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Really? That's interesting, I often use Airbnb instead of these other platforms or direct relationships because having them as a guarantor is usually worth the
by atlasunshrugged 5y ago
Really? That's interesting, I often use Airbnb instead of these other platforms or direct relationships because having them as a guarantor is usually worth the premium that they demand, especially in foreign countries. Maybe this is a larger issue as they move towards longer stays but at least for short to midterm (e.g. under 3 months) I'm usually happy to use Airbnb and they're reasonable for booking more than a month at a time
- bsimpson 5y agoI found lodging on Google Maps with a 5 star rating. The host told you to message him on WhatsApp to book. Turns out he has a couple rooms listed on Airbnb and a couple only available directly. On checkin day, I carried my cumbersome luggage for like a mile from the ferry terminal to his building, and no one was there to greet me. He had misunderstood the days I requested, and was now full for the night I requested. I ended up sitting in that hallway for hours trying to find another place to stay with immediate checkin. I ended up walking across town at midnight to pay twice as much money to stay at a shitty hotel above the train tracks in the shittiest part of town. It was perhaps literally the last room available in the whole city. Airbnb's fees are expensive (and poorly presented in the UI), but there's certainly value in having a formal booking system and an external complaints/support process.
- madaxe_again 5y agoI host on Airbnb, and won’t take direct bookings, for pretty much the same reason you describe - they verify ID and all that, so I don’t have to, and if something goes badly wrong, my insurance would provide cover - whereas with a direct booking, they’d have far more surface area to say why this was a foreseeable risk that I failed to adequately treat.