Stayed at an Airbnb last year where I left a ~4 star review taking off one star because of excessive noise from the bus stop outside (otherwise positive). Couple months later I get an email saying my review was removed for violating Airbnb policy. Had to contact support where they told me the host had submitted (fake) WhatsApp screenshots of me asking them for money to post a positive review and so they removed my review. No matter what I said customer support refused to reinstate my review. The most alarming thing is that they removed my review without any input from me. Interestingly, the property had added additional co-hosts where that property was their only property after my stay. Presumably these are fake profiles they used to file the dispute so it wouldn’t impact their main account.
In any case, I am never staying at an AirBnb again. Be aware that any rating on AirBnb can be easily manipulated by the host.
Also if you have status at a hotel, perks like room upgrades and late checkout are invaluable.
Value proposition isn’t there anymore either, airbnbs used to be super affordable but now match the price of hotels and if they don’t are in inconvenient locations.
Not to mention the impact it has on local housing supply and pricing.
Pricing is still relevant, at least in Europe (from my experience). I’ve done a lot of low-budget traveling with small groups of students in France this year, and AirBnB was (unfortunately) consistently and significantly less expensive than hotels.
Also, many hotels don’t give you access to a kitchen, which really sucks if you don’t want to spend money eating out every day.
There are probably better local websites in the countries you’re going to if you want apartments. I don’t know any in France, but they have them in other countries. Ask around. Vacation destinations are literally all apartments for rent by tourists.
Ask around
All right. Do you know any for any European country?
Yes. Adriatic.hr is good for Croatia.
But that requires effort on my part!
Unfortunately, the pricing still makes sense for larger groups of people.
There are far too many of these leeches taking up valuable housing in the most desirable part of my city
I can’t find a place to rent, but oh boy! look at all these temp stay airbnbs owned by vacation companies, my bad guess I should own a house.
Why should you get to use that desirable space 100% of the time instead of many different people being able to enjoy it?
Dropped a /s?
Be aware that any rating on AirBnb can be easily manipulated by the host.
This is the same reason that Yelp is bullshit. And Amazon reviews. And pretty much any reviews you can find online. It’s why people used the reddit search flag. Everything is gamed and manipulated. People suck.
now we can’t even us reddit anymore
Which is why reddit has been a target for gorilla marketing campaigns for a while now. I only trust review sites that I follow now
Dang so all I have to do to scam is have another WhatsApp account and send myself threatening messages 😯
Praxis would be to weaponize this and get your room comped while your staying at the Airbnb by having the host threaten you while your in the room. Karen’s have taught me to fight these fuckers at their own games just for the trill
Sorry brainstorming
Turn your chicken coop into a 5 star Airbnb listing with one simple trick!
Hotels are quite heavily regulated in all parts of their operation, many have unionized staff. AirBNB owners are wannabe landlords with no oversight.
I have to take issue with your assertion about hotel staff being unionized (although I recognize that could be true for your region). I’ve worked in hotels before and the reason they stay “cheap” is because they pay the cleaning and non-customer-facing staff the absolute bare minimum.
I’m coming from Midwestern America which certainly colors this experience, but in my case the housekeeping staff was made up almost exclusively of non-native English speakers. They were paid minimum, or close to it, and had room quotas that left them with 15-20 to “clean” a room.
On the events side of the business, the guys who set up tables and chairs were almost exclusively young, poor black men. The hotel only ran the air conditioning in those ballrooms when guests were present so it was regularly 80-85 f in those rooms with minimum wage staff doing manual labor.
Please understand I don’t have any love for the investment vehicle model that has taken over air-bnb, but hotels are by far the most disgusting socioeconomic workplace I’ve been in. I really don’t have the money for air-bnb, but I’ll certainly take some person paying off their rental over large corporation exploiting unskilled workers and immigrants.
First of all, fuck hotels, period.
And well, bad news… here in Mexico city the airbnb industry (yeah, u read it right) comes from conglomerates or already stupidly rich people, so yeah.
Also I work in a hostal in this same city, and yeah the pay is horrible, but keeps me floating while I get something else and there’s a lot of really nice people running the place wich their income really depends on guests making reservations, maybe one or two tips, etc. So yeah, the pay its horrible but it makes jobs.
My recommendation? Get a room in a hostal like the one I work for, usually they r really run by people, that’s one of the reasons I’m still working in there.
Maybe in your country. Here in France AirBnB are both cheaper and the rooms are nicer than hotel. Some of them could be landlords and profit… but some others rent something that would not be fitting as a location (like a vacation flat or a subpart of a house) but is OK for staying just a couple of days.
So I disagree heavily with your generalisation
In Montreal an Airbnb cought fire and killed 6 guests and one tenant because the owner converted a house to multiple Airbnb ignoring all regulation (including fire marshal rules)
English article https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/old-montreal-fire-airbnb-1.6801216
The french media had some follow up stories describing the owner total lack it respect for regulation. The province ended up banning Airbnbs but I don’t know the details of the bag
It was worth it back when it was people renting out a spare room in their house or their whole apartment when they were away for a small bit of cash on the side, there was a mutual understanding that you are staying in another individuals private space with all the rules and caveats that come with that, so the pricing will reflect the arrangement. For me, this made the inconvenience worth putting up with in most cases.
Now that booking an AirBnb costs as much as a hotel room and the service has been overrun by landlords looking to use it as their primary rental income though? I’m booking a hotel every time. If I’m paying hotel money I want hotel service and convenience.
I will take a hotel for it’s convenience, service, and predictability any day.
Beds are comfy 99% of the time, there’s an ice machine, and my god I’ll take any opportunity for room service/being waited on.
And if you want to travel cheaper, youth hostels are very affordable. Though you are not garanteed to have a private room, it’s perfectly ok if you just want a place to sleep imho
I gave up on Airbnb after the hosts cancelling the booking with my guests halfway there. Just booked a hotel and never looked back since then. To all the Airbnb hosts: professionals have standards.
If you aren’t willing to pay a little more for a comfortable experience, don’t go traveling. It’s supposed to be recovering, right?
Plus even the cheapest hotels I’ve stayed in at least offer a continental breakfast, and nicer ones usually have a full on chef on staff to make breakfast. I’ve stayed in hotels with full arcades and hibachi restaurants for not much more than a decent Airbnb. Plus, hotels are usually in city centers, near every amenity you could need, as compared to airbnbs often being in suburbs. I can get a ride from the airport with my hotel reservation, does that come with any Airbnb?
I get the destination airbnbs, like in the middle of the woods in a log cabin, or whatever. I’ll never get people leaving their suburban homes to go stay in someone else’s suburban homes though.
Ice machines was something puzzling to me when I was in the US. I am curious why would you need an ice machine if you already have a fridge in the room?
In Montreal an Airbnb cought fire and killed 6 guests and one tenant because the owner converted a house to multiple Airbnb ignoring all regulation (including fire marshal rules)
English article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-old-port-fire-1.6788756
The province ended up banning Airbnbs but I don’t know the details of the bag
Airbnbs were already illegal in the old port before that event. The company still allowed them to be posted. I’m quite sure the province didn’t ban them too, there are still legal postings. Unfortunately, not much happened after this event. Media pressure made it so that Airbnb closed a bunch of illegal ads, but without legislation and enforcement its only temporary.
How did they end up banning AirBnBs? I was just browsing Montreal AirBnBs yesterday ( funny enough).
I didn’t really follow up on it. Maybe it was just politician saying stuff or it’s banned but not enforced so nobody cares
Tbh I never looked before all this went down (cause why would I lol), so maybe there were changes and it wasn’t a “all airbnbs are banned” sort of thing. Maybe it removed a lot of listings.
Exactly nothing changed. There’s still just as many illegal air bnbs in Montreal.
Tiny soapbox time: I don’t trust AirBNB hosts to actually treat for bedbugs if they get them. I figure a reputable hotel chain at least has a fighting chance of taking it seriously.
Dodged bed bugs at an airbnb in LA earlier this year. When we made the report it didn’t allow us to comment on the listing. So somebody else could possibly run into the same issue without resolution
PSA: learn to how to check for bedbugs now instead of when you travel. Here’s a video that’s kind, but thorough.
Hahahajahah! I worked for the Hilton here in Mexico City dude, they do exactly the same as any other hotel/hostal in the city.
While I agree that hotels are generally better than Airbnb, I have always had really good luck with Airbnb. I traveled across the EU staying almost only in Airbnb’s and it was great. It also let me kind of see what the housing market was there if I ever wanted to move. Also one of my hosts in Amsterdam firmly believed in the “bed and breakfast” portion of Airbnb, and cooked breakfast in her kitchen for us every morning and had all kinds of great info about the city. Plus she had an old orange cat that liked to sit at the breakfast table with us.
I have almost always had good luck. Just one bad experience comes to my mind - my host in Germany was a psychopath. I didn’t have any problems with her, in fact I hardly ever met her during a one week stay. But I forgot the heating on when I left. She got so pissed off that she left a long, insulting review, where she said shit about how we never got along. Airbnb refused to delete the review, so I deleted my account. By the way, I don’t pay $200 for a night. I take the cheapest $20 room that I can find.
Anyway, I created a new Airbnb account. The nice thing is that I was able to use a referral link from my wife again to get the referral bonus. So by deleting and recreating my account, I actually made $50.
Last time I used Airbnb I had a chill French-Canadian host for two months in Mexico. He only cared about the temperature of the AC. Aside from that, I had girls over, I could listen to music late at night, and I could smoke weed inside
AirBNB was great when it first started out. It was basically people renting out a room in their home for a night or two, for far cheaper costs than hotels and in areas where a hotel wasn’t as readily available. It was a good way for those folks to make some cash on the side and helped the traveler find convenient low cost housing for a couple nights
Unfortunately companies and people decided they could buy up properties and start a business selling out rooms, prices skyrocketed and it no longer became worth it. I just stick to hotels now (or hostels if I ever decide to backpack through Europe or something)
The last few times I’ve used AirBNB it’s been a pretty much like borrowing someones home.
For one we were travelling in Portugal and stayed in this old portugese lady’s home in a small village along the coast. Really sweet lady, but a bit of a language barrier as she struggled with both english and spanish.
Next weekend me and some friends are renting a whole 4 bedroom summer house in southern Norway to use as a base for a weekend of diving.
But in general I’ve grown tired of the concept, and the scarcity it brings to the housing market in some cities is predatory.
I’m Portuguese, Airbnb “crappy clean before you leave” and 600$ fees haven’t caught up yet luckily. Last time I used a Airbnb was in 2016, rented a room on S. Miguel (main Azorean Island) for a fair price.
Since then I mostly just book hotels wherever I go, be it Europe or abroad. In Europe, because it’s just easier, often times cheaper, more flexible check-in/check-out and doesn’t have the language barrier like you said. And abroad because I just don’t feel as comfortable and it’s expensive
It was honestly quite nice. We could communicate decently enough, and I believe it was her kids who handled the booking. Was down by Vila Nova de Milfontes, super nice and calm place, would definitely want to go back one day.
Oh yeah, English is very widely spoken in Portugal, mainly the younger generation but a good part of 40s to 50 year old people do have a good enough grasp of it. Older than that usually French is the main 2nd language and English is very basic to none.
You’re welcome back anytime! Portugal is a great place to retire, not to work though :p
Good gods how can you afford to go on so many vacations? :o
Portugal was in 2019 and this years is just a 5 hour drive from where I live. The Norwegian krone (NOK) is pretty weak right now, so we decides to not go abroad this year and save money for an upcoming mortgage. I’m doing well, but we’re by no means in a financial position to do multiple vacations a year 😅
Oh, 5 hours? Wow, yeah, sorry about that. I sometimes forget just how more compact everything is over in Europe compared to the US (or at least the Midwest in the US). Over here, driving for 45-60 min is pretty common for a commute. If one goes on an away-from-home vacation over here, it’s usually for far longer of a distance than 5 hours’ worth. (Not that I can afford that. Lol. 😅)
(Note: I just realized this may come across as making fun of you or sounding superior. Neither of these were intended if so.)
Isn’t the point of AirBnB to be way cheaper?
It was, when it was just people looking to get a tiny bit of income from renting a room in their house. Then people tried to make it their sole income, and then companies got into the game. Part of it is that the service became popular, so any cheaper rooms are snatched up instantly, and the user now gets to choose between a hotel-looking hotel, or a house-looking hotel, with nasty fees to get more money from you.
AirBnB isn’t even remotely a “hotel”. Hotels have to obey various hospitality laws and can’t just cancel a confirmed booking 2 hours before your arrival, or kick you out because you didn’t empty the bin before 9pm.
In theory. If you actually take the time to check hotel prices, you’ll often find plenty of options in the same price range as ABNB.
It really depends what you’re looking for. ABNB is good if you’re heading out into the sticks and looking to rent a whole house. If you’re in a city for a few days and need a room to stay in, hotels are often the better option.
For me the advantage of an AirBnB is the ability to stay in a remote cabin in the middle of the mountains with a bonfire and a fenced yard for my dog.
I’m not sure why anyone stays in an AirBnB in the middle of a city (although I’ve found them to be cheaper and with better walkability in parts of Europe)
Maybe people like to do laundry and follow all sorts of rules they wouldn’t have to otherwise. People have weird tastes
The last time I used Airbnb, we rented 2 rooms in a guy’s house for a few days. At first, the guy seemed okay, only a minor reminder about leaving dishes out. I left a fairly positive review, but when it came time for his review of us he implied we were racist for not keeping eye contact and conversation with his roommate. I never saw the roommate, and my husband is the kind of introvert who doesn’t initiate conversations, especially when alone. It was ridiculous. We were also told that we had access to the rooms, bathroom, and kitchen and not to go into any other part of the house.
I’ll stick with hotels.
Didn’t know that my autism made me racist too. Damn.
Sounds like a real shitboot.
Hostals my friend, just make sure u get a room for u, nothing against sharing one but I just don’t feel comfortable doing it.
Also at a hotel: “It smells like smoke.” “Let me take you conveniently to another identical room for free.”
Or any problem, really. I once had to move rooms twice because the AC wasn’t working. In an Airbnb, you’re boned
They only reason I started using hotels again is because my fiance gets good deals and they usually upgrade us because she works in the industry 🙂
The pay isn’t great (even in upper management, unless you are at corporate), but working in hospitality does have its advantages. It does make travel planning a lot easier.
Perhaps it’s because I’m in Europe, but I’ve still never come across this issue. All AirBnb’s I’ve stayed in had very reasonable hosts.
Same, I’ve done 5 days in France for new year with friends and we get zero problems.
AirBNB is only good if it is an extremely unique/convenient location and there are no hotels reasonably nearby. Otherwise Hotel absolutely > AirBNB
225 a night hotel would be a freaking dream. Most hotels cost 100 a night. I agree a cabin in the woods our somewhere else special.
But landlords are putting up ordinary homes up and people actually rent them. More money then sense.
It’s useful for short term renting. I’m interning and it’s stupid hard to find a 3 month lease.
My problem is that people talk as if these are the only options.
There are other services, like VRBO, that do the same thing and usually have the same properties. AirBNB is garbage now, so just use an alternative that doesn’t have the same bad policies and high fees.
Agreed. If I’m going on vacation I avoid cities as much as possible and want to be in the middle of nowhere in nature. That means no hotels for 10s of kilometers, but there’s usually at least one person renting out a room or something similar. I’ve also never experienced any of the things in this meme in places like that, but that could also be because it’s an American thing, which wouldn’t surprise me.
Exactly. Hotels are maybe good in the cities, when you need a simple boring room. But when you’re out in the nature or wish to stay in the more interesting place, have a celebration for family/friends gathering - it’s Air BnB all the way.
Hostal > Hotel > AirBnB
It depends on what your after. If you take family (kids and dogs) then an AirBNB is useful and easier than hotel. When you book always read the reviews. YMMV
Exactly. If traveling alone hotel every time. As a couple? Hotel gets crampy after about 3nights and not having a kitchen can get to you if you like to cook. Kids? Hell no - no hotel.
Pet friendly hotels aren’t even more expensive. There’s one that’s pet friendly hotel I went to half dozen times for work just because it was good value, and I wasn’t even bringing any pets.
In my experience, pet friendly generally means older hotels in need of renovation, where any additional mess isn’t as noticeable. Still decent if you just want a place to sleep.
Airbnb is great for groups. It’s basically the only time I use it. Getting a whole two bedroom apartment for an affordable price is really nice.
Stayed in Japan for two weeks in a group of 5-6 people, and our experience with Airbnb was great. But the two places we stayed at were basically proper hotels (one of them very small though), who just used the Airbnb platform.
