Airbnb owners have asked me to do a 16km round trip to pick up the keys...

...from a completely different city to the one I'm staying in!

Is this normal!? I've stayed in places where you can exchange the keys maybe a 30 minute walk away in the same town which is reasonable, but this seems ludicrous.

When I asked if they were joking they adopted a really bad argumentative attitude with me and said it was never agreed they would exchange keys with me in the same town. But all it says on their public documentation is 'contact us to arrange key exchange' - am I an idiot for assuming it would at least be in the same town?

I've paid a bloody lot of money to stay in this apartment (out of season, may I add) plus a big deposit.

They also said the keys will only be ready for collection at 4pm which is actually my check-in time, so it's completely eating into the first day of my holiday having to make this trip.

I can't find any policy from AirBnB on this, so as customers are we just always at the mercy of the hosts and expected to bow to their demands? I just feel they should have at least been explicit about this when I made the booking instead of dropping it on me the day before my check-in :(