I agree with you. I recently took a weekend vacation by the beach and did my very best to use AirBnB. The fact that email is the only way to communicate with th

I agree with you. I recently took a weekend vacation by the beach and did my very best to use AirBnB. The fact that email is the only way to communicate with the host made it really difficult for me to get a good feel for the place I was renting. I want to use AirBnB, I really do. But preventing me from typing my phone# in the text field really annoyed me. I don't think that renting a place is like buying an item on eBay where it is best that the seller and buyer not bypass the entire auction mechanism. I don't mind at all if AirBnB gets a slice of my money and in fact I prefer to pay them than a random person. However, I want to talk to the host on the phone before I agree to anything. You can't express friendliness and warmth textually (or at least most people can't) but it is very easy to pick up on the tone over phone. In the end, I found a wonderful beach cottage via vrbo.com. If vrbo had a website like AirBnB, they would get my money every time. I understand the financial mechanism is very different on both sites but seriously, AirBnB, let me talk to potential hosts before I book anything - I will even pay a fee to become a premium-phone-enabled-renter.