My family had an Airbnb mix-up that almost ruined our vacation. Here's why we still prefer it to staying in hotels.

• My husband and I booked a $300-a-night Airbnb in Puerto Rico for spring break.
• We found out that it was no longer active six days before we were due to arrive with our kids.

Our family of four was counting down the days to our vacation over spring break.

We'd bought our plane tickets to Puerto Rico, scheduled our COVID-19 tests — it was spring 2021, when the pandemic was still raging — and booked a weeklong stay at a three-bedroom Airbnb that cost $300 a night.

It was called an "ocean-view villa" and within the grounds of a luxurious hotel with outdoor pools and golf courses.

The host's description was dreamy. She said the villa was "just inside" the complex of a top-name hotel surrounded by golf courses. El Yunque, the island's national forest, was a short drive away. It was a no-brainer. I reached for my credit card.

My kids, then 11 and 9, were obsessed with the idea of the communal swimming pool. But since COVID-19 was still a factor, I worried about how often we could use it. I messaged the listed host, Carmen, twice about my concerns but didn't hear back. I assumed she was busy because it was a popular time of year.

Six days before our stay — once we'd received the information about getting into the villa — I decided to call Carmen directly to air my concerns. Luckily, she answered. But the moment I said that I had booked the villa through Airbnb, she sounded weary and resigned.

"I stopped renting out the space years ago," she said. "You're the third person to call me this week." She advised me to contact Airbnb for help.

I thought we were getting scammed

I started to panic because I thought we'd been scammed out of our money. I'd heard horror stories about people showing up at their supposed vacation home after a long flight — only to discover it wasn't an Airbnb at all.

Airbnb customer support listened patiently on the phone to my own frazzled complaint. But the company gave no suggestion as to how it could have happened. With no information, I thought we'd been victims of a scam.

But now we had a new problem. Last-minute Airbnb properties that didn't even come close to our minimum requirements were no longer available in Puerto Rico. We couldn't cancel our flights, which cost a total of $2,500. Even if there were any hotel rooms, we couldn't have afforded them on top of the cost of eating out.

My son started to cry, convinced that we'd have to stay at home.

I was so desperate to find somewhere to stay that I didn't realize we'd have to fly in a pricey small plane to get there

It took a frantic 24 hours to find something new through a website offering rental homes. I swooped in before it was gone, putting the $2,000 nonrefundable fee on our credit card. I was so desperate because the clock was ticking that I didn't bother to check the location of the house. My husband came home from work and Googled the place. It was on the rural island of Vieques, 6 miles off the coast of Puerto Rico.

"No worries," I said. "We can take the ferry." But Google said otherwise.

Ferries to Vieques were suspended for everyone but locals because of COVID-19. We had no choice but to purchase four $500 seats on a puddle-jumper flight between San Juan and Vieques. The hefty price tag busted our vacation budget by 25%. We somehow managed to secure the last rental car on the island, according to the rental-car people.

It turned out that Vieques was an unspoiled fantasy island. Wild horses roamed the 52 square miles. The white-sand beaches were exquisite and deserted. It was one of the best vacations we'd had.

We still prefer to stay in Airbnbs

Writing this two years on, I contacted Airbnb to find out whether my scam theory was right. This time around, they gave an explanation as to what happened.

"This host has stated that they previously had access to this property," a spokesperson said, adding: "It appears that they did not turn off the listing until our team helped them do so in March 2021." It wasn't a scam, after all. It was a snafu — a mix-up that could nonetheless have left our family out in the street.

Still, I learned a lesson. The blunder taught me the importance of doing my own research as painstakingly as possible. It taught me that traveling is rarely a smooth process. But the experience hasn't swayed me in terms of booking hotels over Airbnbs. We'll never really be hotel people. Self-catering places — which tend to be cheaper — will always work better for us. We need the option of cooking for ourselves since it's too expensive to eat out constantly.

We've happily stayed at two Airbnbs since the Puerto Rico mess. Both times, I did my due diligence. I made sure that the reviews were recent and filtered the listings for owners who'd earned the coveted label of "Superhost." In other words, they're people who are more likely to be reliable, experienced, and responsive.