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Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

bloomberg.com

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Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#81

Post by jcims »

foobar1962 wrote: post #43
rolltiide wrote: post #9

Cant AirBnB just stop marketing and slow their runway burn to almost nothing? They dont provide infrastructure or subsidies it should be okay

Airbnb is a middle-man, they make money from the transactions (bookings) between guest and host. The more bookings, the more money they make. The number of bookings is decreasing, and they are refunding their cut from bookings made months ago.

Yes but to GP's point what are their costs? Marketing and a website? The last place I went to book for 3 days had almost $90 in 'service fees'. ???

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#82

Post by SquishyPanda23 »

alexandec wrote: post #33

I've had bad experiences with multiple Airbnbs including: - showing up at night with the key not in the agreed location, and not being able to contact the owner until the next day - showing up and someone else was already in the unit - a webcam was plugged in and placed on the bedside table with no warning - conditions in the unit were significantly worse than those shown in the photos All these listings had great re…

This is, of course, the whole point of consumer protection.

The trend of all these "regulation arbitrage" startups seems to be to show consumers why the regulation existed in the first place.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#83

Post by prostheticvamp »

vkou wrote: post #69
fierarul wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

> I assume you were in Seoul for more than 1 day. What stopped you from going to the AirBnB starting the 2nd night? Not answering the call is no proof but I would have insisted to at least see the room I freaking paid for. Once the person you're transacting with ripped you off, why on Earth would you try to keep engaging with them? I mean, maybe if you want to waste your time on vacation, by all means, go ahead. I im…

> why keep engaging with them?

So you can survive getting second-guesses by random internet people.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#84

Post by samatman »

alexandec wrote: post #33

I've had bad experiences with multiple Airbnbs including: - showing up at night with the key not in the agreed location, and not being able to contact the owner until the next day - showing up and someone else was already in the unit - a webcam was plugged in and placed on the bedside table with no warning - conditions in the unit were significantly worse than those shown in the photos All these listings had great re…

AirBnB has been my de-facto landlord for about half of the last 18 months, all over the world. I've had two sub-par experiences (both in London fwiw) and one really-actually-bad one that nearly turned into a fistfight with the "host", who was illegally renting the place and furious that I, quite reasonably imho, contacted the condo desk to be let into the space.

AirBnB gave me a refund and a 10% off coupon for that last one. Overall I've been happy with it; must just be luck.

Nice to have my own apartment again though. The nomad life is fun, I just wanted a home after awhile.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#85

Post by samatman »

Jommi wrote: post #56
nuggien wrote: post #42

Airbnb is a shitty company. Last october we traveled to Seoul and couldn't find the location of the apartment we booked. Even the local taxi driver couldn't find it after circling the area for ~30 minutes. We called the host during the entire 30 minutes and didn't get through to them. After about 1 hour of time, we decided to call it quits and go book a hotel because it was 10pm at night and our kids needed to sleep.…

You're basically conflating different expectations in living conditions to being dishonest reviews. Your example of Tokyo feels absolutely tone deaf to me as someone who has been there multiple times. That's just the reality of the Tokyo rent market. The places are tiny and that's how the culture is there.

I had uniformly excellent AirBnB experiences in Tokyo, five out of five.

As a solo traveler. Nowhere I stayed was remotely suitable for a family of four.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#86

Post by cgurke »

In Croatia and a few other places, there are a lot of fake Airbnb listings. You can instant book them but they are not available and the host never answers. I once was stranded in a really dark and empty area of town because of this. The host provided a fake number even...

These fake hosts are still active, I can see the green dot indicating they are online if I look into the chat logs.

Airbnb did not pay for the hotel I had to book instead. I also couldn't use the meagre reimbursement I got on top of the full refund (at least...) because it was only valid for a month and I wasn't travelling at that time.

I still like the privacy and cooking my own food, but sometimes it's really terrible.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#87

Post by anigbrowl »

They're doomed, and the collapse in travel and discretionary spending could take a lot of property owners down with it. On the plus side this might clear a lot of greed out of the property market, allow prices to return to a saner median, and relieve the housing shortage that obtains in many places.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#88

Post by cgurke »

jcims wrote: post #81
foobar1962 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb is a middle-man, they make money from the transactions (bookings) between guest and host. The more bookings, the more money they make. The number of bookings is decreasing, and they are refunding their cut from bookings made months ago.

Yes but to GP's point what are their costs? Marketing and a website? The last place I went to book for 3 days had almost $90 in 'service fees'. ???

International customer service in many languages.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#89

Post by Kluny »

tw04 wrote: post #57
southphillyman wrote: post #30

I have started using hotels more lately after almost exclusively booking with airbnb for several years. 1 thing that I really appreciate about Airbnb still is that it allows you to stay in areas that usually don't have a lot of hotels, like Manhattan Beach CA or some other mostly residential area that also makes sense for tourist to stay. I would hate for them to fail and lose those options on a large scale

VRBO worked just fine before Airbnb was a thing.

I've never heard of it before this thread, so I guess they had a marketing problem. But I will definitely check it out next time I have reason to.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#90

Post by prawn »

djohnston wrote: post #47

I will stay in airbnb if someone else manages everything, otherwise I'm only in hotels now. I hate having to coordinate key pickups, I've shown up at listed places that weren't supposed to be listed by some middleman company. When I travel, the place I stay needs as few liabilities as possible, and airbnb cannot provide that. I still use the for the experience listings sometimes, but never for lodging.

Similar. I used to really like Airbnb and had a few great stays years back. But now I almost never even check it because the extra costs pile up and there are more disadvantages than advantages. I mostly stay in smaller motels where it is often the owner at the front desk, you can bank on someone being there to check you in at 10pm, etc.
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