Dear Tripped Up,
For my parents’ upcoming 70th birthdays, I booked a trip for seven family members, including me, to Southern California to see the World Cup. My father is an immigrant from Iran who has never been west of the Rockies, and we managed to get tickets to the two Iran games being played in Los Angeles. Prices in L.A. were high, but we wanted something near the ocean and found a reasonable Airbnb for the family in La Jolla, a couple of hours away from the stadium. In December we put down a 50 percent deposit for a $4,300 rental. Imagine our surprise when in April I got a message from the host letting me know that to keep the reservation, I needed to rebook with a new host and pay an additional $1,000 — an amount that would soon go up. My guess is that someone realized the World Cup was going to be in the region and tried to jack up the rates. I reached out to Airbnb, whose AirCover policy says it will find a comparable place in such situations, but it only offered a refund or a coupon worth 20 percent of the original deposit, or about $430, which doesn’t come close to filling what had by then grown to a $2,000 gap. Prices had gone way up for other properties as well. I found their customer service agents’ level of robotic adherence to a script to be maddening. Every sentence started with: “Yes, I completely understand, and do not worry.” Yet they then went on to say things that very much indicated they did not understand and that I should in fact worry. Can you help? Jason, Washington
Dear Jason,
It’s unclear what happened to the house you reserved, which seems to have changed ownership, or at least management, since you booked it. But it is crystal clear that this should not be your problem.
Airbnb’s AirCover policy states, as you note, that it will “help you rebook a similar place to stay.” Alas, the policy continues, adding a mighty hedge: Such a rebooking is “based on availability at comparable pricing.” To me, that sounds a bit like a health insurance plan that covers medical costs “unless it’s something expensive.”
When a major event is taking place in town, the pricing will almost never be comparable. I received three strikingly similar complaints from travelers about Airbnb hosts who one way or another refused to honor reservations made far in advance:
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Ross from Albuquerque reserved a four-night, $2,577 stay at a nine-bedroom Airbnb six months before the Aftershock music festival last fall in Sacramento, only to have the hosts cancel nine days before check-in.
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Lesley from Fort Worth almost had her Mardi Gras spoiled after the three-night, $2,479 Airbnb she booked for two couples in the French Quarter evaporated the day they arrived.
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Sarah from Brooklyn reserved a three-night, $1,350 Airbnb in Ann Arbor, Mich., for her son’s University of Michigan’s graduation, only to have the property owner ghost her right before the trip.
In all three cases, Airbnb offered a refund or a coupon to make up for some, but not all, of the difference. Ross and Lesley ended up spending thousands more for last-minute hotels, and Sarah found an Airbnb much farther away from campus that cost $727 more, only partly offset by a coupon for $404.
I got in touch with Airbnb, whose spokesman, Javier Hernandez, told me the company reached out to all four of you. Jason, you initially received a $5,400 coupon toward a new, $10,719 Airbnb property. That’s a very big upgrade from the original $430 offer, but you still ended up paying $1,040 more than you would have spent had your initial reservation been honored. I mentioned that gap to Mr. Hernandez, and Airbnb sent you an additional $1,040.
Ross, Lesley and Sarah were also made whole, or better. Airbnb refunded Ross’s deposit and sent him $2,500 to cover the difference in cost between the hotel room and the original Airbnb — and also gave him a $1,400 credit. Lesley got $5,043, fully covering her group’s hotel costs, in addition to an earlier $496 payment from Airbnb and a refund of her deposit. Sarah received $727 back, in addition to the coupon, more than making up for her expenses.
“While extremely rare, we know host cancellations can feel frustrating, especially when they disrupt major plans,” Mr. Hernandez wrote in an email. He pointed to deterrents like charging hosts cancellation fees of up to 50 percent of the reservation cost and putting blocks on calendars to prevent hosts for canceling and relisting properties at a higher price.
He added that none of the four hosts filled the properties in question on those dates with other Airbnb guests. Of course, they could have rented the spaces privately or through another platform.
Mr. Hernandez added that Airbnb was “reviewing the hosts’ behavior for possible enforcement.”
He also allowed that in your cases, “some of the support provided fell short of our standards.”
I would agree. Jason, I reviewed the frustrating back and forth between you and Airbnb. I can confirm that on at least five occasions, agents told you not to worry, and I can confirm that if I had been in your shoes, I would have worried. No one could really explain what had happened; nor would anyone budge on the offer of $400 or so in coupons.
Ross also showed me his full dialogue with agents, and it was equally frustrating: Airbnb support originally offered a 20 percent coupon, or just over $500, then raised it to $1,413. While no single property was affordable for his large group, he begrudgingly agreed to book multiple properties using the coupon. But the agents then disappeared for more than 11 hours, so he booked hotel rooms instead. When someone finally answered his many “Is anyone there?”-style messages, they lowered the coupon offer back to around $500.
Airbnb skeptics may be thinking this is a good reason to avoid short-term rentals and rely on traditional hotels, at least around major events. But there are plenty of reports of hotels engaging in similar shenanigans. The New York attorney general investigated cancellations in Buffalo around the 2024 solar eclipse, for example, and The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that a hotel canceled a family’s reservations for a World Cup game over the July 4 weekend. (It was eventually restored once a reporter got involved.)
So there is no simple solution. Mr. Hernandez noted that when hosts cancel within 30 days of check-in, an automated system sends coupons to guests to help them find comparable stays. If that doesn’t cover it, he added, guests should get in touch with support “to provide additional context” that could result in an increase to the booking coupon amount.
But if you’re hoping that booking early for a huge event like the World Cup will give you certainty, well, unfortunately there are no sure things in soccer or in travel.
If you need advice about a best-laid travel plan that went awry, send an email to [email protected].
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