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Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

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Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#71

Post by ghaff »

dcolkitt wrote: post #10
miked85 wrote: post #3

I guess I am in the minority, but I have never understood this business. You would have to pay me to stay in someone else's house vs a hotel.

It’s really a nice option when traveling with a large family. If you’re spread across four or five hotel rooms, you really spend much less time together than in a large house with a big common space. Plus most AirBnBs are just dedicated rental properties. It’s pretty rare that you’re actually in anyone’s house anymore.

Or a group of friends. Pre-AirBnB, multiple times a group of us rented a house for a long weekend. Much nicer than being in a bunch of hotel rooms. AirBnB didn't pioneer vacation rentals but it did make it take off.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#72

Post by aliyfarah »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #63

Why doesn't AirBNB just vertically integrate to make some of these issues go away? They could have AirBnB locks, which only open via the app after payment and approval for the guest is received. For cleaning, they could hire out cleaning to the hosts or even the guests for a discount, or they could acquire someone like TaskRabbit or an Uber-for-cleaning type app. To me, it seems they're taking the easy way out by not…

I think around half the properties are owner occupied, it wouldn’t make sense to have locks in your own house just because you’re hosting a guest.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#73

Post by ww520 »

Mizza wrote: post #52

Is anybody else kind of over AirBnb? I loved it for a while, but now prices have gone way up, the "cleaning fees" are exorbitant and make navigating/browsing a minefield, and I've had a few sketchy incidents (which were, admittedly, a side effect of choosing the cheapest place I could find), including one where the apartment manager came in, went through our clothes and _stole the bed_. I've found myself just using h…

Yep. I found hotels have consistent standard with transparent pricing and quality. The prices for hotels are comparable if not better.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#74

Post by msh »

rhino369 wrote: post #60
Mizza wrote: post #52

Is anybody else kind of over AirBnb? I loved it for a while, but now prices have gone way up, the "cleaning fees" are exorbitant and make navigating/browsing a minefield, and I've had a few sketchy incidents (which were, admittedly, a side effect of choosing the cheapest place I could find), including one where the apartment manager came in, went through our clothes and _stole the bed_. I've found myself just using h…

Hotels are usually easier and cheaper EXCEPT if you actually want a whole house. Traveling with kids and a babysitter requires like 3 rooms and having a kitchen is a huge plus. So for that, its really good.

Travel with a baby sitter?!?!? How big can that market be?

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#75

Post by makecheck »

miked85 wrote: post #3

I guess I am in the minority, but I have never understood this business. You would have to pay me to stay in someone else's house vs a hotel.

There’s really no other way to get an experience like a private pool away from home, for example. The surroundings can often be much more peaceful too, e.g. a house may be in a quiet street and not in the middle of downtown.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#76

Post by staticautomatic »

msh wrote: post #74
rhino369 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotels are usually easier and cheaper EXCEPT if you actually want a whole house. Traveling with kids and a babysitter requires like 3 rooms and having a kitchen is a huge plus. So for that, its really good.

Travel with a baby sitter?!?!? How big can that market be?

Probably bigger than you’d think. My family occasionally traveled with a babysitter when I was a kid and at the time we were thoroughly middle class.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#77

Post by 1024core »

AirBnB will always take the side of hosts; their business model depends on cornering the market on hosts. Where there are hosts, there will be guests, or so they think.

This is why they remove reviews which are negative. I stayed at an AirBnB in Hawaii once, which was filthy. In the middle of the night I decided to just leave, and I told the AirBnB CSR that I couldn't stay there. They agreed and refunded me that day's cost. But they wouldn't let me leave a review, claiming that since I had not stayed, I couldn't leave one. If only I had read a negative review before booking, I would not have booked it.

And recently, I tried to book a place to get away into the boonies for a bit. I noticed that none of the reviews of that place were more recent than May 2020. I put in a request, and never heard back from the host. How rude! Once again, if they had some reviews in there about hosts, I wouldn't have wasted my time.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#78

Post by rhacker »

msh wrote: post #74
rhino369 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotels are usually easier and cheaper EXCEPT if you actually want a whole house. Traveling with kids and a babysitter requires like 3 rooms and having a kitchen is a huge plus. So for that, its really good.

Travel with a baby sitter?!?!? How big can that market be?

Not as big as the market of traveling with maid.

edit also sounds like the title of a xhampster video.

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#79

Post by Judgmentality »

staticautomatic wrote: post #76
msh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Travel with a baby sitter?!?!? How big can that market be?

Probably bigger than you’d think. My family occasionally traveled with a babysitter when I was a kid and at the time we were thoroughly middle class.

What is your definition of middle class?

Re: Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away

#80

Post by taude »

Mizza wrote: post #52

Is anybody else kind of over AirBnb? I loved it for a while, but now prices have gone way up, the "cleaning fees" are exorbitant and make navigating/browsing a minefield, and I've had a few sketchy incidents (which were, admittedly, a side effect of choosing the cheapest place I could find), including one where the apartment manager came in, went through our clothes and _stole the bed_. I've found myself just using h…

Yeup, I went to book, and got a $600 for a couple nights, when I clicked through, it was actually almost $1K with cleaning fees, airbnb fees, and local taxes. At that rate, I'm going back to traditional hotel rooms, and for the longer week stays, I'm just going to go back to using the other sites I used to use for booking longer-term rentals.
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