majordomo.co.nz Reviews 2

Reply from majordomo.co.nz

Mar 9, 2025

Hi Adam,

Whilst we understand your frustration, this account of the situation is factually incorrect.

When a host cancels a booking on Airbnb, the booking will show "cancelled by host". You will note on your booking it states "Cancelled by Airbnb".

We list multiple homes on Airbnb, and on our hosting account we had a total of 9 listings that were unlisted (ie NOT showing online) and therefore, not maintained. Due to a technical glitch at Airbnb, all of these unlisted properties were re-listed without our knowledge or consent. As we are a professional property management company, we use software to list our homes on multiple channels without risk of double booking and ensure the rates are loaded correctly. The listing that you booked via Airbnb was a duplicate listing that was not connected to our live calendar to receive rates and availability as it was not supposed to be listed and hadn't been listed for a number of years. We had no reason to believe the listing would be shown live on the website. The secondary listing you saw later that day was the listing for the same property that we have had live for many years, maintain regularly, and connect to our software to receive accurate rates and availability. Airbnb holds its hosts accountable for cancellations, with particularly high penalties for professional hosts that connect via software. Airbnb have taken full accountability for this technical issue and resulting cancellation.

We take accountability for errors when they are made by our team, but we cannot accept liability for errors caused by our external partners.

Poppy notified you of the error as we know many travellers will coordinate flights and transfers at the same time as booking their accommodation, and we felt it was best to let you know that the technical issue had occurred with as much notice as possible, rather than receiving the Airbnb cancellation without any context. Despite us making multiple phone calls to Airbnb and suggesting that they call you to discuss the situation, it appears they may have simply cancelled without any explanation to you, which is frustrating for all parties involved.

We encourage our guests to book directly with us wherever possible to avoid these types of issues that are outside of our control. We also offer preferential rates for direct bookings.

Once again, we are sorry that this situation has impacted your travel plans, but we do not have control over technical aspects of a third-party partner.

Reply from majordomo.co.nz

Apr 6, 2022

We are incredibly sorry that your holiday was disrupted by the COVID outbreak - we know you were really looking forward to coming together as a family here in Queenstown. We are also sorry that you were unable to take up our offer at the time to transfer 100% of the value of your stay for a future booking.
Our cancellation policy (which was detailed and agreed to at the time of booking) has been continuously adapted since the pandemic began to create a more flexible policy for our guests in light of the way COVID is disrupting travel. It has been a difficult path to navigate for all but we have found our policy to be equal to, or often at times more generous, than many of our peers in the same niche.
The pandemic has been incredibly challenging for everyone, including the tourism industry. We have all been operating on empty reserves after such a devastating two years. As I am sure you are aware after the many phone calls and emails, we are not just a booking portal - when dealing with us, you can expect to speak to a real person, not a chatbot. We are a small independent NZ-owned company, with a hardworking and tight-knit team, and we have worked very hard and made huge personal sacrifices throughout the pandemic to ensure that all of the team were able to retain their jobs, with no redundancies. We also contract other local companies for parts of the business, contributing to the local economy beyond just our own team. There is a lot to coordinate behind the scenes, beyond just the simple booking confirmation and cancellation that you receive, and the staff time spent handling and processing this is what constitutes the booking fee and cancellation administration fee which you are referring to.