can speak English and argue my case convincingly! So perhaps everyone could give the guy a break, stop accusing him of being a rogue and consider HIS point of view and that this could well be his livelihood. The original poster might even consider backing the host in communications with Airbnb in an effort to reach a fair compromise and perhaps even get Airbnb (large corporate that it now is) to contribute to the solution.
“It’s unfortunate that it’s hard / impossible for me to say whether this was an honest mistake on his behalf or if, as others have suggested, this is some sort of bait and switch thing”.
Really? – If they have got in touch with you in good time just accept it as part of life and most likely an honest error. This is not a big multi-national hotel chain here, it is quite probably an individual or a small business. I do not see a “tacit” threat in this exchange and any commentator here should remember you have used Google translator. If you don’t like the new price move on. Is $480 a low price in Barcelona for a week for 8 people?? I’ll say!
I had a booking for two weeks in Paris, decent price, good location. Then three months before my stay they cancelled. Their reason was a bunch of yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy’s across the page.
In your case, I would at least report this to AirBNB. It may have been their fault, something in the software that did not work properly in this case. They may even pay the difference.
There is no need to report this to Airbnb, they will be quite aware of it when the host cancels it. I run a management company that advertises on Airbnb as well as the other platforms and they pull rates directly from our own system, but for some unknown reason, any of the platforms occasionally get messed up rates and I have no way of knowing about it until someone books it. Generally, although I fight it pretty hard, I get penalized for the cancellations. If this host was doing this often, he would not be on the site for very long.
Worse for hosts who have numerous properties is when the platform messes up and puts in rates that are too high. It can be weeks or months before you discover that the reason you are not getting bookings for an individual property is because the rates haven’t been correct.
Yes. This happened twice in Cuba. One host rented out a unit to several people at the same time. So our reservation wasn’t honored. The second host never gave his address. I couldn’t call Airbnb from Cuba. When I got home they did nothing. I paid for rooms I couldn’t use. Airbnb is the worst. I avoid them. They have no customer service. They don’t care. I’ve talked several of my friends out of reservations.
I did once have a problem where the owner claimed there was an error in the Airbnb system and I was charged the wrong rate. I spoke with Airbnb and Airbnb did end up making up the difference. So in my case I believe the owner was being honest.
Please remember that there are people depending on their rental income and they are making their living this way.
Interesting and relevant thread as I am certain this situation arises for a lot of frequent and even some not so frequent travellers. Having said that, Dan unless this was designed to elicit participation from your reader base, I am a little taken aback at your position of uncertainty on how to respond. For me (and I would think many of the readers) you are viewed as a source of solid travel related info. The options are really are not that numerous and boil down to either accept the new rate or reject it, report the questionable conduct on the part of the host to Airbnb and move on. Paralysis by analysis? Come on Dan you are obviously an extensively experienced traveller. My hope is that you share your eventual decision and the response from the host and Airbnb so that the rest of us can learn from it. Great website Dan and I enjoy reading it every day! Good luck.
why can’t you use hotel points? if you have ‘millions’ what’s the issue?
Basically the occupancy limits in Europe are super strict so I’d need to get 3 or even 4 rooms at most hotels. I don’t want to spend 200,000 points / night at one of these hotels – I’d rather save them for somewhere I’ll get much better value
The host’s behavior is dubious at best.
If you keep the booking you are likely subjecting yourself to unnecessary angst between now and your arrival at this property which in view of the history of the booking, will continue during and after your stay with concerns about getting your security deposit reimbursed.
I’ve been an Airbnb (super) host for many years. I’ve never experienced a rate being misquoted due to technical issues on Airbnb’s network.
You’d likely do well ( to yourself and other travelers looking to book this apartment ) to cancel the booking and report the host to Airbnb who will take note of the complaint. Hosts who violate Airbnb’s policies – especially in regards to transparent and accurate pricing- have a very limited number of strikes before Airbnb removes the listing.
Good luck.
If I were the decision-maker, I’d assume the worst-case scenario: you get to the AirBNB and the host doesn’t let you in, so you have to find alternate accommodations. Can you afford the thousands of dollars (or hundreds of thousands of points) needed to make that happen? Is that risk worth the few hundred(?) you might save by sticking with your current reservation? Does any sort of insurance product (including through your credit card) exist that might indemnify you if the AirBNB host doesn’t let you in?
Only you know the answers to these questions. I’m fairly risk averse, so I would probably cancel and move on, but maybe your stash of points makes the risk worthwhile for you.
Dan,
I’ve been on Airbnb for many, many years (11 years) and I’m a Superhost. I CAN tell you that Airbnb does have errors/mistakes once in a while but don’t cancel. Tell him that he should cancel it and he will get a mark against him and won’ be eligible for Superhost. I can’t say if it was a mistake or not but I CAN tell you that up until this weekend I’ve never had issues with Airbnb until now.
Thursday night, May 2 I noticed from another potential guest on Booking.com (I have my Airbnb calendar linked) that he was asking about my property but said it was blocked out for a week. It wasn’t so I went to my Airbnb calendar and was shocked to see Airbnb blocked it out without my permission or even informing me.
It had a guests name and said it was verifying the guest. It was impossible to take the booking as it was already evening. I called Airbnb’s Superhost customer service and I asked the agent how/why my calendar was blocked without even telling me. She said they do that while they “verify” a guest. I told her that they should verify the guest first and THEN block out the calendar once they confirm the guest.
The agent wouldn’t allow me to unblock my own calendar and said I needed to wait 24 hours for the verification process of this guest. I told her I had a booking opportunity for the week with another guest from Booking.com. She said she couldn’t cancel it. Being that I have a great relationship with Airbnb over many years, I turned away the other definite booking from Booking.com.
The next morning I was happy that Airbnb verified the guest and confirmed the booking. My normal check-in is at 3 PM. The guest couldn’t come until 6 PM. My property manager was going to meet them for the check-in. The date was still wrong on the booking as it said the check-in was for the previous day. About 30 minutes before the guest was arriving (keep in mind he was arriving later than my normal check-in), Airbnb sends me an email saying that the reservation was cancelled. It didn’t give me any other details. I was puzzled.
But then I got another CONFIRMED reservation almost instantly from another guest. A female this time and she said she was booking the property for her co-worker. She confirmed that she wasn’t going to be staying and that she was booking for the previous booking. She said they cancelled because the date was wrong.
My property manager does the check-in ok. Shortly after I get a call from Airbnb customer service informing me that the other reservation was cancelled. I told her yes I know and that they rebooked under a different name. She was puzzled and didn’t know (you’d think she would have already known before calling me). I told her it was a verified booking and to check the account.
She told me she needed to talk to her manager and would contact me. I asked her what was going on but she wouldn’t give me any information. Keep in mind we already checked in the rental guests. About an hour later I get an email informing me that that rental as well was being cancelled and all funds would be refunded back to the rental guest. (Keep in mind we already did the check-in).
I called in to Airbnb and they said they couldn’t assist me. He said I needed to wait for an email from Trust and Safety. It was frustrating as no one would take my call or explain what was going on. I even asked someone to call me and no one did for several hours. All they said was I needed to tell the rental guests they needed to leave. Huh??
This was horribly frustrating and really puzzling that Airbnb would do this. I flat out asked them to cancel the original booking the night before as I had a booking request but they said I couldn’t unblock my own property because they were “verifying a client”. Then they cancel. Then I tell them about a replacement booking which they didn’t know about and then they cancel that AFTER they already checked in.
The rental guests had already left the apartment (it was a friday night) and they went out. Airbnb deleted the message contact on their website which was frustrating as I didn’t have a means to have a documented conversation with THEIR rental client that they sent to me. Fortunately my property manager had their WhatsApp but they weren’t answering their WhatsApp.
The worst thing was that they kept saying they weren’t going to pay me for this rental. I kept insisting stating this is their problem as they sent over a “verified booking” and she said they would only pay for 1 night. Then I got 1 night + cleaning. I kept asking to escalate to a manager and finally wrote an email to the CEO asking them to forward to him. It was only then that they agreed to pay me for the booking.
The most frustrating part is they wouldn’t communicate much to me other than “the guest broke their TOS”. They expected me to evict them in the middle of the night after we already checked them in and we already signed a rental contract. My property is located abroad and laws are different there.
Sorry for the long post Dan but I thought it was fair to explain that things don’t always go well with Airbnb for not only the rental guest but also the property owner. I’m not sure what is going on with Airbnb to have these kind of unexpected issues after years of problem free rentals. I was really shocked considering they are going to be doing their IPO soon.
It turned out ok in the end as they agreed to pay me for the booking but my building just informed me that the Airbnb rental guests vandalized the elevator on their way out. They have video of them going into the elevator and later they found they scratched into the metal elevator door some graffiti. So they are getting a quote on that and hopefully Airbnb takes care of it.
Makes me very questionable now about Airbnb’s “verification Process” that they can send over guests to an owner and then make you cancel the booking AFTER the rental guest already checks in….. Very strange.
Wow – that’s crazy! We’ve had a couple of times where we’ve had someone try to book and then we reply back that they need to verify their government ID (we require this) and if they don’t do that within 24 hours then those dates remain blocked by Airbnb.
Also, the owner/host may be set on “smart pricing”. It’s a feature that Airbnb has where if you sign up and agree to “smart pricing” then it’s supposedly set to raise prices when demand is high and lower when demand is low. You have the ability to set a limit on how low.
So maybe that owner/host agreed to smart pricing and didn’t set a low limit. I know at least on my own properties the smart pricing is WAY off sometimes and they low ball the owners with really low rates. So that could be part of the problem but that would be a problem on HIS end if he didn’t set a limit how low he would go.
You should call Airbnb at 1-855-424-7262 and ask them about it. But don’t cancel. Make the owner cancel. Better to ask him to do that now and don’t wait until the last minute. Mistakes can happen and if he is willing to cancel it and take the derogatory mark against him then so be it. And if so, I don’t think there is anything wrong with you posting the listing and shaming the owner.
If it’s some mistake on Airbnb’s part you should be able to call and ask if they are on smart pricing and if there is some software glitch. Before my last bad episode I would have sided with Airbnb in all cases but definitely they could be experiencing some serious glitches….
Yeah – how he (the host) explained it to me was that he set up a discount for some of the weeks but somehow instead of being 5 Euros per night for most weeks, on the week that I booked it ended up in the system as a discount of 50 Euros / night. Again, I have no idea if that’s true or not but in any case, this has now been resolved as the host canceled, I got some coupons, and have booked another place.
Ah ok yeah it sounds like an honest mistake. I own several properties and they are all on Airbnb and most times things go ok but I remember when “Smart Pricing” was first coming out and I didn’t set a minimum and I did get some really low price. I was surprised but I just chalked up the loss and honored the booking because it was my own fault.
A good owner will never cancel on a rental guest if it wasn’t the rental guests fault. Anyway, I’m glad it got resolved. It’s for the better I’m sure.
I’ve stayed in Barcelona twice and that price sounds incredibly low. It sure sounds like a glitch to me. Why don’t you have him cancel and rebook elsewhere? After all, we aren’t talking a business here.
Why are you reposting an incident that happened four years ago as if new? That seems like a bait and switch on your readers.
Occasionally we repost old posts that are still relevant. This is a scenario that is still valid and could be something to watch out for if you are booking Airbnb even today.
I agree with MFK, the least you could do was state that you were revisiting an old post and to beware of this type of situation. And you don’t even bother to update as to what eventually happened. Does Airbnb have any updated protections regarding this?
Thanks for the feedback. I thought I did mention what happened – the booking was canceled, I got some coupons from Airbnb, and I booked another place. There are no updated protections from this happening other than I believe hosts get dinged if they cancel too often
Ahhh, that part was in the comments and not in the main story! Thanks for the update. Def. going to avoid Airbnb.
This is reason # 42 never to do business with Airbnb, VRBO or any other platforms.
Honestly, he is quite good obviously trying to extort you. But, in no disrespect to you, but I find your lack of disclosing his name, location, etc. quite disturbing as well. Why would you not immediately warn your readers and anyone else on the internet about this sleazeball?
I’m a host and I would have done the same thing. A week stay for $480 in the summer? I don’t know how anyone can be profitable at that rate.