Hosts are great, and the platform is fine, until y...

Hosts are great, and the platform is fine, until you really need them (when something goes wrong), then you find out they're much more interested in doing the legal minimum (which their Terms of Service specify is almost nothing) than doing what's fair.

Appallingly, their first instinct at taking care of our issue (Verified Superhost canceled our reservation right before our stay- Airbnb and host both say the host was an illegal operation, but they're still listed on the platform, and labeled a Verified Superhost) was to see how much money the next host would be willing to give up. Really concerning that they don't seem to have the best interests of either their hosts or customers in mind.

I'd stayed with hosts 50 times previously, and had great experiences with hosts. A bummer to find after all that time that Airbnb the company cares only about minimizing their exposure, not taking care of anyone. I'm sure it boosts the metrics in the short-term.

I've heard that VRBO puts more effort into actually fixing things when they go off the rails.