221–230 of 253 posts
I used to use airbnb quite often (as a traveler), but I have to say it's lost its appeal for me. First, it's really not much cheaper than a hotel in most cases (some cases more expensive). Second, it's a hassle when you're on vacation to have to arrange in advance a specific time to pick up the keys to the place. Then, what happens if you happen to lose the keys (happened to me once)? What happens if it's in the midd…
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Is there a good explanation of the Sarbanes-Oxley issue somewhere? I tend to doubt procedural stuff like that could really be responsible.
Sarbanes-Oxley isn't solely responsible but it's one factor weighing on the scales. There is extra administrative overhead which costs real money, plus it exposes the company's leaders to more potential liability. The bill was well intentioned. But it has had the unintended side effect of locking retail investors out of many of the highest returning investments. There is overall a shrinking number of companies public…
maybe there's a narrative that by preventing retail investors from investing in high return investments they have also protected retail investors from high-risk investments (if we believe the returns are proper risk premia!)
I used to use airbnb quite often (as a traveler), but I have to say it's lost its appeal for me. First, it's really not much cheaper than a hotel in most cases (some cases more expensive). Second, it's a hassle when you're on vacation to have to arrange in advance a specific time to pick up the keys to the place. Then, what happens if you happen to lose the keys (happened to me once)? What happens if it's in the midd…
I've used airbnb over the years and have seen the standard drop massively (I'd say the same is true for uber).
When I first started using the service, the hosts were all over you to make sure you have a nice stay.
Nowadays it's a complete lottery. You can book a well reviewed place "host is great, nice laid back guy" and turn up to a locked dark house in a foreign country, whilst said host is comatose drunk somewhere having been in a bar brawl, and no phone..
Not to mention bailiffs turning up at the crack of dawn demanding money else the gas will be turned off (another top reviewed apartment).
And that cleaning fee.. no way to not pay it, regardless of if the place has actually been cleaned. Standard response is "sorry, I'm out of town, the previous guest should have cleaned up after themselves"
I too have gone back to hotels.
I used to use airbnb quite often (as a traveler), but I have to say it's lost its appeal for me. First, it's really not much cheaper than a hotel in most cases (some cases more expensive). Second, it's a hassle when you're on vacation to have to arrange in advance a specific time to pick up the keys to the place. Then, what happens if you happen to lose the keys (happened to me once)? What happens if it's in the midd…
There's an area Airbnb clearly fails for me, and it's the one your describe: short stays in populated areas. It's slightly cheaper than a hotel, but a hotel has a front desk that's staffed 24 hours a day to solve any problem you have, and you can usually cancel at no charge up to 24 hours before arriving. It's worth the small extra every night. That said , I've had good experiences with Airbnb for a very vacation-y v…
All the major ones? We've travelled through Tuscany/North Italy urban&rural, middle of tourism season, reserving same night stays with nothing but expedia and booking.com. Great deals too.
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Wait, can't you enforce the number of guests with Instant Book?
People lie. You still get negative feedback if you cancel a guest that is obviously lying. Sure, you can follow up w/ airbnb, but since they outsourced their staff to a Clearwater, FL and Ortigas, Metro Manila call center their SLA dropped from 24 hours to 2 weeks.
It can easily happen by accident - ie widening their search/not defining it properly, and then it propagates into booking itself.
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Wifi network and password in the Airbnb listing description, is this a normal thing to do?
I had one renter complain that they couldn't get the wifi network and password (and again ask for a refund), so I just gave in and put it in the listing. Airbnb has a way to enter it securely, but most guests never figure it out. Airbnb should probably text the wifi network and password automatically when a property is booked Update: I'm on phone with AirBNB support about this right now. Frankly their phone support i…
Expedia's market cap is at 19B today. 31B is much more valuable than it.
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Many services have this issue, that perfection is the minimum requirement. I don't understand why, given this, we don't just go to a thumbs up / thumbs down rating system. We have one option that means "fine" and four (or nine) that mean "terrible, and a risk to your business". I know I personally gave plenty of three star reviews on Lyft before I learned better, meaning them as "no complaints". Who knows what happen…
This could be a cultural design thing. A lot of these apps (Airbnb, Lyft, etc) are from the US, where getting full marks in school is a frequent occurence if you study reasonably well. In France for instance, it's very rare for a student to go above 15/20 or so at the college level (I graduated in the top 10% of my class with a 12/20 average; the top ranked student, whom I was friends with, had a 14/20 average). But…
When it comes to ratings used by others to evaluate, no system is more customer and vendor-hostile than one where everything that meets a minimum threshold for adequacy should be rated as perfect.
I booked a spare room in London a couple years ago in the Mayfair neighborhood, a quite expensive area. The woman who owned the flat wasn't the one in the photo, and a number of things about the flat seemed rather odd. Long story short, she was a prostitute.
You can upgrade your description to "most expensive area in central London". It's the final, £400 property on the London version of the Monopoly board, and is still worthy of that position.
The woman would probably prefer the term "high class escort". I think it's supposed to mean you can have a conversation afterwards.
Example -- NSFW, obviously: http://www.hautegirlslondon.com/
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Instead of asking customers to give numeric star ratings, perhaps a better option would be a short list of Yes / No / Unsure questions. Were there clean sheets on the bed? Were there any cockroaches? Did the appliances work? Etc. Such questions are more objective and less prone to inflation.
Booking.com does it, btw. And I strongly prefer it.