161–170 of 527 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, scam is the right word. It could pretty easily be rolled into the advertised nightly rate.
> It could pretty easily be rolled into the advertised nightly rate. No it can't because the hosts are trying to charge a fixed fee per reservation.
In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available. Back to the topic - removing listings isn’t a sufficient enough punishment imho. And how would you even prove it from the guests side? Take a picture I suppose? But how do you stop bad actors? Not sure what the correct solution is. Someone who wants to spy can purchase a spy camera which is very abundant these days.
"In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available." I still, can not wrap my head around this. The idea behind airbnb was to rent out unused parts of your house. You STILL can not do this. Motel 6 is cheaper all day everyday. I will keep giving my $80 to Motel 6, but, I KNOW there is someone out there that has a room and needs $80. The original problem still exists. I can't pa…
Airbnb raised rents to to point where either people have no space or those spare rooms are filled with longish-term tenants, at lower void rates. Or their children had to move back in because all the inner city housing is now AirBnbs.
I'm worried this ban will only affect honest hosts. Anyway, what Airbnb should really ban is hosts charging a mandatory cleaning fee when also requiring their guests to do the cleaning. We just stayed at one this weekend, and like almost all our previous bookings, the host asked us to: - Take off all bedding and towels and start a load of laundry - Do all the dishes and start the dishwasher (but required to hand-wash…
It still probably helps reduce surveillance a fair bit:
- honest host who currently disclosed cameras will stop
- dishonest hosts who are worried about getting caught will stop (most aren’t tech savvy enough to hide cameras, catching them isn’t hard, and they don’t want to risk getting kicked off platform)
- really dishonest hosts who hide cameras will get kicked off platform if caught (and potential civil/criminal cases)
Not perfect but a good move and should help.
I'm worried this ban will only affect honest hosts. Anyway, what Airbnb should really ban is hosts charging a mandatory cleaning fee when also requiring their guests to do the cleaning. We just stayed at one this weekend, and like almost all our previous bookings, the host asked us to: - Take off all bedding and towels and start a load of laundry - Do all the dishes and start the dishwasher (but required to hand-wash…
At this point the cleaning fees are just a scam to make the listing fee seem artificially lower. People did the same thing on eBay by making the items almost free but the shipping expensive, until they fixed the eBay interface, e.g. by letting you sort by price + shipping and showing shipping fees before you click.
I'm worried this ban will only affect honest hosts. Anyway, what Airbnb should really ban is hosts charging a mandatory cleaning fee when also requiring their guests to do the cleaning. We just stayed at one this weekend, and like almost all our previous bookings, the host asked us to: - Take off all bedding and towels and start a load of laundry - Do all the dishes and start the dishwasher (but required to hand-wash…
I almost forgot how annoying Airbnb is until I started staying in hotels again. I will gladly take a smaller property in exchange for dealing with people that have actual hospitality training, daily room cleaning, room service, etc. Hotels are just a nicer experience. I don't want to spend my vacation cleaning the room or worrying about a "host."
I've found that hotels have cut back on the services also. I tend to stay at middle-tier hotels, i.e. Hampton Inn or something similar and they often don't service the room if you are there for multiple nights. I get not replacing towels if they are hanging up but even making up the beds and removing the trash isn't always done. I'd guess that post-pandemic they just don't have enough staff to get all the rooms done…
Not sure how AirBnB has a $100 billion market cap. The use case for an AirBnB, which is mostly large group travel, seems limited when comparing to the use case for a hotel (every other type of travel). Marriott and Hyatt combined have a lower market cap than AirBnB.
Airbnb has a PE of 22 and is a money printing machine. Airbnb makes 10x the profit of Hyatt, which has a PE of 75. Use case of hotels might be bigger, but it is a highly contended market. Airbnb has a huge chunk of a smaller market. Also, the margins are much better on hosting a website than building hotels and paying thousands of service employees.
Checking for cameras seems like a smart move no matter what their policy is. You just never know.
I’m stunned people still use AirBNB after most hosts turned their high paying customers into unpaid housekeepers.