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Why Airbnb is dead to me

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Re: Why Airbnb is dead to me

#211

Post by rangitatanz »

flippyhead wrote: post #10

I continue to use AirBnb but have been pretty disappointed in their customer service. I rent out a family cabin occasionally and someone who stayed there scratched the floor accidentally wearing winter boots with spikes on them. They admitted this, apologized and were generally totally awesome about it. It took me months to get Airbnb to figure out how to deduct money from their damage deposit. They first said I had…

Never heard of housetrip. Just tried it now for a holiday I have coming up looks like it's got some serious issues - was finding me houses miles away from where I wanted to go and indicating that they were far closer.

Re: Why Airbnb is dead to me

#212

Post by Canada »

mikeash wrote: post #106
scottmcdot wrote: post #28

Just tonight, my mother checked into an Airbnb in Vienna, Austria. She sent me photos of the bed which did not have new sheets, the towels which were not fresh, a band aid on the floor and some rubbish bins full of cigarettes and ash. The apartment was overall pretty dirty. The host's contact phone number goes straight to message bank (I also tried many times) and the host is not answering emails. In this situation,…

Not defending the host's actions or AirBnB in any way here, but if you're not capable of getting a hotel on your own, then you probably shouldn't be traveling to foreign countries alone. Edit: well, that was unpopular. Am I wrong, or just saying it inartfully?

You're right on the money. So are the other things you said elsewhere in this conversation. Picked up some downvotes, did you? Not surprising, the concept of personal responsibility is most definitely unpopular.

AirBnB is not a hotel, and anyone who treats it that way is going to have a bad time. A hotel is an institution with enough resources and redundancy that multiple members of it staff could literally die and customers wouldn't even notice.

AirBnB != the host AirBnB has introduced you to. The host is just some guy. AirBnB support is not in any way, shape, or form the same concept as taking up your problem with the manager at a hotel.

And yet, so many people expect AirBnB to resolve problems just like that.

Re: Why Airbnb is dead to me

#213

Post by hunterloftis »

Canada wrote: post #210
hunterloftis wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Don't make saving money a prerequisite. > 2. Book early. > 3. Only book with hosts who have many positive reviews. > 4. Try to stay at least a week. I have had two separate hosts cancel > $2,000, month-long reservations. We booked months in advance and only with hosts that had several positive reviews. We were not choosing places primarily by price as we gave up our expensive SF apartment to live full-time on th…

I'm doing the same thing, living out of AirBnB rentals. The best places are actual homes where the owner lives some part of the year. Bookshelves are filled with the books they love and art they appreciate hangs on the walls. Sitting on the couch is relaxing, working at the desk is productive and the kitchen is properly equipped. The owner has a regular housekeeper. Worry-free regular cleaning is easily arranged at a…

That's a good litmus test.

What has frustrated me most is the lack of repercussions to hosts who behave badly. For instance, as a guest, if I were to cancel my $2k trip 48 hours before arrival, I would still have to pay for it. I had a host do exactly that - cancel a $2k trip that had been booked for months, 48 hours before I got off the plane with a backpack and no place to go. The host saw minimal fallout - basically they were not allowed to rent those dates out to someone else.

We were literally unable to find another place in this small-ish town to stay so we had to change flights to a different city last minute. Not cheap. If hosts had similar financial commitments to guests, I suspect that would eliminate a whole swath of terrible hosts, mostly in your second (cheap hotel) category.

Re: Why Airbnb is dead to me

#214

Post by letstryagain »

snowwrestler wrote: post #207
letstryagain wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better experience than a hotel or serviced apartment? Good luck with that! Hotels and serviced apartments are literally designed from the ground up for a great customer experience. Some random person's house or apartment is just not going to be able to compete on customer experience.

Sometimes it is just a better experience staying a real apartment or home instead of a hotel. For example, you can pick up local ingredients and cook your own food. You can get a private space with multiple separate bedrooms. You say "serviced apartment"--is that a European thing? I've never heard of it. If I was traveling I would look to AirBnB or VRBO to find places that are not hotels.

In Australia you get serviced apartments everywhere. They are basically apartments that get serviced (cleaned, new linen etc) regularly like hotel rooms. You get separate bedrooms, kitchen, etc. just like a normal residential apartment.

Example: http://www.questapartments.com.au/

Re: Why Airbnb is dead to me

#215

Post by pavornyoh »

frandroid wrote: post #196
archagon wrote: post #3

Wow, what a nightmare. I'd like to think that they'd have my back in this kind of situation, but I guess not. Personally, though, I've stayed in almost 40 different European Airbnb rentals over the past year and didn't have any problems. It's not risk-free, but it's certainly better than trawling through the local equivalent of Craigslist. (Granted, I mostly stayed with people renting out a spare room, so there was p…

Renting a spare room is a key differentiator. All these bad experiences in the thread here have one thing in common: they're all for a whole suite. That's basically renting from all these real estate tycoon wannabes.

@Fandroid, I don't know about that analysis. My experiences have been good and bad. I rented a spare room and was kept up all night by the people in the next room if you know what I mean ..:)

Re: Why Airbnb is dead to me

#216

Post by tdylan »

gaius wrote: post #150
scottmcdot wrote: post #28

Just tonight, my mother checked into an Airbnb in Vienna, Austria. She sent me photos of the bed which did not have new sheets, the towels which were not fresh, a band aid on the floor and some rubbish bins full of cigarettes and ash. The apartment was overall pretty dirty. The host's contact phone number goes straight to message bank (I also tried many times) and the host is not answering emails. In this situation,…

Wait, you had a problem with AirBnB so you called Uber? Why not you know, an actual taxi to take her to an actual hotel??

Uber has far more control and safety with their supply than Airbnb does, even more so compared to Taxis in foreign countries.

Re: Why Airbnb is dead to me

#217

Post by bouyoul420 »

This happens with registered hotels and Expedia too. I had to be in Paris for a few days a couple of years ago so I chose a nice hotel on Expedia, and not very expensive as well. However, when I showed up, the hotel had no trace of the reservation. The manager didn't want to call Expedia because it would not change anything (no space left, he claimed). Instead, he very nicely called another hotel to find space for me. I even thanked him... However, the other hotel was the shittiest hotel I have ever stayed at and would probably not have survived a listing on the Internet. The manager there was crazy and the hotel was so bad they couldn't even manage to track which rooms were occupied by guests. And since it was a walk-in, I paid super high rates. While staying at that hotel, I heard multiple guests with the same story as me so it was not an isolated technical problem on the part of the local hotels (seems more than one hotel was in on it). When I complained to Expedia, it turned out the first hotel had cancelled the reservation right before I showed up so no foul for them (despite my never being told about it before showing up at the hotel). Expedia gave me a voucher in the end but the listing for that hotel stayed on the site.

Re: Why Airbnb is dead to me

#218

Post by icebraining »

notlisted wrote: post #53
icebraining wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any links to those previous discussions?

I don't want to tick anyone off here, I enjoy HN, and have for a long time (over 6 years). Perhaps I don't understand the ranking, but more than once active discussions just went away, with low-vote/low-interaction topics replacing them. I only see articles in my comment history from over a year ago. Search here isn't great, e.g. I can't find the article where PG himself commented on something I said. Here's a few wh…

I wasn't ticked off, just interested in searching for those threads on http://hnrankings.info/ . While you're right that the first thread had a fairly hard drop off from the front page, the other two just linearly dropped down.

Re: Why Airbnb is dead to me

#219

Post by chrismcb »

mikeash wrote: post #78
Elessar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever travelled to a foreign country where you don't speak the language? You really need to put yourself in the tourist's shoes. If I booked a tour and the host drove me to a different place to stay, that's all I can do. You rely on their ability to communicate, and if they're being kind and doing their best to make your stay comfortable, then that's fantastic. What you're suggesting is that you're going to s…

I've traveled quite a bit, including to Barcelona. If you speak English (and this person clearly does) then "don't speak the language" is not an issue there, or indeed almost anywhere. If I book a place for a certain period, then I'm staying for that whole period. If the host suddenly changes their mind and tells me I have to move, no way. I'm contacting the booking agency and having them tell the host to get lost. I…

This isn't so much of a "customer desiring a room" as it is a "company desiring a room for its employees."

Re: Why Airbnb is dead to me

#220

Post by freedombeer »

> Airbnb is essentially enabling any joe idiot to run a shit hotel anywhere in the world with zero accountability.

That clearly is the business model employed by these glorified Forms, fancy photos and legal agreements companies. No silver bullet, you get what you pay for, etc, unfortunately. Little has changed, clearly.

For the unfortunate visitors, I'd recommend one of the regulated accommodations in Barcelona.

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