The place isn't what the photos showed

Put it in writing first

Message your host in the conversation for the stay. That thread is the record both sides read, and it is where your host answers a change request, a money request, or a cancellation they have to agree to. A report to Kabora staff does not carry it: staff see the listing, your name and the sentence the report files — not your messages.

Ask for a change

Open the stay — from its message thread, or from the trip on your account page — and choose Change reservation. You can ask for different dates, a different party size, or a different place belonging to the same host, when they have more than one place currently listed. The new price arrives before you send it: the nightly lines, the new total, the current total, and the difference either way.

Your host can Accept, Edit — adjusting the dates, party or property before applying — or Decline. Nothing changes and no money moves until they answer. Send a second ask and it replaces the first: your host sees one live request, and both stay in the thread, the older one marked Replaced by a newer request.

Ask for money back

Same panel: Send or request money, then Request money. Give an amount and what it is for — it will not send without both — up to 60 days after check-out. It lands in your conversation with the host as a card, and they have 48 hours to answer: agree to all of it, agree to part of it, or decline.

What they agree to goes back to the card you paid with straight away, though banks can take 5 to 10 days to show it. It can't be more than you have paid toward the stay, less the platform fee and card processing, and the cleaning fee and taxes don't come back this way.

Your host decides. If you can't agree, press Ask Kabora to step in on the card. It opens a case with Kabora's support team about your stay, your host is told, and someone from Kabora replies within 24 hours. Stepping in doesn't move any money by itself.

Cancelling

Cancelling follows the cancellation policy frozen onto your booking, not what went wrong.

• When you cancel, the panel shows what you paid and exactly what comes back before you confirm. The platform fee and the card processing are kept, and the policy's percentage applies to what is left after those two come off the top.
• Some policies won't let you cancel yourself. Non-refundable never does, and neither does a host's own policy that stops cancelling after its free window. Then there is no refund figure and no cancel button, only Ask the host to cancel. Your stay stays booked until they answer, and if they agree the refund still follows the policy, which on Non-refundable is nothing.
• If your host cancels of their own accord, everything you paid comes back, fees included, whatever the policy says.
• If your trip page shows no terms at all, ask your host what applies before you cancel.

Kabora ships five standard policies — Flexible, Moderate, Firm, Strict and Non-refundable — and every host starts with all five. A host can also write their own terms, or delete the standard ones, so read the policy named on your reservation rather than assuming which one you have. "Cancellation policies and refunds" sets out the five.

Report it

The report control is on the listing itself — the page you booked from, partway down: Report this listing, then "It's not what the photos showed". You have to be signed in. Staff read it as: a guest says the place does not match its listing, plus anything you typed in the box. It goes to Kabora staff and not to your host, and it joins a queue staff work through and mark resolved.

What it does not do is move money or write back to you. There is no case number and no status to check.

After you leave

You can write a review once the stay is over. The one you leave from your trip or your message thread records an overall star and your comment, and nothing else. The invitation email opens the longer form, and that one asks you to rate accuracy — how well the place matched the listing — alongside cleanliness, check-in, communication, location and value. Accuracy is where this problem belongs, and it is what the next guest reads.

Your review stays hidden — from your host and from the listing — until your host has reviewed you too, or until 14 days after check-out have passed. The same holds for what your host writes about you. That way neither review is written as a reply to the other.

What Kabora does not do

There is no automatic refund for a place that was not as described, and no rebooking service that finds you somewhere else. What exists is the five things above: the thread, the change request, the money request — with Kabora stepping in if you can't agree — the policy's refund, and the report.