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How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

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Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#121

Post by hintklb »

huevosabio wrote: post #10

Mega-tangent: As a host, I feel compelled to rant about Airbnb whenever they come up in a discussion. The last 2 years they have _really_ moved to squeeze the hosts. The customer service has been demolished and they seem to have taken a stance of "the guest is always right". I've spent countless hours going through their customer service as a super host, so I know I have a decent amount of anecdata. My suspicion is t…

Surprised to hear this because I had a very weird experience on my last stay. (and it will always be last as I will never stay at an Airbnb again).

Airbnb sided with the Host for some fabricated damages because the host was mad we told them the place was unclean. They put the burden of proof on us to prove we didn't destroy one of the sinks. Absolutely ridiculous.

We had to fight it for 3+ hours on the phone and message and start a chargeback and only then did support drop the fabricated charge.

And to top all of this, Airbnb deleted our bad review from that place (but left the review of the host).

So, never, absolutely never again. Too bad because I was spending 2k+$ on Airbnb before that incident and only got great reviews from other hosts.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#122

Post by appreciatorBus »

secabeen wrote: post #106
toast0 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who don't need kitchens and just book hotels don't say anything because their needs are met. There are also some hotels with kitchens. Usually they have 'Suites' in their name. I stay at one most holiday seasons, we go and visit my folks and want to have a place where my family can cook without taking over my parents' kitchen. I've stayed places with vrbo, which is pretty similar to airbnb, but older. It's…

> There are also some hotels with kitchens. Usually they have 'Suites' in their name. I stay at one most holiday seasons, we go and visit my folks and want to have a place where my family can cook without taking over my parents' kitchen. These are okay, but they still have the antiseptic, overly-clean feeling of a space optimized for housekeeping. They will usually have a small couch or two, and maybe a table for 4.…

The argument was never about what anyone individual should or should not do, it was about the idea that the limitations of the hotel format are more driven by urban planning and local politics - striving to keep buildings as small as possible, concentrating all non-house buildings in small slips of land, etc. - than anything inherent to the hotel format. Hotels and Airbnb’s are great, but both be better if both were legal on 100% of the land in the city, along with apartment buildings and every other form of housing, and without the arbitrary restrictions on size.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#123

Post by hintklb »

huevosabio wrote: post #52
jeofken wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PMS as in Pantone Matching System or Premenstrual Syndrome? AirBNB can be equally frustrating for users as well. Recently ended up at night in a new city in northern Japan where the host told me the listing was at a different address, where I found nothing, and got only radio silence from the host. Every hotel room in town was occupied that night. Airbnb support, seemingly in far away India, told me to try contacting…

PMS as property managements software :). And yes, I use Airbnb as a guest as well, but I gauge the risk of having a bad host into the decision making. We also get all type of horror stories from guests that had a bad experience and found themselves trying to find a last minute place to stay. The problem is that the Airbnb app heavily disincentivizes "professionalization". They have a small cartel of PMS providers tha…

I never even understood why people even think Airbnb is a tech company.

They basically operate a pretty simple website. Most of their busines is about arbitrating issues when they come. This has nothing to do with tech.

I would bet that United Airlines or American Airlines website handles way more queries than Airbnb.

But for some reason they managed to market themselves as a "design driven" "Tech company".

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#124

Post by bombcar »

nothercastle wrote: post #53
bombcar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how things like Airbnb (and ebay) die - the hosts and sellers know all the tricks and so the buyers just leave; it’s not worth the hassle.

The eBay experience has improved dramatically. Its far better than Amazon 3rd party

I've actually noticed that; perhaps it's easier to scam/sell crap on Amazon now than eBay - and so eBay becomes actually usable again.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#125

Post by nothercastle »

bombcar wrote: post #124
nothercastle wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The eBay experience has improved dramatically. Its far better than Amazon 3rd party

I've actually noticed that; perhaps it's easier to scam/sell crap on Amazon now than eBay - and so eBay becomes actually usable again.

I think the scams are all automated on Amazon so that makes it even easier

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#126

Post by lifestyleguru »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #92
sabellito wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use booking.com, better in every way and customer support that won't stonewall you.

People are getting downvoted for criticizing booking.com. They're a shit company and everyone who works in tech in The Netherlands knows it.

Their hyper aggressive marketing strategy is already telling. Their website randomly pops up when you search and book the flight already. Spanish holiday rental owners don't even advertise anywhere else afraid of booking.com price match policy, but are insolent enough to collect full photo of guests' id document and install cameras inside apartment. Booking is the only place to book holiday rental in Europe and I hate using their service.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#127

Post by clove »

makingstuffs wrote: post #94
BrenBarn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were going to disrupt AirBNB, I'd offer hosts a better percentage with the requirement that the experience is standardized and high-quality. I've noticed more and more apartment rentals appearing on booking.com. I haven't used any of them but I wonder what the tradeoffs are. My impression is overall booking.com is more guest-friendly as their userbase has grown from people staying at hotels, who expect stuff l…

From my experience booking.com is the most guest hostile platform I’ve experienced to the point I try to actively avoid it. I travel A LOT and can book anything from 20 - 40 stays per jaunt. Whenever I have encountered a problem on booking it has always been met with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ tough shit energy. I remember one specific incident when a hotel had purposefully put me in a noisy room (I saw a sheet on the reception desk…

I'm Booking.com's Genius Level 3, so perhaps this only applies to frequent users, but I've been refunded in full for a booking after the date of the booking without even giving the reason for the refund request.

I've shifted 100% away from AirBnb and to Booking and am still able to book whole apartments/houses. It used to be AirBnb=houses/apts, Booking=hotels. Now Booking covers both, is usually cheaper (especially considering the cleaning fees AirBnb listings usually charge), and has good customer support (in my experience).

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#128

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

gameshot911 wrote: post #103
iambateman wrote: post #61

Airbnb’s original promise was magical, thrilling, interesting - get to stay in unusual places that are full of charm and possibility. But that promise was broken for me when Commaleta played back the video of her front door camera and counted that we had 10 people walk in her door, not eight. She proceeded to accuse us of throwing a party, when we absolutely did not, and tried to charge us $1000 extra dollars. At tha…

Were 10 people in fact staying when the listing max was 8?

Many hosts consider anyone entering the unit , even just for lunch or dinner, to count against the listing "max", and accuse you of having a party. and some are quite big brotherish about monitoring.

Re: How Airbnb measures listing lifetime value

#129

Post by huevosabio »

hintklb wrote: post #123
huevosabio wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PMS as property managements software :). And yes, I use Airbnb as a guest as well, but I gauge the risk of having a bad host into the decision making. We also get all type of horror stories from guests that had a bad experience and found themselves trying to find a last minute place to stay. The problem is that the Airbnb app heavily disincentivizes "professionalization". They have a small cartel of PMS providers tha…

I never even understood why people even think Airbnb is a tech company. They basically operate a pretty simple website. Most of their busines is about arbitrating issues when they come. This has nothing to do with tech. I would bet that United Airlines or American Airlines website handles way more queries than Airbnb. But for some reason they managed to market themselves as a "design driven" "Tech company".

It's a tech assisted operations company, similar to Uber and Lyft.

The key distinction between say United Airlines and gig tech companies is that the latter will aggressively avoid owning physical assets and use tech to be a streamlined middle man in a market that actually requires a lot of operations.

They are a tech company, but in the sense that they get their edge from software not that they sell it.

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