We seemed to uncover an honest to goodness software bug in the Airbnb app. Airbnb is refusing to acknowledge it, and is putting both us and the guest on the hook for it!
- Guest A is enjoying their stay and needs to extend for another night. They put in a reservation change request at 7:00 AM for the following night. We enjoy said guest and grant them an extension by 7:10 AM.
- Oops! There was a payment processing problem. No worries - the guest locks their cards when they travel and the app says they have until noon the following day to resolve the payment issue without losing their booking.
- But wait a second, just a few hours later someone else Instant Books the place for that night. What's going on?
- 6 hours of heck with Airbnb support ensue. They blame us for everything. That we never actually accepted the change - that the dates were wrong, that Guest B actually booked first. Unfortunately, we have a pretty rock solid paper trail.
- One support person admits that the emails are wrong but they don't have any power to do anything about it - even to escalate the ticket.
- In the meantime, Airbnb is still asking Guest A to pay for the night - the night that Guest B is now booked for!
The only options Airbnb support is giving us is to forcibly kick out Guest A on short notice and stick them with a payment penalty, or we cancel on Guest B and we pay the full cancellation penalty.
We're at our whit's end because Airbnb support is refusing to even acknowledge their own policies on this matter.