Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

press.airbnb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 385 posts

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#341

Post by stef25 »

zeropnc wrote: post #325
stef25 wrote: post #229

What's amazing at Airbnb is their ability to make places look so much nicer in the pictures than what they look like in reality. After staying in a crack house in Barcelona, a dirty dark hole in Manhattan, a "private" villa in France where the owner was screwing an endless stream of boyfriends behind the flimsy kitchen door at 10AM, a thermite infested apartment in Sicily with horrid beds, I still feel like a total a…

Uh, maybe you’re just complacent.... not to get into a war of anecdotes, but I live out of Air Bnbs and have lived in 100+ around the world. Very rarely is the place not as it seems, if ever.

Maybe it's because I always go for the cheaper end of the spectrum? It's not that I'm squeamish or a clean freak. For years I'd travel to SE Asia and stay in 5$ beach huts with no hot water. Some Airbnbs I've stayed in were pretty great.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#342

Post by random_kris »

zeropnc wrote: post #325
stef25 wrote: post #229

What's amazing at Airbnb is their ability to make places look so much nicer in the pictures than what they look like in reality. After staying in a crack house in Barcelona, a dirty dark hole in Manhattan, a "private" villa in France where the owner was screwing an endless stream of boyfriends behind the flimsy kitchen door at 10AM, a thermite infested apartment in Sicily with horrid beds, I still feel like a total a…

Uh, maybe you’re just complacent.... not to get into a war of anecdotes, but I live out of Air Bnbs and have lived in 100+ around the world. Very rarely is the place not as it seems, if ever.

what do you do to afford living out of air bnbs?

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#343

Post by macleginn »

stef25 wrote: post #229

What's amazing at Airbnb is their ability to make places look so much nicer in the pictures than what they look like in reality. After staying in a crack house in Barcelona, a dirty dark hole in Manhattan, a "private" villa in France where the owner was screwing an endless stream of boyfriends behind the flimsy kitchen door at 10AM, a thermite infested apartment in Sicily with horrid beds, I still feel like a total a…

I haven't tried Airbnb in the US, but I stayed at a lot of places in Europe and Israel and once in Australia.

It really depends on the country. Israeli Airbnbs are usually not fantastic because people don't really know how to this stuff properly even if they are generally nice and want you to have a pleasant stay (and the prices are crazy). A well-chosen* airbnb in Ireland, on the other hand, is usually superb.

*Which entails trawling through several pages of reviews and looking for small details.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#344

Post by pvdebbe »

pastor_elm wrote: post #198
bertil wrote: post #176

It’s interesting that no one here, after 160 comments, is speculating about the impact to Booking.com B. is the 7th largest internet company in the world but because it’s in Amsterdam and not US based, hardly anyone think about them. They have incredible technology, often on-par with the big ones but I’m not anyone here could name one problem where they pionnered a solution. Disclaimer: I used to work for one of thei…

my favorite part about Booking is that it will tell me how many other people are currently looking at the last available room i'm looking it. Let's me know if i have to swoop it up quickly!

They just say that, because the sense of urgency on the customer's side is the seller's greatest asset.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#348

Post by breatheoften »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #285
stef25 wrote: post #229

What's amazing at Airbnb is their ability to make places look so much nicer in the pictures than what they look like in reality. After staying in a crack house in Barcelona, a dirty dark hole in Manhattan, a "private" villa in France where the owner was screwing an endless stream of boyfriends behind the flimsy kitchen door at 10AM, a thermite infested apartment in Sicily with horrid beds, I still feel like a total a…

I can't stand the review inflation. You're totally disincentivized from leaving an honest review because of the counter review or because you somehow feel like the dick, and I'm sure AirBnB loves it. A place that turns out to be right on the noisy highway won't have a single review that points this out. Only "great for early risers!"

I don’t think your review can be seen until after the host has also reviewed you — so they couldn’t respond to a negative review in the counter review. But I do agree that there is still pressure to give positive reviews - both the pressure of not wanting to be a dick and the pressure that comes from knowing that future hosts are incentivized to avoid guests with a history of giving negative reviews.

My strategy is to just not review if my review wouldn’t be positive.

Been using Airbnb quite a lot in Europe the last few months though and I have generally found some very high quality and accurately advertised listings — only had 1 that really fell below expectations.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#349

Post by gpvos »

jasonjei wrote: post #241
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly question who hotels are for. I'm in the top 2% in income, and I actually prefer staying in a hotel, but they'r e just insanely expensive. Do you mostly stay in hotels for business reasons? Or are you just rolling in money?

With hotels, I can get late checkout until 4pm, and sometimes check in early. Additionally, they’ll hold on to my luggage even when the room isn’t ready and they’ll hold on to my luggage when I checkout and I’m ready to leave the city. I can be guaranteed that my room will be professionally sanitized and cleaned. If I have status either via frequent traveler program or credit card, they’ll reward me with points multi…

I've been to several Airbnbs that have flexible check-out.

Re: Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight

#350

Post by cr1895 »

aboutruby wrote: post #183
bertil wrote: post #176

It’s interesting that no one here, after 160 comments, is speculating about the impact to Booking.com B. is the 7th largest internet company in the world but because it’s in Amsterdam and not US based, hardly anyone think about them. They have incredible technology, often on-par with the big ones but I’m not anyone here could name one problem where they pionnered a solution. Disclaimer: I used to work for one of thei…

Completely disagree on the technology part, everything being written in Perl doesn't help and the user experience is not as good as Airbnb. The main thing going for them is that they have basically every hotel on their platform. And like others mentioned, that a lot of people prefer hotels to airbnbs.

>the user experience is not as good as Airbnb.

This user's perspective is the opposite.

Post reply on HN