Perhaps the difference is that you’ve been fortunate enough to never need Airbnb support to help you on something serious. When things go well, it’s amazing. When things go poorly, you realize how anti-guest the policies and support team behave. That’s when it changed for me. I realized how pro-host, anti-guest they are. Hotels generally seem to care when something goes wrong. Airbnb support behaves like you have inc…
Not every hotel cares. The hotel I’m staying at right now is dirty as fuck. The valve for the shower does not operate properly, the water pressure is extremely low and it barely gets above 90F. Other rooms in the same hotel have a different valve and the showers work fine. “We will send a maintenance person right away” it’s been a week. There is old food under and behind my bed. They empty trash in the hall once a we…
An unclean room would be an instant nope for me. Ask for a refund or file a chargeback.
Which has been VRBO to a large degree. Not sure how common that is for Airbnb as a use case. A lot of what I see is looking for a cheaper room.
Anecdotally I've never heard anyone say "VRBO." Maybe they are using it but just saying "yeah we stayed in an Airbnb" kind of like if you use Lyft but call it Uber cause that's the more common noun. So I feel like they did successfully establish themselves as the noun for that kind of thing, which to me speaks to the power of the idea and the marketplace they created because the name doesn't exactly roll off the tong…
I agree with all that. One or two people mostly looking for a decent place to stay in the right location without hassle probably describes most travelers under most circumstances. I know it does me and I've travelled over 100 days a year at times. And that's probably not atypical of a lot of business travelers.
Even these days I'm not mostly looking to deeply research my overnight stays much of the time and often default to my hotel chain of choice or a hotel/Aparthotel that I have previous experience with.
Maybe I'm in the minority but I've generally had very good -- or at least, "good as I expected" -- experiences at AirBnbs, even recently. Sometimes I've stayed with rich friends who book nice places, and the experience is, as expected, very nice. Many other times I have stayed at bottom-of-the-barrel places, which were, as expected, bottom of the barrel flophouses. But tolerably so, and true to the advertisement (fun…
I think the people who say hotels are better than AirBnb aren't traveling with kids. Having an actual kitchen when you travel with kids is great. Having actual separate bedrooms so we don't have to go to sleep at 8pm when the kids go to sleep is great. Being able to do laundry without tracking down a laundromat or pay exorbitant hotel prices is great. Having a living room or similar area with at least a few square me…
Strange. As a father of two I prefer hotels over AirBnB. Laundry could be an issue, yes, but not having a kitchen is actually a feature for me. Someone else taking care of feeding the little ones is exactly what hotels are for
They bringing a large pool of customers who will only ever pay "loss leading" prices. The ultimate problem with Groupon is their customers.
And as customers, I quickly realized that businesses didn't actually want me there either. I was a distraction to their actual profitable customers.
For me, it was one of those businesses that, as a consumer, you realized was sort of a novelty but the coupons weren't really really worth it and they were a PITA to use a lot of the time. And once the novelty wore off, they sort of slipped off your radar and weren't worth thinking about any longer even if there might be an interesting deal here or there.
why are they banned ? is it violation of local regulations or is it pressure from the hotel lobby - specifically singapore which has capitalist aspirations.
Singapore is a global financial hub. I'm not sure, what do you mean by "capitalist aspirations"?
just curious why they would not let a business like airbnb operate - is it pressure on housing (investors soaking up the housing stock) or is it something else ? By capitalist aspirations I meant friendly to business, and less regulations. I do understand that - housing, like education and healthcare cannot be left entirely to private means.
Maybe I'm in the minority but I've generally had very good -- or at least, "good as I expected" -- experiences at AirBnbs, even recently. Sometimes I've stayed with rich friends who book nice places, and the experience is, as expected, very nice. Many other times I have stayed at bottom-of-the-barrel places, which were, as expected, bottom of the barrel flophouses. But tolerably so, and true to the advertisement (fun…
I used to like Airbnb. It's not better or cheaper than hotels, but when travelling with kids it makes a big difference. Until I had a bad experience, that turned horrible. I saw a side of the company that made me think "never again". I rented a place from a "superhost" that looked very nice on paper. It was in fact very bad. Everything in the description was misleading, photos were doctored to look nice, "windows" op…
In Germany it's apparently illegal to leave a bad review of a business. Even if their experience was bad. Even if you can prove in a court of law that they lied on their listing.
Anywhere you could build a hotel you could also build more housing, so they pose the same issue. There is necessarily some tension between using space for permanent housing and using it for tourism / short term stays. Tourism often keeps a city's economy healthy, and having short term stays is important for those visiting even for non-tourism reasons (e.g. in town to visit family, for work, etc). The housing issue is…
But...why should some direct investment towards "housing" if they can direct them towards the day-rentals ? Its definitely in their economical self-interest. So as long as we allow these platforms (be it AirBnB, Amazon or FB) to amplify a single parameter at the detriment of everything else in the society as a whole, I am afraid all the philosophical discussions about "complex" aspects will not help.
That's the problem, isn't it? Capitalism sucks. City governments could set rules like: you must build 3 residential units for every hotel room.
Maybe I'm in the minority but I've generally had very good -- or at least, "good as I expected" -- experiences at AirBnbs, even recently. Sometimes I've stayed with rich friends who book nice places, and the experience is, as expected, very nice. Many other times I have stayed at bottom-of-the-barrel places, which were, as expected, bottom of the barrel flophouses. But tolerably so, and true to the advertisement (fun…
I used to like Airbnb. It's not better or cheaper than hotels, but when travelling with kids it makes a big difference. Until I had a bad experience, that turned horrible. I saw a side of the company that made me think "never again". I rented a place from a "superhost" that looked very nice on paper. It was in fact very bad. Everything in the description was misleading, photos were doctored to look nice, "windows" op…
I don't agree that Booking.com handles customer complaints better than Airbnb. I had booked a flat through Booking.com. The host wanted a deposit of my credit card information via an untrustworthy customised Italian website for a deposit before handing over the pin to collect the key. I do not speak Italian. Giving my credit card information to a strange website whose language I don't speak was not part of the agreement. The host then refused to give me access to the flat. My complaint to Booking.com was answered with standard texts pointing out that the deposit was obligatory in the small print and therefore part of the contract. However, the small print, which I admittedly had not read before booking, stated that the deposit was to be paid in cash. It didn't say anything about credit cards. I tried over five rounds of back and forth to get a complaint and a refund via Booking, as I didn't actually receive the flat and therefore didn't get any service. Booking then simply stopped replying. When I then wanted to take legal action and claim the amount, it turned out that I would have had to sue somewhere in Holland. So all the money was gone and I had double the cost for that night because I had to book a room elsewhere. So I've had the worst experience with booking.com customer support.
I am not a chronic traveler but never understood the appeal of airbnb. Most low-mid to midrange chain hotels offer reasonably clean rooms for equivalent (or sometimes cheaper) price than airbnb after fees and I don’t need to play housekeeper either, or worry about weird owners, which seems to me like the whole nice thing about renting a short term place to sleep.
It has a kitchen, which comes in very handy when you want to save money and cook.
I've rented plenty of rooms with a kitchen, or at least a kitchenette.