I was a superhost. My listing was always booked which means I was making Airbnb the 18% commission they get from each booking. My reviews were amazing, averaging to 4.7 Stars. My location prevented getting 5 stars. I am 6 miles from the local attractions and most found that 6 miles was worth not giving 5 stars, but that’s okay. Many of my guests just raved about how I was the best Airbnb experience they ever had. I was listed with instant book, meaning that I welcomed anyone into my home that booked. I never cancelled the first guest. My criminal background is clean as a whistle and I never did anything that would go against Airbnb’s Terms of Service. Hurricane Matthew came around and I had many guests cancel. That was all good. Of course this applied as extenuating circumstances and guests received full refunds. The Hurricane was on a Friday. On Monday I checked my inbox and saw nothing but cancellations. I was panicked, scared, and in disbelief. So because I was a superhost I had a direct phone number for Airbnb that got priority service. I was panicked but I knew that Airbnb would help me fix this right away as I figured it was just a glitch in their system. The customer service representative who answered the phone was also shocked, said that they would escalate it, and a manager would call me in a few hours.

So I waited. The call never came so I called back in four hours. I was then told that I do not exist in the Airbnb system and they could not find my account. However, I was told not to worry; they would take care of this and a manager would call me back. We played this phone tag game for three days. Finally I received an email from Airbnb and told me I had been dismissed from Airbnb and this decision was irreversible. I was told that no further support would be available for me and that they were under no legal obligation to provide a reason. They cancelled my account.

I was devastated. I was in love with hosting. It was the best experience of my life. I never received any bad guests or reviews. I had one guest whose father in law passed away a few hours before boarding a flight to come and spend the weekend with me. Needless to say, calling Airbnb to cancel was not her highest priority. I offered her a full refund and she refused. So I told her when she is ready to rebook, the trip would already be paid when she arrived. I advised I would just credit her the money towards a future booking. The greatest sadness I felt through all of this was that I could not honor that lady’s booking. I do not have her contact information as all of that was removed when Airbnb cancelled my account without warning or explanation. One guest cancelled six hours before his arrival time and Airbnb gave him a full refund and a $100 credit to stay elsewhere. I feel abandoned and just saddened by the loss of hosting and all that the Airbnb community stood for. Despite all the horror stories you may read I was in love with the program. I still do not have anything negative to say about the company other than the way they cancelled the guests with no explanations and no warnings. I live in a major city so the chances of finding last minute accommodations are slim to none.