A couple of weeks ago I booked an apartment for 4 nights in a major European city through booking.com. On the first night, my girlfriend and I discovered with horror that the room was infested with bed bugs, everywhere. I took many photos and videos as evidence. Ayway, the behavior of the host was even more disturbing. I first tried to contact him via phone and booking: no reply. So I repeatedly called booking customer support, which offered no solution but to try again to call the host. Eventually, after many failed attempts, I had no other option but reserve another accommodation, paying hundreds of euros out of my pocket. Meanwhile I checked-out from the dirty room and requested a full refund to the host via booking. No reply, again. For the next two weeks, I called booking support almost on a daily basis to help with my case, but again they wouldn't refund me "until the host agrees with it", even though I provided extensive evidence. And the host won't ever agree, because it ignores all my messages and emails, declines my calls and pretends not to be able to speak English when Booking staff rarely manages to talk with him. I'm really pissed off at this point, so I'd like to ask you what's my best strategy now. Shall I dispute the credit card transaction? Or ask a lawyer? Something else? Thank you!
I’ve been trying to avoid Airbnb as much as humanely possible because of the housing issues it’s caused, but every now and again it makes sense to stay in one. One such instance was a few days last week in Porto, in which I rented an “apartment” only to get there and find out that it was a hostel. It ended up being fine, but the kitchen and such were all common spaces… I’m 37 years old and have zero desire to stay in a hostel if I’m being honest. Nowhere in the listing did it say it was a hostel or that it had shared spaces…
Are hosts allowed to do this?