21 ms·

Airbnb will up its penalty for hosts who cancel last-minute from $100 to $1k

257 points by post_break 4y ago

post_break 4y ago
The $1000 will go to Airbnb, not the person who was cancelled on so you're still high and dry.
- dfbsdfbwe2ef2e 4y ago
  Do you know this or are you guessing?
  - post_break 4y ago
    "Fees are deducted from hosts' future payouts." https://www.airbnb.co.uk/resources/hosting-homes/a/changing-our-policy-on-avoidable-host-cancellations-537 https://www.airbnb.co.uk/resources/hosting-homes/a/changing-...
    - dfbsdfbwe2ef2e 4y ago
      That doesn't imply it's NOT paid to the guest. That only explains how and when the money moves out of the host's account.
      - post_break 4y ago
        Let's say for argument's sake it does go to the guest. What does $1,000 whenever Airbnb decides to credit your account, help you when you're stranded. I can only assume Airbnb pockets the fee because nowhere in their documentation do they state the guest receives the money, otherwise they would outright state it.
        dfbsdfbwe2ef2e 4y ago
        Before digressing, can you just first acknowledge that when I ask "do you know this or are you guessing", the answer is you're guessing?
        post_break 4y ago
        Rereading their statement, these are platform fees, of course they go to Airbnb. Not guessing, just reading between the lines. https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/990/host-cancellation-policy https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/990/host-cancellation-... It's plain as day, the fees are charged to the host, and thus Airbnb takes the fees.
        mrtranscendence 4y ago
        I mean, it’s a pretty educated guess. The $100 penalty that’s already levied doesn’t go to shafted renters, so why would this larger fee?
        seoaeu 4y ago
        Getting $1000 to put towards paying for alternative accommodations would be very helpful?
      - hnaccount_rng 4y ago
        I had this situation come up like twice over here in Europe. In both cases Airbnb offered to assist with an alternative place to stay (one time taken one time declined) and in both cases provided me with credit of about the worth of the original stay
    - 88913527 4y ago
      Good to know I could rent on Airbnb and unknowingly 100% of my expense could go straight to the platform, due to a host's previous cancellation on an otherwise unrelated reservation.
- scottiebarnes 4y ago
  Meh, the point of a high penalty is to disincentivize behaviour, not to provide reparations. Ie. someone gets a DUI, we don't directly pay out the fee to anyone near by who may have been affected.
  - blululu 4y ago
    We typically do pay a fee directly to the person/people who were injured by their actions.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - FartyMcFarter 4y ago
    "May have been" vs "actually was" affected are quite different from each other.
    - scottiebarnes 4y ago
      True, portions of fees go to victims funds. However, in most cases, damages will need to be pursued civilly. My point was, the primary goal of expensive punishments are not to make victims whole.
  - mupuff1234 4y ago
    But the DUI penalty doesn't go to some private entity, eventually it goes back to the public. The Airbnb penalty goes to cushion Airbnb's pockets.
    - ChrisLomont 4y ago
      >to cushion Airbnb's pockets i.e., to their stock price, i.e., to investors, i.e., to pension funds both private and public (pensions are by far the largest AirBnB shareholders), i.e., it likely benefits the majority of the public (the majority of US households have stock exposure, quite often large pension funds or index funds - AirBnB is part of the Nasdaq 100, for example).
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  For comparison, if a Marriott/Hyatt/Hilton/IHG/Choice hotel is unable to accommodate your reservation, you obviously do not pay anything for that night, but they also have to pay and arrange for your first night’s stay somewhere else, and for a ride to and from that place (if they are bringing you back). If the staff at the hotel does not abide by the walk policy, you can call the 800 number to complain, and they will send you a check for your expenses and then bill the hotel.
  - cortesoft 4y ago
    I assume that will depend on the local laws?
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      No, these are agreements between the franchisor (hotel brands) and the franchisees (hotel owners). Obviously, exclusions to the walk policy are if you are banned at the hotel, or if you are walking in high with 3 prostitutes hanging off your arm, or any other reason that a hotel would want to refuse you because the hotel believes you will cause damage or disturb others.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    > For comparison, if a Marriott/Hyatt/Hilton/IHG/Choice hotel is unable to accommodate your reservation, you obviously do not pay anything for that night, but they also have to pay and arrange for your first night’s stay somewhere else, and for a ride to and from that place (if they are bringing you back). Like is that a law or something? I'm not sure it is. They may choose to do this. Compare to flights and trains, where there are laws. For example is cancelled and you've started your journey, they must get you home, by law (in the UK.) I was in a five-hour taxi ride once after a train was cancelled.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      No, it is not a law. Walk policies are standard for any half decent hotel brand. “Walk” is when you get sent from one hotel to another due to the hotel’s fault. Perhaps overbooking, or maintenance issue, or computer/clerical error, etc.
- kbos87 4y ago
  Do we really know that? I’m guessing it will give Airbnb the leeway to rebook people in more expensive accommodations as a replacement if needed. It’s not in their best interests for people to be left high and dry.
mikece 4y ago
And the increased penalty will be applied to the screwed renter as credits toward another AirBNB or will that be available as a reimbursement for having to make alternative (and likely expensive) last-minute arrangements? If there's not messaging that this penalty will go to the cancelled renter then I still don't see a reason to trust AirBNB.
- TedShiller 4y ago
  - blululu 4y ago
    In general yes, but a customer hostile attitude is also a pretty garbage way to approach business. Nobody grows a business with that attitude. It’s a lousy excuse for a problem that is not that hard to fix.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    If you take this absurd position to it's logical conclusion, nobody forced you to travel in the first place. Therefore, you can't complain about anything related to travel, ever.
    - TedShiller 4y ago
      if you want complaints to be taken seriously don’t complain about things you agreed to
      - TedShiller 4y ago
        =)
  - eatsyourtacos 4y ago
    Ah this tired argument. "No one forced you to use this service, even though it's relatively close to a monopoly and sometimes there are literally no other options.. but in any case, because you 'chose' to use the service they can just do whatever you want and you have no recourse to complain or think it's wrong!"
jupp0r 4y ago
The fee will not go to the renter who’s accommodation has been cancelled. They will still benefit from the increase, though. Disincentivizing hosts to cancel last minute will make it rarer for the situation to arise in the first place.
- kbos87 4y ago
  In situations like this Airbnb usually helps the renter find comparable accommodations as a replacement. My guess is that this will give them more leeway to find replacements that are more expensive, and offset the cost onto the cancelling host, which feels very fair to me.
- dropofwill 4y ago
  Then the host will just not go through the cancellation process and solve it out of band to avoid the fee. That happened to me earlier this year, 2 hours before checkin told me that something came up and I couldn't stay there. Sent me a ~95% refund but never cancelled the booking within Airbnb. Complained to Airbnb about it, but all they did was remove my negative review.
  - ascagnel_ 4y ago
    > Then the host will just not go through the cancellation process and solve it out of band to avoid the fee. I've seen this happen in other service apps -- hailing a taxi via Uber/Lyft, and when the driver sees that I'm a little out of downtown, about 30% of the time I'll get a text message off-platform asking me to cancel the ride because "something happened to [their] car" in between them accepting the ride and them getting to my home. My only thought is that the heavy emphasis on driver/host ratings and penalty fees drives the providers off-platform, but that leaves their users stuck shouldering the burden and nobody happy.
  - jupp0r 4y ago
    It's really on AirBnb to fix this then. I'm sure if you created a support case with them and pushed for it being escalated that they would make it right. Annoying for customers having to go through that, though.
eddof13 4y ago
My understanding is if it is particularly last minute, Airbnb will arrange the rebook to another property, and this $1000 is to subsidize those costs to Airbnb?
- blululu 4y ago
  Citation needed. I’ve had some pretty bad experiences with AirBnB and I am not sure what you are talking about. Maybe if you can get someone on the phone at 8pm on a Sunday then they might help out.
- freeqaz 4y ago
  My recent experience with Airbnb rebooking another room is... do not rely on this. You should not rely on Airbnb for anything you must depend on. They're not a hotel and their support doesn't have control over the "supply" to help you in a pinch. (I wasted an insane amount of time on the phone last month helping a colleague rebook a room after the host cancelled mid-trip.)
ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
AirBnB has gotten so expensive with fees. Not only that, most AirBnBs I have rented, have looked nothing like the pictures when I get there. The last one in NYC had cockroaches, with over 100 good reviews. Perhaps them doing this signals confidence and strength in their business, but the act of renting a place is almost like online dating. Everything looks great until you meet in person.
- rchaud 4y ago
  They're public now. No more undercutting hotels off the teat of venture capital. Now they're in the uncharted waters of having to make a profit.
- juve1996 4y ago
  AirBnB's advantage was how cheap it was compared to hotels and other accommodations. That advantage is pretty much gone now, so basically you get an expensive place, with horrific quality control. It's a roll of the dice. I've gone back to hotels. The experience is streamlined. No janky lockboxes with codes that don't work, no unresponsive hosts (someone available 24/7 at most), places are cleaned on request, and other amenities are typically available right on site.
  - SantalBlush 4y ago
    Also going back to hotels. I've enjoyed staying at AirBnB rentals, but more and more I get the feeling that I'm just a pest who is supposed to help pay the mortgage on their investment property. The notes and manuals left by hosts can be off-putting, and the last place we stayed at looked like a bad flip-job with minimal furniture.
- digianarchist 4y ago
  The fact that hosts can leave reviews for customers provides a disincentive to leave a bad review. I’ve stayed in two places in the last two weeks. First wasn’t like the pictures at all. Rammed with furniture and had no way to put garbage out. Second stunk of mould on the first floor, AC was useless; and the washer/dryer was broken (actually dismantled causing the mould smell). We had to use a laundrette. They both got glowing reviews because I can’t risk not being able to use the platform as they’ve swallowed the entire short term rental market.
azemetre 4y ago
This happened to me the first time I used AirBnB in 2016. I was attending a music festival in NYC, booked an AirBnB a month in advance in Brooklyn. 4 days before my flight the host cancels on me and I got a surge of anxiety. I tried to find other hosts on such short notice. I found someone one day before my flight (he rented out his apartment for 3 days and just stayed with a friend, also his first time using AirBnB). The experience of getting cancelled and having no repercussions to the host was extremely off putting to me. I had no idea on what to do at the time, as the site loves to not handle edge cases that completely sour your experience with the product. Why they simply couldn't have an error screen that said, "your host cancelled? please do the following and checkout these hosts who ARE available and reliable." This was my first and last time using AirBnB. Maybe it changed now, but I tell everyone I know to just rent a hotel instead. Such a shame too because I love AirBnB when it comes to engineering but the product itself I will never use again.
- BowBun 4y ago
  Did you reach out to AirBnB when that happened? This happened to me in Amsterdam once, the host cancelled a couple of days before we went (this was in 2018 or so). I contacted AirBnB support, and they gave me 150% of the value of the stay to get an alternative accommodation last-minute. Got us a nice little bed and breakfast that was more expensive and everything worked out alright. Sorry your experience was so stressful!
  - freeqaz 4y ago
    Maybe this depends on regional policies? I just had an experience last month with a host canceling and they wouldn't give me a coupon for more then 30% of the value of the stay. But the stay that had been cancelled was a month-long and it was cancelled 8 days in. Rebooking with just a 30% coupon was impossible, even after 20+ hours on the phone, and I ended up giving up to book my colleague a hotel for a few nights. (I still haven't been reimbursed by Airbnb either, and I will never expect to.) I'm glad to hear that not every experience is terrible, but it's also annoying that it seems to be random based on region or the rep you get.
fuster 4y ago
This literally happened to me yesterday for a trip I'm leaving for in 3 days. The best part is that it's the second time I've been canceled on for this same trip. Naturally everywhere that isn't already booked up is 2-3x the price now. Just a huge hassle.
- dominotw 4y ago
  > Naturally everywhere that isn't already booked up is 2-3x the price now. Just a huge hassle. So the host can cancel, rebook at 3x , pay $1k and still come out on top? Correct way to do this would've been start is exponential fines. Start with 100, 200 next time, 400 after that ect till an upper limit.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    If that were a great strategy, they just wouldn't rent until a few days before.
    - mywittyname 4y ago
      Hosts don't necessarily know all of the events that will bring in crowds. So they book early for a guaranteed $x. Then if they see that market rates for nearby units rose to n*$x, it makes sense for them to cancel and rebook at that rate.
      - brewdad 4y ago
        This happened to me in Boston. I was going to run the marathon and knew that I needed to book way ahead to ensure I could get a decent room, whether hotel or AirBNB. I booked an apartment in Back Bay. Two weeks later, the host realized it was going to be marathon weekend and tried to triple my price. When I refused his offer, he canceled me. Fortunately, it was still early enough that I was able to book a hotel near the finish line. Unfortunately, that hotel ended up be the host of all of the press and press conferences when someone bombed the finish area.
  - 4y ago
dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
Finally. I hope booking.com adopts a similar policy.
sometimeshuman 4y ago
Alternatively could a host allow you to check-in and then kick you out shortly afterwards ? For example, on July 3 the the house cleaner for the AirBnB next door to my condo claimed they "kicked out" the guest on because they had more than 3(?) people over. When I asked her the eviction tactics she was vague and said "phone calls were made and AirBnB has a process". It seemed like a low bar to evict someone at a beach property during a holiday weekend and from my perspective those guests were just fine. Could a host just fabricate a violation such as "the neighbors are complaining about noise" and skip the $1000 fee ?
- smileysteve 4y ago
  Airbnb had a problem with party hosts, so your example of having 3 ? Additional? To the number booked is something very serious to Airbnb.
s_dev 4y ago
There is probably a lot more "cancellations" recently give inflation and Covid hence the update to AirBnB policy. I'm sure many booked holidays a year ago at great rates when people couldn't travel and hosts desperately needed cash flow. Now that bookings are approaching (hotels do this as well) hosts are cancelling bookings and selling them to others who will pay a much higher price.
- sundaeofshock 4y ago
  Except the hosts don’t get the money until 24-hours after check-in. AirBnB got to sit on that cash for the last year.
bastardoperator 4y ago
Sorry Airbnb, you've screwed too many people too many times. You've allowed, even enabled hosts to abuse travelers. I'm not rolling the dice anymore. The last straw for me was last year traveling to NYC for Christmas. The host refused to contact us back, never a peep from the host. Airbnb fought us tooth and nail in terms of refund. How am I going to put small children on a plane and hope everything is fine when we land? They didn't care. They were doing everything they could for the host. Finally after 3 days of arguing back and forth one of the off shore customer service representatives gave us a refund. I shouldn't have to spend 12 hours on the phone over the course of three days, having my vacation completely ruined, just to get what I deserve which was my money back.
- Moctogo 4y ago
  I'm done with them as well. ~10 years ago, it was a novel, fun way to travel and meet new people. Now it's become a business for many hosts and it shows. I have never appreciated a hotel room as much as I do now, having gone through the AirBNB gauntlet one time too many.
  - rtev 4y ago
    Doing Airbnb over hotels also contributes greatly to city housing shortages and gentrification. Major US cities have large swaths of apartment units sitting empty, held by some management company to rent out as a pseudo-hotel room.
    - enos_feedler 4y ago
      I won’t disagree with this take, but why should I care about any of this? The reason I don’t own a house is because prices are so high. But my solution is to just live like a local wherever I want and pay someone else’s mortgage. It’s a lifestyle that suits me and I have the cash flow to do it. Do I care that I am in a house next to some owner who doesn’t want me there? You own a house and I don’t, so screw you. I know this sounds a bit nasty but I am offering a genuine take that puts airbnb as sort of a weapon between the haves (house owners) and have nots (nomads).
faangiq 4y ago
Airbnb has a lot of fraud listings. Very easy problem to solve but they don’t seem to care.
- kansface 4y ago
  How do you solve it? Kicking off listings with a history of fraud is easy, but how do you stop new ones outside of direct inspections?
  - faangiq 4y ago
    Just do direct inspections. (Virtual equivalent.) Airbnb is a jobs program for useless designer types, just get a handful them to spend a couple hours per day on Zoom. Plenty of other options too ie escrow deposits etc.
  - rdtwo 4y ago
    Don’t release revenue until a trusted guest visits at least once
josefresco 4y ago
Is the scam basically ... a host will book someone, then closer to arrival if the rates in the region are higher they'll cancel and rebook with someone else at a higher rate?
- ProAm 4y ago
  It's not a scam, its capitalism. Supply and demand 101 with the gig economy.
  - whiplash451 4y ago
    I think you’re missing basic customers’ rights in the process.
    - ProAm 4y ago
      Rights? It's room sharing. Not a hotel. Not a business. (I get you but this is the gig economy in a nutshell. If I can make $500 more a night you're damned right you're getting cancelled)
      - SantalBlush 4y ago
        >If I can make $500 more a night you're damned right you're getting cancelled This is what people are taking issue with. Calling it the "gig economy" doesn't explain why people should be fine with it.
        ProAm 4y ago
        That is 100% what the gig economy is about. Just like 'surge' pricing with Uber/Lyft. These people are renting out their homes, why not make the most money as possible? Is it scummy? Sure. Illegal? It's capitalism. You can't knock someone who can earn a substantial amount more money with THEIR private property.
        4y ago
O__________O 4y ago
Unless guests are able to set their own cancellation policy — including the host is forced to cover market rate at time of cancellation if rebooked within X-days for a like or better booking, this is a joke. AirBNB’s penalties for host go to AirBNB, not the guests, and AirBNB frequently waves the host penalties without explanation. If the stay was canceled prior to booking and the fees waved, no review is allowed to be left either by the guest or automatically; the automatic cancellation reviews are only left if host gets a penalty, which again AirBNB frequently waves without explanation. I have personally lost thousands due to AirBNB allowing host to cancel at the last second then repost and book the stay for 300% more; host even offered to allow me to rebook, so clearly cancellation was unrelated to anything to do with me. Use AirBNB at your own risk, they will happily leave you without a place to stay if a host cancels a booking. Always have a backup plan and look into travel insurance.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Actually why shouldn't hosts be able to set any cancellation policy. Or even use policy. Then it is up to renter to review the small print. It seems only reasonable for me.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    Host do set cancellation policies. My point is that guests per stay should be able to set there own policies would be viewable to a host prior to booking or in a list of pre-approved guest policies. Host is under no obligation to book a guest with a policy they are not agreeable to.
dabinat 4y ago
Rented an AirBnB for a friend’s wedding and it caught fire. We were at the wedding when it occurred but I sometimes think about what would have happened if we were sleeping inside at the time. There would have been no escape except through the upper-story window. The host initially accused us of causing the fire through negligence, then it was eventually revealed to be an electrical fault in the building, which had been built by the homeowner himself. The bigger problem was that they hadn’t told their insurance company they were subletting. We eventually agreed a deal with lawyers for them to compensate us. (It probably goes without saying that AirBnB was of course no help throughout the whole process.) It occurred to me that none of this would have occurred in a regular hotel. The hotel would have a proper fire and sprinkler system with actual fire escape routes, the electrics would not be amateur and they would have had proper insurance.
- frittata 4y ago
  Wow, what a nightmare. Airbnb feels like WeWork – they both desperately want to be "tech companies" but at the end of the day neither one of them really is. They should have more important things to focus on before tech. Instead of making sure their app has the nicest UI, they should first make sure all of their rentals have proper fire exits.
  - menzoic 4y ago
    WeWork either owned or rented all of it's properties. Airbnb is a tech platform that doesn't own any properties so by definition it's a tech company. I hear the same argument about Uber not being a tech company but they are too. Airbnb and Uber build apps and benefit from being a tech company because they can scale globally without investing in properties or taxis
    - effingwewt 4y ago
      They are middlemen, not a tech company. Using tech for your business doesn't make it a tech business. The same business has been run for years before the internet with cork-boards.
    - 4y ago
kbos87 4y ago
As a host I couldn’t be any happier about this. I work hard to give my guests a great experience… hosts who do this sort of thing are hurting perception for the rest of us. This should knock some low quality inventory off the market.
- voidr 4y ago
  As a host I feel that AirBnB is not doing enough to solve the bad guest problem. AirCover is a joke and guests are still able to leave revenge reviews, even after it was established the guest indeed did bad things. I will be looking at alternatives, because I'm fed up with their attitude towards hosts.
frittata 4y ago
This sounds like it could become dangerous for guests. e.g. a host doesn't want to host you, but they also don't want to lose $1,000. So you show up at their house and they convince you that it's in your best interest to cancel the reservation on your end... or else. I've had >1 Uber driver call me and ask me to cancel the request on my end because he realized he couldn't get to me for X reason, and he didn't want the cancellation to negatively impact his driver account.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Yeah Uber drivers wanting to cancel but not can drive a lot of shitty behavior on their behalf, like intentionally driving in the wrong direction. I've found this kind of behavior is much more common abroad than in the US.
draw_down 4y ago
bena 4y ago
Why are people still rolling the dice with AirBnB. I stayed in one once, in 2018. It was a neutral experience. But certainly not better than a hotel. Unsure of the price as I didn't personally pay for it. Getting in initially was more work than a hotel, but not horribly so. But after what they do to the housing situation, the numerous shitty hosts sometimes doing blatantly illegal things, things like the above, etc. I'd rather not have all that on my mental plate while trying to find accomodation. Book a hotel, call it a day. Hotels exist to solve the problem or temporary accommodation. They've been doing it for decades. The only way I'd use an AirBnB is if the choices for hotels didn't exist for some reason. Like with Uber/Lyft and Taxis. Uber is still useful in some scenarios, but for the most part, take a Taxi if you're in a city.
- whiplash451 4y ago
  Some people (like me) use AirBnB because they happen to have inventory where/when regular hotels don’t.
- windowsrookie 4y ago
  I only use Airbnb to get a cheaper place to stay than a hotel. I can usually get a place for ~100/night within walking distance from the beach. That is not possible with hotels (In the USA). I am willing to accept a lower standard for a lower price. The problem is some people think they deserve a 5 star experience for $100. The places I stay are old and outdated, you may see some bugs, and usually no toiletries/towels are provided. Yes, Hotels offer a better experience. But my entire expenses for a 5 day vacation by the beach, including flights, lodging, and food is less than $1,000 with a cheap AirBnB.
raverbashing 4y ago
Better late than later I guess But this was long overdue. Some cities are rife with Airbnb scams You can pretend only the technology matters but customer service can sink or swim a service. And I don't get why Airbnb is not apparently paying attention to those issues
kogir 4y ago
The host should pay the same penalty as the guest if they cancel. No refund policy for me? Then pay the full amount to me when you cancel.
djohnston 4y ago
One time they booked me for a place that wasn't even supposed to be listed lol. If I'm planning the trip it's always going to be a hotel.
megra 4y ago
Surprised but not surprised at how many commenters are fed up with Airbnb. After ~20+ stays with a few frustrating experiences, I had my breaking point about a year ago. After ~20 hours of flights, I landed in my destination city at 10pm only to receive a message from the host telling me to go to an address different than the listing. There were no pictures of the new place and it was in a different neighbourhood which was no longer walking distance to where I had work meetings. Plus, it just felt unsafe and sketchy. AirBnB eventually refunded me, but I still paid more for a hotel and lost many hours on the phone with customer service. I haven't used Airbnb since.
- freeqaz 4y ago
  This is a common fraud method that I've read a few articles about over the years. I initially had sympathy for Airbnb in that it's much harder for them to deal when a host is a "bad actor", but that sympathy evaporated when I saw that they have no recourse for making any type of resolution swift or even possible. I've worked on fraud, at scale, before and it is a hard problem. But when you're giving fraudsters $$$ by letting scams happen and hurting people's lives in the process... for years... it escapes understanding. When you turn a blind eye, you're effective "creating" a world for fraudsters to thrive. As a founder, myself, I'm always thinking about what the world would look like if I am successful. At some point it's your duty as a founder to put your foot down and "be the change you want to see in the world" even if it hurts your profit margin. But maybe this is also the difference that lets people rise to the top. It's just sobering. At least people like Bill Gates have been able to distance themselves from their ruthless business tactics and steer that influence towards promoting positive change.
  - menzoic 4y ago
    They find you a new place now https://www.airbnb.com/aircover https://www.airbnb.com/aircover
    - freeqaz 4y ago
      They do not. I cited this exact policy and it fell on deaf ears. I couldn't believe it myself -- maybe I should write a dedicated post about the details just for visibility.
synu 4y ago
I love the idea of Airbnb but have been burned by their terrible customer service so many times that I just get hotels again.
parkingrift 4y ago
A more annoying situation I've encountered more and more frequently is that the AirBNB is not anywhere near the circle it claims to be. Rented a place recently that was a 38 minute drive from the town the listing said it was in. AirBNB not only didn't care, but didn't consider there to be anything wrong with the listing. Booked a different place in the same "town" and it was a 10 minute drive from where it was supposed to have been. We just accepted it. I did eventually get a refund on the first one, but only after raising a fit at AirBNB. I think I'll stay at hotels in most cases moving forward.
dougSF70 4y ago
Exactly, a good hotel knows that location is just one part of the experience, service is the rest. Airbnb hosts can go rot in their own rent-seeking hell as far as i am concerned.
varispeed 4y ago
In my country there are no shelters for men in abusive relationships. In a crisis situation Airbnb is probably the best option to find something on a short notice and little budget. A friend of mine called me crying in the car park, that he can't find anything to stay away from home, as hosts were cancelling his reservations. He couldn't afford to go to a hotel, but was prepared to sleep in his car. I found him something in a different part of the city eventually, but it was stressful.
jmyeet 4y ago
This is how temporary accommodation should work: multi-family houses where extra room or extra unit is rented out. This requires the owner to be onsite and suffer the consequences of bad actors. That’s it. Of course in the US this is impossible because in most places building anything other than single family houses is illegal. Many years ago people would have boarders. London, for example, would have people who stayed during the week. What AirBnB tried to do was create a system to allow Oriole to set up illegal hotels. That’s it. I never saw the attraction in that personally. The negative externalities of AirBnB are massive: safety concerns for residents, disruption for residents, reduction in rental housing supply and reduction in the supply of houses for owner-occupiers. The sooner it dies the better.
- Etheryte 4y ago
  What you're describing is the polar opposite of what many people are looking for. When I'm travelling I want a private space to come home to, without someone else rummaging around in the background, worries about when I can or can't use the shower, how early someone wakes up etc. What you're describing is more or less Couchsurfing and there's a reason Airbnb is more popular.
anm89 4y ago
I lived out of Airbnb's for years as a "nomad" and I'm also in the never again camp. I literally developed an anxiety order that I'm in treatment for from from all the times I ended up "homeless" temporarily because some host screwed me over in some way or another and I needed to scramble to find housing in a foreign country. Airbnb is simply extremely ok with leaving you stranded, alone, and homeless regardless of where you are in the world or what your other options are.
eagsalazar2 4y ago
My biggest peeve with Airbnb is that they should mandate that hosts include cleaning fees in the daily rate (by just removing the option for a separate cleaning fee). Not doing so makes it almost impossible to compare costs. The could even allow for a different rate for shorter stays but again that would make the shopping experience so much better.
- jonlucc 4y ago
  All they have to do is allow sorting by total cost. It shows it on the search results, but will not allow you to sort by it.
- niij 4y ago
  It doesn't have to be baked into the daily rate. They could just show the total when searching.. but Airbnb doesn't do that because it would make people realize the poor deal they're really getting.
- m-ee 4y ago
  It now shows total price for each property in the search for me, but I think it's a fairly recent change. Might also be location dependent. It was extremely frustrating in the past since the nightly rate was useless and pushed me to always try vrbo first.
vsnf 4y ago
I've never been comfortable with the concept of Airbnb, so I'm curious if anyone could chime in with why they think it grew to be as big as it did. To me the idea that I have to do a kind of song-and-dance negotiation with a host by first introducing myself over texting chat, to see if we meet each-other's minimum standards, and then have them personally arrange for how to do the key pickup and dropoff is an enormous turn off to me. Thinking back on the marketing, Airbnb in my mind occupied the same space as a hotel, but actually it's intensely more social than that. I was shocked when I first tried it and found it was so built on a one-on-one experience. Granted, I only ever did this once, and maybe 6 or 7 years ago at that, but I vastly prefer the idea of an impersonal hotel check-in desk that confirms my stay and then retreats into the background.
- llbeansandrice 4y ago
  At the time hotels were really expensive and not as available in many locations. AirBnBs could be closer to your final destination, cheaper, and have more personality than bland hotel rooms. Now, AirBnB has soured and caused lots of problems while hotels are more comparable in price and more reliable. Just my general opinions I don't really have any proof other than using the service and making the decision to switch back to hotels primarily. AirBnB and similar is still a better choice for larger groups or vacations where you want something like an entire house: kitchen, multiple bedrooms, privacy, etc.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  I've only had great experiences and am very selective with which AirBnBs I get. If you want a nice house/apartment to explore a city from, hotels don't cut it for me, AirBnB or VRBO are the only games in town.
- jonlucc 4y ago
  AirBnBs can have yards, kitchens, multiple bedrooms, and locations hotels don't exist. I think those are the main things that benefitted them as they grew, and that market is still largely only served by AirBnB and VRBO. I haven't had the problems that everyone else in the thread seems to have, but that could be because of the places I choose. They have filters for no-contact check-in, so I have never once had to meet the "host".
menzoic 4y ago
A lot of horror stories in this thread. The worst I had was the listing said it had a hot tub but it was being repaired. The new AirCover would probably solve a lot of issues in this thread https://www.airbnb.com/aircover https://www.airbnb.com/aircover
- digianarchist 4y ago
  If you booked way in advanced to save money and then host cancels on you, then what use is a refund when you have to find alternative accommodation at 2-3x the price you booked? If the guarantee was alternative accommodation either the same or better as what you previously booked, this would be a much better policy.
y-c-o-m-b 4y ago
Meh, what a weak response. This is a maximum fee. It would be more effective if it was a minimum fee, with the maximum equaling the total cost of the stay. So if you book a week-long vacation at 3k and it gets cancelled last minute, the fee should equal 3k. FWIW I haven't had a bad experience with AirBNB yet over the years and handful of stays I've been in. The one in Iceland smelled slightly like piss and dog odor, but it was tolerable. Aside from that, the other experiences like in Hawaii or some random off-grid cabin in Oregon were pretty good and much cheaper than the alternative. That said, I believe AirBNB is another "too big to fail, too big to care" tech company like Amazon, Google, etc. They continue making billions while screwing over thousands if not millions of people all the time, so why invest in improving the customer experience? They have no incentive to do so until their profits take a beating.
- distances 4y ago
  Just interested, what kind of a place is 3k/week? In Europe with somewhat good planning that gives you a two-week vacation in Southern Europe for two including flights, hotel stays, all food and drinks, public transport tickets, and entrance tickets to museums etc.
  - biztos 4y ago
    Larger houses; popular tourist destinations; and America. Any two of these things can get you over 3K/week pretty quickly, all three pretty much guarantees it. I have a friend with a gorgeous six-bedroom that he fills for $7800 per week all summer long.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    It's usually a whole house that can accommodate large groups. My family stayed in a house in the Ozarks a couple months ago. The place slept up to 30 and most nights there were only 2 empty beds. It worked great for our needs but had anything gone wrong, my sister in law, the only person who lived within 5 hours of the house, would have had a nightmare on her hands helping us find a place to stay.
  - golergka 4y ago
vxNsr 4y ago
Along with higher fine, prevent re-listing unless you offer the original guests right of first refusal at their original price.
bradlys 4y ago
Yeah - the fee should always be quite punitive. I’ve only had one host cancel on me last minute and it was very disrupting to our trip because nothing was available. We had to book a horror story of a place on VRBO (which I would say is much worse than Airbnb!) and then caved and spent 3-4x what I planned by stating in a hotel. I find Airbnb while not perfect allows travelers who are on a budget to find places. If you’re looking for whole houses or apartments then it’s usually not cheaper than a hotel but I’m usually booking rooms in an apartment or house - and in those instances it’s usually cheaper.
enos_feedler 4y ago
Just to counter act these negative stories I’ll say that airbnb saved my ass once when I was traveling in new zealand and massive flooding took down the road ways and filled up all flights. I needed a quick place to stay for a week or so and in a few taps I had a bed. This felt powerful. Before and after this I stayed on airbnb many times without any issues. Obviously some are better than others, but I also feel hotels do a pretty good job jipping me out of a good room like the one in the picture. Or charging me a resort fee separately on checkin or checkout. Or asking for $25/night parking.
charlie0 4y ago
I'm very curious as to which locations people have gotten their AirBnBs cancelled? I've booked about 20+ AirBnBs (most SuperHost and most in LATAM) and have only had hosts cancel on me 2 times. Both right after I booked them and not at last minute before my arrival.
- kranke155 4y ago
  It seems like the complaints on this are mostly around the US. I’ve used Airbnb over and over again in Europe and I’ve never ever had any last minute cancellations. I always look for reviews, and preferentially superhosts tho. In a big city like London, something like 30-40% of listings are clearly scams as well.
- pigtailgirl 4y ago
  -- Had a lot of airbnbs cancel last minute in the US & Canada - in South Korea & Japan my airbnb stays have been some of the best stays I've had anywhere - hotel or otherwise --
lastofthemojito 4y ago
I'm looking for a place to stay for the 2024 total solar eclipse and I'm considering some places on Airbnb (a lot of hotels don't book more than 1 year out). I'm definitely worried that booking now will result in the reservation ultimately being canceled though, either because the host eventually realizes the enormity of the event and wants to jack up the price or because the host just changes their mind about owning/running a rental property sometime in the next 30+ months. Maybe a larger cancellation fee would make it more likely for such a reservation to be honored, but this article seems to only be referring to last-minute cancellations.
wilde 4y ago
I look forward to $1000 cleaning fees.
jurassic 4y ago
I had a host leave me high and dry at the last minute during a holiday on the Amalfi Coast once; we showed up to the property we'd booked for a week and found it occupied with family/friends of the host. It was high season and everything decent was booked up, so we ended up changing our flight reservation and returning to the US a week early. Ruined my family vacation in a major major way. Never again.
parshimers 4y ago
Airbnb is such a joke now. I had a host steal from me with no repercussions in November. The host said the room wasn't ready through text, and then, when they said it was ready, someone (not the host) walked up to us on the street outside the building the room was supposedly in and said it still wasn't ready- there were men working inside it. He would take our bags up but under no circumstances would he let us actually see the room or have the keys until it was "ready". Obviously it was either a scam, or an illegal sublet that he didn't want to level with us about. Airbnb refused to refund a room that for all intents and purposes, didn't exist. Their rationale was that they hadn't been informed the same day, which is ridiculous considering how much of a timesink finding a last-minute hotel is. It should be open and shut, but they simply bought the lies the host told them, despite the fact they were never even there.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
That's the attitude that drove me off airbnb. At a hotel, you are a paying client, entitled to a service. At an airbnb, you are a poor relative. Host graciously agrees to let you spend a night at their precious property.
hamandcheese 4y ago
Will this $1k be used to compensate travelers for their troubles? Or is this just extra money for Airbnb?
logicalmonster 4y ago
I'm not an expert in how AirBnb works, but perhaps they ought to prioritize some kind of system for getting screwed-over-travelers someplace to stay: whether it's another AirBnb or even a hotel. A lot of hurt feelings would probably be mendable as long as people had some assurance that in the event of a last-minute cancellation, they at least would have someplace to stay and wouldn't be left out in the cold.
- personjerry 4y ago
  They "do", it's called AirCover https://www.airbnb.com/aircover https://www.airbnb.com/aircover
  - doix 4y ago
    > In the unlikely event a Host needs to cancel your booking within 30 days of check-in, we’ll find you a similar or better home, or we’ll refund you. Emphasis mine. A refund doesn't help when everything else is booked out and the only option costs 5 times more than your original booking.
personjerry 4y ago
Am I the only one with good experiences on AirBnB, or is the audience replying here self-selecting? I've been digital nomading for the last 10 months over several different airbnbs and have only had good experiences
- doix 4y ago
  I'm in the same boat, been staying in Airbnb's 100% of the time and haven't had a bad experience yet. But I'm always worried that one day it'll happen to me. Until then, I'll keep risking it I guess. I'm guessing at this point, the savings I've made will cover the eventual problem where I need to book some super expensive hotel in an emergency.
- golergka 4y ago
  I have been living in Airbnbs full time since march, and only had one cancellation — but the host helped me find another accommodation with a huge discount so it clearly wasn't a scam. But I've been living in Asia and Europe whereas most of the negative comments seem to be about US.
  - personjerry 4y ago
    Ah yes I'm mostly in Europe as well, maybe that's why
jl6 4y ago
The standard undisruption pattern: 1. Startup undercuts incumbents with cheap new approach. 2. Turns out the new approach was cheap because it saved money by pushing risk onto the customer or 3rd parties. 3. Turns out the extra cost of the incumbents wasn’t all profiteering. 4. Regulations and/or bad press step in, and make the startup put in some extra controls/protections/standards. 5. Startup not looking so cheap any more. 6. Startup graduates to being just another incumbent.
- spookthesunset 4y ago
  Sounds like Uber...
  - Ancalagon 4y ago
    And the uber drivers and car quality are about the same as taxis nowadays too
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - propogandist 4y ago
    which still hasn't made a profit, but VCs have dumped the POS business onto retail investors
- jollybean 4y ago
  All of that - except regulations are excessive particularly zoning and what are effectively artificial market controls. Both Taxi and Hotel industries are insider, regulatory capture monopoly frauds that need to be busted wide open. Most frustratingly, our stupid governments have not effectively adapted. There has been almost 0 rational policy adjustment since this change. Even more weird, even in cities where Uber was banned (don't agree with that, but it's the cities choice) - they just continued to operate, the effete city managers unable to do anything about it. We should have been experimenting with different lodging models for some time now. Utterly stupid cities could be making considerably more money with better taxi models, instead, they stay stupid, while Uber collects surpluses that could go into our civic infrastructure. It's a shame.
tribune 4y ago
Airbnb vs. hotels is like Mom and Pop restaurants vs. fast food to me. You might have a better experience at the former, but you know exactly what you're going to get at the latter. My last Airbnb went perfectly smoothy but there was still a ton of communication with the host. And that was only part of a dozen+ emails and a similar number of app notifications related to the stay. Why? At some point I just want to show up, crash, and leave.
astrostl 4y ago
Should this not be percentage-based instead of fixed-fee?
unstatusthequo 4y ago
I barely even bother with AirBNB now. They lost the battle of peer to peer renting. Cleaning fees, taxes, etc all add up and airbnbs are almost never cheaper than hotels in most cities when I look. Might be better space or amenities like a kitchen, but the glory days of this are gone thanks to the hospitality lobby and NIBMY bullshit of local governments. Sad. Seems like you can’t do anything without several middlemen putting their hands into the transaction for their cut. Sound almost like the mob. Ha.
biomcgary 4y ago
My wife is an Airbnb superhost (i.e., highly rated), but our property is in Flagstaff, AZ and was directly affected by the Tunnel and Pipeline fires (but not burned). We just got massive flooding last week due to the burn scar. We've had to cancel guests to make repair to the property including the driveway being washed away and 12 inches of mud being deposited across the entire property. The property is currently a safety hazard until the county fixes the runoff problem. The flash flooding hit before the cellphone based alarms went off. Fortunately, our guests had not arrived because their car would have been destroyed or stranded in a sea of mud. Airbnb required us to provide photos AND a letter from our county to document the reason for the cancellations.
jandj5 4y ago
For the life of me, I don't understand the appeal of Airbnb. In my experience, the prices are comparable to local hotels of the same quality - especially if you also take into account hotel amenities like room service and breakfast not included in Airbnbs. So I don't see a cost benefit. I have never in my life had a hotel cancel a reservation on me. Never. On the other hand, in only a few months of using Airbnb regularly while traveling for work, I had three last-time minute cancellations. This makes renting through Airbnb incredibly stressful, because then I have 'will they cancel on me last minute?' in the back of my mind, and who needs that extra stress? Finally, when something is wrong with the Airbnb there's not really anyone you can call to fix it, if the host is unresponsive. I was once in an Airbnb in Nevada where the temperature outside was higher than 110, and the air conditioner was not working. It took the host something like 12 hours to get back to me, and that was only to tell me that they've scheduled a repairman to come in a few days, when I would no longer be there. On the other hand, if you were to have broken air conditioner in a hotel, you'd be switched to another room promptly. So I just don't get Airbnb's appeal. It's not a good deal either money-wise or stress/quality-wise.
apricot13 4y ago
First time I used airbnb host cancelled on me for no reason. I've never used it since as I just don't trust hosts anymore.
golergka 4y ago
I've read all the comments in this thread, and I'm left completely baffled by people claiming that hotels are cheaper. Where on earth are you booking hotel rooms with a kitchen, living room, dedicated working desk, balcony a full-size bath for under $100 a night?
itsthejb 4y ago
Congrats to Airbnb for, a decade after they first became big, finally doing something to address the number one reason why the service leaves people with a sour taste, and at worst leaves customers in severe jeopardy General statement, other than probably getting your money back, they do next to nothing to support customers when something goes wrong
andrewl 4y ago
There are lots of comments on this Twitter post from Paul Graham about an Airbnb cofounder and his commitment to users: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1550276733110063104 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1550276733110063104 They are similar to the ones here.
charlie0 4y ago
I've had very few issues with AirBnb. My process is as follows: 1. Heavily prefer Superhost 2. Never be among the first guests at a new property unless there's a heavy discount. 3. Stay away from professionally managed hosts or hosts that have more then 3 listings. These are generally more expensive, have minimal furnishing and are overall less "homey", and are the same people contributing to rising home prices. Airbnb should be a place for homeowners to make side income, not investors turning over a considerable amount of housing into rentals.
cheviethai123 4y ago
Airbnb isn't great anyway
iudqnolq 4y ago
One interesting thing to know when reading AirBNB reviews is that if you have a dispute and they decide you're in the wrong you're not allowed to share anything related to that dispute. So you'll never see a review that says a host did something unreasonable and then AirBNB sided with them.

257 points by post_break 4y ago

post_break 4y ago

The $1000 will go to Airbnb, not the person who was cancelled on so you're still high and dry.

dfbsdfbwe2ef2e 4y ago
Do you know this or are you guessing?
- post_break 4y ago
  "Fees are deducted from hosts' future payouts." https://www.airbnb.co.uk/resources/hosting-homes/a/changing-our-policy-on-avoidable-host-cancellations-537 https://www.airbnb.co.uk/resources/hosting-homes/a/changing-...
  - dfbsdfbwe2ef2e 4y ago
    That doesn't imply it's NOT paid to the guest. That only explains how and when the money moves out of the host's account.
    - post_break 4y ago
      Let's say for argument's sake it does go to the guest. What does $1,000 whenever Airbnb decides to credit your account, help you when you're stranded. I can only assume Airbnb pockets the fee because nowhere in their documentation do they state the guest receives the money, otherwise they would outright state it.
      - dfbsdfbwe2ef2e 4y ago
        Before digressing, can you just first acknowledge that when I ask "do you know this or are you guessing", the answer is you're guessing?
        post_break 4y ago
        Rereading their statement, these are platform fees, of course they go to Airbnb. Not guessing, just reading between the lines. https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/990/host-cancellation-policy https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/990/host-cancellation-... It's plain as day, the fees are charged to the host, and thus Airbnb takes the fees.
        mrtranscendence 4y ago
        I mean, it’s a pretty educated guess. The $100 penalty that’s already levied doesn’t go to shafted renters, so why would this larger fee?
      - seoaeu 4y ago
        Getting $1000 to put towards paying for alternative accommodations would be very helpful?
    - hnaccount_rng 4y ago
      I had this situation come up like twice over here in Europe. In both cases Airbnb offered to assist with an alternative place to stay (one time taken one time declined) and in both cases provided me with credit of about the worth of the original stay
  - 88913527 4y ago
    Good to know I could rent on Airbnb and unknowingly 100% of my expense could go straight to the platform, due to a host's previous cancellation on an otherwise unrelated reservation.
scottiebarnes 4y ago
Meh, the point of a high penalty is to disincentivize behaviour, not to provide reparations. Ie. someone gets a DUI, we don't directly pay out the fee to anyone near by who may have been affected.
- blululu 4y ago
  We typically do pay a fee directly to the person/people who were injured by their actions.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- FartyMcFarter 4y ago
  "May have been" vs "actually was" affected are quite different from each other.
  - scottiebarnes 4y ago
    True, portions of fees go to victims funds. However, in most cases, damages will need to be pursued civilly. My point was, the primary goal of expensive punishments are not to make victims whole.
- mupuff1234 4y ago
  But the DUI penalty doesn't go to some private entity, eventually it goes back to the public. The Airbnb penalty goes to cushion Airbnb's pockets.
  - ChrisLomont 4y ago
    >to cushion Airbnb's pockets i.e., to their stock price, i.e., to investors, i.e., to pension funds both private and public (pensions are by far the largest AirBnB shareholders), i.e., it likely benefits the majority of the public (the majority of US households have stock exposure, quite often large pension funds or index funds - AirBnB is part of the Nasdaq 100, for example).
lotsofpulp 4y ago
For comparison, if a Marriott/Hyatt/Hilton/IHG/Choice hotel is unable to accommodate your reservation, you obviously do not pay anything for that night, but they also have to pay and arrange for your first night’s stay somewhere else, and for a ride to and from that place (if they are bringing you back). If the staff at the hotel does not abide by the walk policy, you can call the 800 number to complain, and they will send you a check for your expenses and then bill the hotel.
- cortesoft 4y ago
  I assume that will depend on the local laws?
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    No, these are agreements between the franchisor (hotel brands) and the franchisees (hotel owners). Obviously, exclusions to the walk policy are if you are banned at the hotel, or if you are walking in high with 3 prostitutes hanging off your arm, or any other reason that a hotel would want to refuse you because the hotel believes you will cause damage or disturb others.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > For comparison, if a Marriott/Hyatt/Hilton/IHG/Choice hotel is unable to accommodate your reservation, you obviously do not pay anything for that night, but they also have to pay and arrange for your first night’s stay somewhere else, and for a ride to and from that place (if they are bringing you back). Like is that a law or something? I'm not sure it is. They may choose to do this. Compare to flights and trains, where there are laws. For example is cancelled and you've started your journey, they must get you home, by law (in the UK.) I was in a five-hour taxi ride once after a train was cancelled.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    No, it is not a law. Walk policies are standard for any half decent hotel brand. “Walk” is when you get sent from one hotel to another due to the hotel’s fault. Perhaps overbooking, or maintenance issue, or computer/clerical error, etc.
kbos87 4y ago
Do we really know that? I’m guessing it will give Airbnb the leeway to rebook people in more expensive accommodations as a replacement if needed. It’s not in their best interests for people to be left high and dry.

mikece 4y ago

And the increased penalty will be applied to the screwed renter as credits toward another AirBNB or will that be available as a reimbursement for having to make alternative (and likely expensive) last-minute arrangements? If there's not messaging that this penalty will go to the cancelled renter then I still don't see a reason to trust AirBNB.

TedShiller 4y ago
- blululu 4y ago
  In general yes, but a customer hostile attitude is also a pretty garbage way to approach business. Nobody grows a business with that attitude. It’s a lousy excuse for a problem that is not that hard to fix.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  If you take this absurd position to it's logical conclusion, nobody forced you to travel in the first place. Therefore, you can't complain about anything related to travel, ever.
  - TedShiller 4y ago
    if you want complaints to be taken seriously don’t complain about things you agreed to
    - TedShiller 4y ago
      =)
- eatsyourtacos 4y ago
  Ah this tired argument. "No one forced you to use this service, even though it's relatively close to a monopoly and sometimes there are literally no other options.. but in any case, because you 'chose' to use the service they can just do whatever you want and you have no recourse to complain or think it's wrong!"

jupp0r 4y ago

The fee will not go to the renter who’s accommodation has been cancelled. They will still benefit from the increase, though. Disincentivizing hosts to cancel last minute will make it rarer for the situation to arise in the first place.

kbos87 4y ago
In situations like this Airbnb usually helps the renter find comparable accommodations as a replacement. My guess is that this will give them more leeway to find replacements that are more expensive, and offset the cost onto the cancelling host, which feels very fair to me.
dropofwill 4y ago
Then the host will just not go through the cancellation process and solve it out of band to avoid the fee. That happened to me earlier this year, 2 hours before checkin told me that something came up and I couldn't stay there. Sent me a ~95% refund but never cancelled the booking within Airbnb. Complained to Airbnb about it, but all they did was remove my negative review.
- ascagnel_ 4y ago
  > Then the host will just not go through the cancellation process and solve it out of band to avoid the fee. I've seen this happen in other service apps -- hailing a taxi via Uber/Lyft, and when the driver sees that I'm a little out of downtown, about 30% of the time I'll get a text message off-platform asking me to cancel the ride because "something happened to [their] car" in between them accepting the ride and them getting to my home. My only thought is that the heavy emphasis on driver/host ratings and penalty fees drives the providers off-platform, but that leaves their users stuck shouldering the burden and nobody happy.
- jupp0r 4y ago
  It's really on AirBnb to fix this then. I'm sure if you created a support case with them and pushed for it being escalated that they would make it right. Annoying for customers having to go through that, though.

eddof13 4y ago

My understanding is if it is particularly last minute, Airbnb will arrange the rebook to another property, and this $1000 is to subsidize those costs to Airbnb?

blululu 4y ago
Citation needed. I’ve had some pretty bad experiences with AirBnB and I am not sure what you are talking about. Maybe if you can get someone on the phone at 8pm on a Sunday then they might help out.
freeqaz 4y ago
My recent experience with Airbnb rebooking another room is... do not rely on this. You should not rely on Airbnb for anything you must depend on. They're not a hotel and their support doesn't have control over the "supply" to help you in a pinch. (I wasted an insane amount of time on the phone last month helping a colleague rebook a room after the host cancelled mid-trip.)

ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago

AirBnB has gotten so expensive with fees. Not only that, most AirBnBs I have rented, have looked nothing like the pictures when I get there. The last one in NYC had cockroaches, with over 100 good reviews. Perhaps them doing this signals confidence and strength in their business, but the act of renting a place is almost like online dating. Everything looks great until you meet in person.

rchaud 4y ago
They're public now. No more undercutting hotels off the teat of venture capital. Now they're in the uncharted waters of having to make a profit.
juve1996 4y ago
AirBnB's advantage was how cheap it was compared to hotels and other accommodations. That advantage is pretty much gone now, so basically you get an expensive place, with horrific quality control. It's a roll of the dice. I've gone back to hotels. The experience is streamlined. No janky lockboxes with codes that don't work, no unresponsive hosts (someone available 24/7 at most), places are cleaned on request, and other amenities are typically available right on site.
- SantalBlush 4y ago
  Also going back to hotels. I've enjoyed staying at AirBnB rentals, but more and more I get the feeling that I'm just a pest who is supposed to help pay the mortgage on their investment property. The notes and manuals left by hosts can be off-putting, and the last place we stayed at looked like a bad flip-job with minimal furniture.
digianarchist 4y ago
The fact that hosts can leave reviews for customers provides a disincentive to leave a bad review. I’ve stayed in two places in the last two weeks. First wasn’t like the pictures at all. Rammed with furniture and had no way to put garbage out. Second stunk of mould on the first floor, AC was useless; and the washer/dryer was broken (actually dismantled causing the mould smell). We had to use a laundrette. They both got glowing reviews because I can’t risk not being able to use the platform as they’ve swallowed the entire short term rental market.

azemetre 4y ago

This happened to me the first time I used AirBnB in 2016. I was attending a music festival in NYC, booked an AirBnB a month in advance in Brooklyn. 4 days before my flight the host cancels on me and I got a surge of anxiety. I tried to find other hosts on such short notice. I found someone one day before my flight (he rented out his apartment for 3 days and just stayed with a friend, also his first time using AirBnB). The experience of getting cancelled and having no repercussions to the host was extremely off putting to me. I had no idea on what to do at the time, as the site loves to not handle edge cases that completely sour your experience with the product. Why they simply couldn't have an error screen that said, "your host cancelled? please do the following and checkout these hosts who ARE available and reliable." This was my first and last time using AirBnB. Maybe it changed now, but I tell everyone I know to just rent a hotel instead. Such a shame too because I love AirBnB when it comes to engineering but the product itself I will never use again.

BowBun 4y ago
Did you reach out to AirBnB when that happened? This happened to me in Amsterdam once, the host cancelled a couple of days before we went (this was in 2018 or so). I contacted AirBnB support, and they gave me 150% of the value of the stay to get an alternative accommodation last-minute. Got us a nice little bed and breakfast that was more expensive and everything worked out alright. Sorry your experience was so stressful!
- freeqaz 4y ago
  Maybe this depends on regional policies? I just had an experience last month with a host canceling and they wouldn't give me a coupon for more then 30% of the value of the stay. But the stay that had been cancelled was a month-long and it was cancelled 8 days in. Rebooking with just a 30% coupon was impossible, even after 20+ hours on the phone, and I ended up giving up to book my colleague a hotel for a few nights. (I still haven't been reimbursed by Airbnb either, and I will never expect to.) I'm glad to hear that not every experience is terrible, but it's also annoying that it seems to be random based on region or the rep you get.

fuster 4y ago

This literally happened to me yesterday for a trip I'm leaving for in 3 days. The best part is that it's the second time I've been canceled on for this same trip. Naturally everywhere that isn't already booked up is 2-3x the price now. Just a huge hassle.

dominotw 4y ago
> Naturally everywhere that isn't already booked up is 2-3x the price now. Just a huge hassle. So the host can cancel, rebook at 3x , pay $1k and still come out on top? Correct way to do this would've been start is exponential fines. Start with 100, 200 next time, 400 after that ect till an upper limit.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  If that were a great strategy, they just wouldn't rent until a few days before.
  - mywittyname 4y ago
    Hosts don't necessarily know all of the events that will bring in crowds. So they book early for a guaranteed $x. Then if they see that market rates for nearby units rose to n*$x, it makes sense for them to cancel and rebook at that rate.
    - brewdad 4y ago
      This happened to me in Boston. I was going to run the marathon and knew that I needed to book way ahead to ensure I could get a decent room, whether hotel or AirBNB. I booked an apartment in Back Bay. Two weeks later, the host realized it was going to be marathon weekend and tried to triple my price. When I refused his offer, he canceled me. Fortunately, it was still early enough that I was able to book a hotel near the finish line. Unfortunately, that hotel ended up be the host of all of the press and press conferences when someone bombed the finish area.
- 4y ago

dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago

Finally. I hope booking.com adopts a similar policy.

sometimeshuman 4y ago

Alternatively could a host allow you to check-in and then kick you out shortly afterwards ? For example, on July 3 the the house cleaner for the AirBnB next door to my condo claimed they "kicked out" the guest on because they had more than 3(?) people over. When I asked her the eviction tactics she was vague and said "phone calls were made and AirBnB has a process". It seemed like a low bar to evict someone at a beach property during a holiday weekend and from my perspective those guests were just fine. Could a host just fabricate a violation such as "the neighbors are complaining about noise" and skip the $1000 fee ?

smileysteve 4y ago
Airbnb had a problem with party hosts, so your example of having 3 ? Additional? To the number booked is something very serious to Airbnb.

s_dev 4y ago

There is probably a lot more "cancellations" recently give inflation and Covid hence the update to AirBnB policy. I'm sure many booked holidays a year ago at great rates when people couldn't travel and hosts desperately needed cash flow. Now that bookings are approaching (hotels do this as well) hosts are cancelling bookings and selling them to others who will pay a much higher price.

sundaeofshock 4y ago
Except the hosts don’t get the money until 24-hours after check-in. AirBnB got to sit on that cash for the last year.

bastardoperator 4y ago

Sorry Airbnb, you've screwed too many people too many times. You've allowed, even enabled hosts to abuse travelers. I'm not rolling the dice anymore. The last straw for me was last year traveling to NYC for Christmas. The host refused to contact us back, never a peep from the host. Airbnb fought us tooth and nail in terms of refund. How am I going to put small children on a plane and hope everything is fine when we land? They didn't care. They were doing everything they could for the host. Finally after 3 days of arguing back and forth one of the off shore customer service representatives gave us a refund. I shouldn't have to spend 12 hours on the phone over the course of three days, having my vacation completely ruined, just to get what I deserve which was my money back.

Moctogo 4y ago
I'm done with them as well. ~10 years ago, it was a novel, fun way to travel and meet new people. Now it's become a business for many hosts and it shows. I have never appreciated a hotel room as much as I do now, having gone through the AirBNB gauntlet one time too many.
- rtev 4y ago
  Doing Airbnb over hotels also contributes greatly to city housing shortages and gentrification. Major US cities have large swaths of apartment units sitting empty, held by some management company to rent out as a pseudo-hotel room.
  - enos_feedler 4y ago
    I won’t disagree with this take, but why should I care about any of this? The reason I don’t own a house is because prices are so high. But my solution is to just live like a local wherever I want and pay someone else’s mortgage. It’s a lifestyle that suits me and I have the cash flow to do it. Do I care that I am in a house next to some owner who doesn’t want me there? You own a house and I don’t, so screw you. I know this sounds a bit nasty but I am offering a genuine take that puts airbnb as sort of a weapon between the haves (house owners) and have nots (nomads).

faangiq 4y ago

Airbnb has a lot of fraud listings. Very easy problem to solve but they don’t seem to care.

kansface 4y ago
How do you solve it? Kicking off listings with a history of fraud is easy, but how do you stop new ones outside of direct inspections?
- faangiq 4y ago
  Just do direct inspections. (Virtual equivalent.) Airbnb is a jobs program for useless designer types, just get a handful them to spend a couple hours per day on Zoom. Plenty of other options too ie escrow deposits etc.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  Don’t release revenue until a trusted guest visits at least once

josefresco 4y ago

Is the scam basically ... a host will book someone, then closer to arrival if the rates in the region are higher they'll cancel and rebook with someone else at a higher rate?

ProAm 4y ago
It's not a scam, its capitalism. Supply and demand 101 with the gig economy.
- whiplash451 4y ago
  I think you’re missing basic customers’ rights in the process.
  - ProAm 4y ago
    Rights? It's room sharing. Not a hotel. Not a business. (I get you but this is the gig economy in a nutshell. If I can make $500 more a night you're damned right you're getting cancelled)
    - SantalBlush 4y ago
      >If I can make $500 more a night you're damned right you're getting cancelled This is what people are taking issue with. Calling it the "gig economy" doesn't explain why people should be fine with it.
      - ProAm 4y ago
        That is 100% what the gig economy is about. Just like 'surge' pricing with Uber/Lyft. These people are renting out their homes, why not make the most money as possible? Is it scummy? Sure. Illegal? It's capitalism. You can't knock someone who can earn a substantial amount more money with THEIR private property.
        4y ago

O__________O 4y ago

Unless guests are able to set their own cancellation policy — including the host is forced to cover market rate at time of cancellation if rebooked within X-days for a like or better booking, this is a joke. AirBNB’s penalties for host go to AirBNB, not the guests, and AirBNB frequently waves the host penalties without explanation. If the stay was canceled prior to booking and the fees waved, no review is allowed to be left either by the guest or automatically; the automatic cancellation reviews are only left if host gets a penalty, which again AirBNB frequently waves without explanation. I have personally lost thousands due to AirBNB allowing host to cancel at the last second then repost and book the stay for 300% more; host even offered to allow me to rebook, so clearly cancellation was unrelated to anything to do with me. Use AirBNB at your own risk, they will happily leave you without a place to stay if a host cancels a booking. Always have a backup plan and look into travel insurance.

Ekaros 4y ago
Actually why shouldn't hosts be able to set any cancellation policy. Or even use policy. Then it is up to renter to review the small print. It seems only reasonable for me.
- O__________O 4y ago
  Host do set cancellation policies. My point is that guests per stay should be able to set there own policies would be viewable to a host prior to booking or in a list of pre-approved guest policies. Host is under no obligation to book a guest with a policy they are not agreeable to.

dabinat 4y ago

Rented an AirBnB for a friend’s wedding and it caught fire. We were at the wedding when it occurred but I sometimes think about what would have happened if we were sleeping inside at the time. There would have been no escape except through the upper-story window. The host initially accused us of causing the fire through negligence, then it was eventually revealed to be an electrical fault in the building, which had been built by the homeowner himself. The bigger problem was that they hadn’t told their insurance company they were subletting. We eventually agreed a deal with lawyers for them to compensate us. (It probably goes without saying that AirBnB was of course no help throughout the whole process.) It occurred to me that none of this would have occurred in a regular hotel. The hotel would have a proper fire and sprinkler system with actual fire escape routes, the electrics would not be amateur and they would have had proper insurance.

frittata 4y ago
Wow, what a nightmare. Airbnb feels like WeWork – they both desperately want to be "tech companies" but at the end of the day neither one of them really is. They should have more important things to focus on before tech. Instead of making sure their app has the nicest UI, they should first make sure all of their rentals have proper fire exits.
- menzoic 4y ago
  WeWork either owned or rented all of it's properties. Airbnb is a tech platform that doesn't own any properties so by definition it's a tech company. I hear the same argument about Uber not being a tech company but they are too. Airbnb and Uber build apps and benefit from being a tech company because they can scale globally without investing in properties or taxis
  - effingwewt 4y ago
    They are middlemen, not a tech company. Using tech for your business doesn't make it a tech business. The same business has been run for years before the internet with cork-boards.
  - 4y ago

kbos87 4y ago

As a host I couldn’t be any happier about this. I work hard to give my guests a great experience… hosts who do this sort of thing are hurting perception for the rest of us. This should knock some low quality inventory off the market.

voidr 4y ago
As a host I feel that AirBnB is not doing enough to solve the bad guest problem. AirCover is a joke and guests are still able to leave revenge reviews, even after it was established the guest indeed did bad things. I will be looking at alternatives, because I'm fed up with their attitude towards hosts.

frittata 4y ago

This sounds like it could become dangerous for guests. e.g. a host doesn't want to host you, but they also don't want to lose $1,000. So you show up at their house and they convince you that it's in your best interest to cancel the reservation on your end... or else. I've had >1 Uber driver call me and ask me to cancel the request on my end because he realized he couldn't get to me for X reason, and he didn't want the cancellation to negatively impact his driver account.

whimsicalism 4y ago
Yeah Uber drivers wanting to cancel but not can drive a lot of shitty behavior on their behalf, like intentionally driving in the wrong direction. I've found this kind of behavior is much more common abroad than in the US.

draw_down 4y ago

bena 4y ago

Why are people still rolling the dice with AirBnB. I stayed in one once, in 2018. It was a neutral experience. But certainly not better than a hotel. Unsure of the price as I didn't personally pay for it. Getting in initially was more work than a hotel, but not horribly so. But after what they do to the housing situation, the numerous shitty hosts sometimes doing blatantly illegal things, things like the above, etc. I'd rather not have all that on my mental plate while trying to find accomodation. Book a hotel, call it a day. Hotels exist to solve the problem or temporary accommodation. They've been doing it for decades. The only way I'd use an AirBnB is if the choices for hotels didn't exist for some reason. Like with Uber/Lyft and Taxis. Uber is still useful in some scenarios, but for the most part, take a Taxi if you're in a city.

whiplash451 4y ago
Some people (like me) use AirBnB because they happen to have inventory where/when regular hotels don’t.
windowsrookie 4y ago
I only use Airbnb to get a cheaper place to stay than a hotel. I can usually get a place for ~100/night within walking distance from the beach. That is not possible with hotels (In the USA). I am willing to accept a lower standard for a lower price. The problem is some people think they deserve a 5 star experience for $100. The places I stay are old and outdated, you may see some bugs, and usually no toiletries/towels are provided. Yes, Hotels offer a better experience. But my entire expenses for a 5 day vacation by the beach, including flights, lodging, and food is less than $1,000 with a cheap AirBnB.

raverbashing 4y ago

Better late than later I guess But this was long overdue. Some cities are rife with Airbnb scams You can pretend only the technology matters but customer service can sink or swim a service. And I don't get why Airbnb is not apparently paying attention to those issues

kogir 4y ago

The host should pay the same penalty as the guest if they cancel. No refund policy for me? Then pay the full amount to me when you cancel.

djohnston 4y ago

One time they booked me for a place that wasn't even supposed to be listed lol. If I'm planning the trip it's always going to be a hotel.

megra 4y ago

Surprised but not surprised at how many commenters are fed up with Airbnb. After ~20+ stays with a few frustrating experiences, I had my breaking point about a year ago. After ~20 hours of flights, I landed in my destination city at 10pm only to receive a message from the host telling me to go to an address different than the listing. There were no pictures of the new place and it was in a different neighbourhood which was no longer walking distance to where I had work meetings. Plus, it just felt unsafe and sketchy. AirBnB eventually refunded me, but I still paid more for a hotel and lost many hours on the phone with customer service. I haven't used Airbnb since.

freeqaz 4y ago
This is a common fraud method that I've read a few articles about over the years. I initially had sympathy for Airbnb in that it's much harder for them to deal when a host is a "bad actor", but that sympathy evaporated when I saw that they have no recourse for making any type of resolution swift or even possible. I've worked on fraud, at scale, before and it is a hard problem. But when you're giving fraudsters $$$ by letting scams happen and hurting people's lives in the process... for years... it escapes understanding. When you turn a blind eye, you're effective "creating" a world for fraudsters to thrive. As a founder, myself, I'm always thinking about what the world would look like if I am successful. At some point it's your duty as a founder to put your foot down and "be the change you want to see in the world" even if it hurts your profit margin. But maybe this is also the difference that lets people rise to the top. It's just sobering. At least people like Bill Gates have been able to distance themselves from their ruthless business tactics and steer that influence towards promoting positive change.
- menzoic 4y ago
  They find you a new place now https://www.airbnb.com/aircover https://www.airbnb.com/aircover
  - freeqaz 4y ago
    They do not. I cited this exact policy and it fell on deaf ears. I couldn't believe it myself -- maybe I should write a dedicated post about the details just for visibility.

synu 4y ago

I love the idea of Airbnb but have been burned by their terrible customer service so many times that I just get hotels again.

parkingrift 4y ago

A more annoying situation I've encountered more and more frequently is that the AirBNB is not anywhere near the circle it claims to be. Rented a place recently that was a 38 minute drive from the town the listing said it was in. AirBNB not only didn't care, but didn't consider there to be anything wrong with the listing. Booked a different place in the same "town" and it was a 10 minute drive from where it was supposed to have been. We just accepted it. I did eventually get a refund on the first one, but only after raising a fit at AirBNB. I think I'll stay at hotels in most cases moving forward.

dougSF70 4y ago

Exactly, a good hotel knows that location is just one part of the experience, service is the rest. Airbnb hosts can go rot in their own rent-seeking hell as far as i am concerned.

varispeed 4y ago

In my country there are no shelters for men in abusive relationships. In a crisis situation Airbnb is probably the best option to find something on a short notice and little budget. A friend of mine called me crying in the car park, that he can't find anything to stay away from home, as hosts were cancelling his reservations. He couldn't afford to go to a hotel, but was prepared to sleep in his car. I found him something in a different part of the city eventually, but it was stressful.

jmyeet 4y ago

This is how temporary accommodation should work: multi-family houses where extra room or extra unit is rented out. This requires the owner to be onsite and suffer the consequences of bad actors. That’s it. Of course in the US this is impossible because in most places building anything other than single family houses is illegal. Many years ago people would have boarders. London, for example, would have people who stayed during the week. What AirBnB tried to do was create a system to allow Oriole to set up illegal hotels. That’s it. I never saw the attraction in that personally. The negative externalities of AirBnB are massive: safety concerns for residents, disruption for residents, reduction in rental housing supply and reduction in the supply of houses for owner-occupiers. The sooner it dies the better.

Etheryte 4y ago
What you're describing is the polar opposite of what many people are looking for. When I'm travelling I want a private space to come home to, without someone else rummaging around in the background, worries about when I can or can't use the shower, how early someone wakes up etc. What you're describing is more or less Couchsurfing and there's a reason Airbnb is more popular.

anm89 4y ago

I lived out of Airbnb's for years as a "nomad" and I'm also in the never again camp. I literally developed an anxiety order that I'm in treatment for from from all the times I ended up "homeless" temporarily because some host screwed me over in some way or another and I needed to scramble to find housing in a foreign country. Airbnb is simply extremely ok with leaving you stranded, alone, and homeless regardless of where you are in the world or what your other options are.

eagsalazar2 4y ago

My biggest peeve with Airbnb is that they should mandate that hosts include cleaning fees in the daily rate (by just removing the option for a separate cleaning fee). Not doing so makes it almost impossible to compare costs. The could even allow for a different rate for shorter stays but again that would make the shopping experience so much better.

jonlucc 4y ago
All they have to do is allow sorting by total cost. It shows it on the search results, but will not allow you to sort by it.
niij 4y ago
It doesn't have to be baked into the daily rate. They could just show the total when searching.. but Airbnb doesn't do that because it would make people realize the poor deal they're really getting.
m-ee 4y ago
It now shows total price for each property in the search for me, but I think it's a fairly recent change. Might also be location dependent. It was extremely frustrating in the past since the nightly rate was useless and pushed me to always try vrbo first.

vsnf 4y ago

I've never been comfortable with the concept of Airbnb, so I'm curious if anyone could chime in with why they think it grew to be as big as it did. To me the idea that I have to do a kind of song-and-dance negotiation with a host by first introducing myself over texting chat, to see if we meet each-other's minimum standards, and then have them personally arrange for how to do the key pickup and dropoff is an enormous turn off to me. Thinking back on the marketing, Airbnb in my mind occupied the same space as a hotel, but actually it's intensely more social than that. I was shocked when I first tried it and found it was so built on a one-on-one experience. Granted, I only ever did this once, and maybe 6 or 7 years ago at that, but I vastly prefer the idea of an impersonal hotel check-in desk that confirms my stay and then retreats into the background.

llbeansandrice 4y ago
At the time hotels were really expensive and not as available in many locations. AirBnBs could be closer to your final destination, cheaper, and have more personality than bland hotel rooms. Now, AirBnB has soured and caused lots of problems while hotels are more comparable in price and more reliable. Just my general opinions I don't really have any proof other than using the service and making the decision to switch back to hotels primarily. AirBnB and similar is still a better choice for larger groups or vacations where you want something like an entire house: kitchen, multiple bedrooms, privacy, etc.
whimsicalism 4y ago
I've only had great experiences and am very selective with which AirBnBs I get. If you want a nice house/apartment to explore a city from, hotels don't cut it for me, AirBnB or VRBO are the only games in town.
jonlucc 4y ago
AirBnBs can have yards, kitchens, multiple bedrooms, and locations hotels don't exist. I think those are the main things that benefitted them as they grew, and that market is still largely only served by AirBnB and VRBO. I haven't had the problems that everyone else in the thread seems to have, but that could be because of the places I choose. They have filters for no-contact check-in, so I have never once had to meet the "host".

menzoic 4y ago

A lot of horror stories in this thread. The worst I had was the listing said it had a hot tub but it was being repaired. The new AirCover would probably solve a lot of issues in this thread https://www.airbnb.com/aircover https://www.airbnb.com/aircover

digianarchist 4y ago
If you booked way in advanced to save money and then host cancels on you, then what use is a refund when you have to find alternative accommodation at 2-3x the price you booked? If the guarantee was alternative accommodation either the same or better as what you previously booked, this would be a much better policy.

y-c-o-m-b 4y ago

Meh, what a weak response. This is a maximum fee. It would be more effective if it was a minimum fee, with the maximum equaling the total cost of the stay. So if you book a week-long vacation at 3k and it gets cancelled last minute, the fee should equal 3k. FWIW I haven't had a bad experience with AirBNB yet over the years and handful of stays I've been in. The one in Iceland smelled slightly like piss and dog odor, but it was tolerable. Aside from that, the other experiences like in Hawaii or some random off-grid cabin in Oregon were pretty good and much cheaper than the alternative. That said, I believe AirBNB is another "too big to fail, too big to care" tech company like Amazon, Google, etc. They continue making billions while screwing over thousands if not millions of people all the time, so why invest in improving the customer experience? They have no incentive to do so until their profits take a beating.

distances 4y ago
Just interested, what kind of a place is 3k/week? In Europe with somewhat good planning that gives you a two-week vacation in Southern Europe for two including flights, hotel stays, all food and drinks, public transport tickets, and entrance tickets to museums etc.
- biztos 4y ago
  Larger houses; popular tourist destinations; and America. Any two of these things can get you over 3K/week pretty quickly, all three pretty much guarantees it. I have a friend with a gorgeous six-bedroom that he fills for $7800 per week all summer long.
- brewdad 4y ago
  It's usually a whole house that can accommodate large groups. My family stayed in a house in the Ozarks a couple months ago. The place slept up to 30 and most nights there were only 2 empty beds. It worked great for our needs but had anything gone wrong, my sister in law, the only person who lived within 5 hours of the house, would have had a nightmare on her hands helping us find a place to stay.
- golergka 4y ago

vxNsr 4y ago

Along with higher fine, prevent re-listing unless you offer the original guests right of first refusal at their original price.

bradlys 4y ago

Yeah - the fee should always be quite punitive. I’ve only had one host cancel on me last minute and it was very disrupting to our trip because nothing was available. We had to book a horror story of a place on VRBO (which I would say is much worse than Airbnb!) and then caved and spent 3-4x what I planned by stating in a hotel. I find Airbnb while not perfect allows travelers who are on a budget to find places. If you’re looking for whole houses or apartments then it’s usually not cheaper than a hotel but I’m usually booking rooms in an apartment or house - and in those instances it’s usually cheaper.

enos_feedler 4y ago

Just to counter act these negative stories I’ll say that airbnb saved my ass once when I was traveling in new zealand and massive flooding took down the road ways and filled up all flights. I needed a quick place to stay for a week or so and in a few taps I had a bed. This felt powerful. Before and after this I stayed on airbnb many times without any issues. Obviously some are better than others, but I also feel hotels do a pretty good job jipping me out of a good room like the one in the picture. Or charging me a resort fee separately on checkin or checkout. Or asking for $25/night parking.

charlie0 4y ago

I'm very curious as to which locations people have gotten their AirBnBs cancelled? I've booked about 20+ AirBnBs (most SuperHost and most in LATAM) and have only had hosts cancel on me 2 times. Both right after I booked them and not at last minute before my arrival.

kranke155 4y ago
It seems like the complaints on this are mostly around the US. I’ve used Airbnb over and over again in Europe and I’ve never ever had any last minute cancellations. I always look for reviews, and preferentially superhosts tho. In a big city like London, something like 30-40% of listings are clearly scams as well.
pigtailgirl 4y ago
-- Had a lot of airbnbs cancel last minute in the US & Canada - in South Korea & Japan my airbnb stays have been some of the best stays I've had anywhere - hotel or otherwise --

lastofthemojito 4y ago

I'm looking for a place to stay for the 2024 total solar eclipse and I'm considering some places on Airbnb (a lot of hotels don't book more than 1 year out). I'm definitely worried that booking now will result in the reservation ultimately being canceled though, either because the host eventually realizes the enormity of the event and wants to jack up the price or because the host just changes their mind about owning/running a rental property sometime in the next 30+ months. Maybe a larger cancellation fee would make it more likely for such a reservation to be honored, but this article seems to only be referring to last-minute cancellations.

wilde 4y ago

I look forward to $1000 cleaning fees.

jurassic 4y ago

I had a host leave me high and dry at the last minute during a holiday on the Amalfi Coast once; we showed up to the property we'd booked for a week and found it occupied with family/friends of the host. It was high season and everything decent was booked up, so we ended up changing our flight reservation and returning to the US a week early. Ruined my family vacation in a major major way. Never again.

parshimers 4y ago

Airbnb is such a joke now. I had a host steal from me with no repercussions in November. The host said the room wasn't ready through text, and then, when they said it was ready, someone (not the host) walked up to us on the street outside the building the room was supposedly in and said it still wasn't ready- there were men working inside it. He would take our bags up but under no circumstances would he let us actually see the room or have the keys until it was "ready". Obviously it was either a scam, or an illegal sublet that he didn't want to level with us about. Airbnb refused to refund a room that for all intents and purposes, didn't exist. Their rationale was that they hadn't been informed the same day, which is ridiculous considering how much of a timesink finding a last-minute hotel is. It should be open and shut, but they simply bought the lies the host told them, despite the fact they were never even there.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago

That's the attitude that drove me off airbnb. At a hotel, you are a paying client, entitled to a service. At an airbnb, you are a poor relative. Host graciously agrees to let you spend a night at their precious property.

hamandcheese 4y ago

Will this $1k be used to compensate travelers for their troubles? Or is this just extra money for Airbnb?

logicalmonster 4y ago

I'm not an expert in how AirBnb works, but perhaps they ought to prioritize some kind of system for getting screwed-over-travelers someplace to stay: whether it's another AirBnb or even a hotel. A lot of hurt feelings would probably be mendable as long as people had some assurance that in the event of a last-minute cancellation, they at least would have someplace to stay and wouldn't be left out in the cold.

personjerry 4y ago
They "do", it's called AirCover https://www.airbnb.com/aircover https://www.airbnb.com/aircover
- doix 4y ago
  > In the unlikely event a Host needs to cancel your booking within 30 days of check-in, we’ll find you a similar or better home, or we’ll refund you. Emphasis mine. A refund doesn't help when everything else is booked out and the only option costs 5 times more than your original booking.

personjerry 4y ago

Am I the only one with good experiences on AirBnB, or is the audience replying here self-selecting? I've been digital nomading for the last 10 months over several different airbnbs and have only had good experiences

doix 4y ago
I'm in the same boat, been staying in Airbnb's 100% of the time and haven't had a bad experience yet. But I'm always worried that one day it'll happen to me. Until then, I'll keep risking it I guess. I'm guessing at this point, the savings I've made will cover the eventual problem where I need to book some super expensive hotel in an emergency.
golergka 4y ago
I have been living in Airbnbs full time since march, and only had one cancellation — but the host helped me find another accommodation with a huge discount so it clearly wasn't a scam. But I've been living in Asia and Europe whereas most of the negative comments seem to be about US.
- personjerry 4y ago
  Ah yes I'm mostly in Europe as well, maybe that's why

jl6 4y ago

The standard undisruption pattern: 1. Startup undercuts incumbents with cheap new approach. 2. Turns out the new approach was cheap because it saved money by pushing risk onto the customer or 3rd parties. 3. Turns out the extra cost of the incumbents wasn’t all profiteering. 4. Regulations and/or bad press step in, and make the startup put in some extra controls/protections/standards. 5. Startup not looking so cheap any more. 6. Startup graduates to being just another incumbent.

spookthesunset 4y ago
Sounds like Uber...
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  And the uber drivers and car quality are about the same as taxis nowadays too
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- propogandist 4y ago
  which still hasn't made a profit, but VCs have dumped the POS business onto retail investors
jollybean 4y ago
All of that - except regulations are excessive particularly zoning and what are effectively artificial market controls. Both Taxi and Hotel industries are insider, regulatory capture monopoly frauds that need to be busted wide open. Most frustratingly, our stupid governments have not effectively adapted. There has been almost 0 rational policy adjustment since this change. Even more weird, even in cities where Uber was banned (don't agree with that, but it's the cities choice) - they just continued to operate, the effete city managers unable to do anything about it. We should have been experimenting with different lodging models for some time now. Utterly stupid cities could be making considerably more money with better taxi models, instead, they stay stupid, while Uber collects surpluses that could go into our civic infrastructure. It's a shame.

tribune 4y ago

Airbnb vs. hotels is like Mom and Pop restaurants vs. fast food to me. You might have a better experience at the former, but you know exactly what you're going to get at the latter. My last Airbnb went perfectly smoothy but there was still a ton of communication with the host. And that was only part of a dozen+ emails and a similar number of app notifications related to the stay. Why? At some point I just want to show up, crash, and leave.

astrostl 4y ago

Should this not be percentage-based instead of fixed-fee?

unstatusthequo 4y ago

I barely even bother with AirBNB now. They lost the battle of peer to peer renting. Cleaning fees, taxes, etc all add up and airbnbs are almost never cheaper than hotels in most cities when I look. Might be better space or amenities like a kitchen, but the glory days of this are gone thanks to the hospitality lobby and NIBMY bullshit of local governments. Sad. Seems like you can’t do anything without several middlemen putting their hands into the transaction for their cut. Sound almost like the mob. Ha.

biomcgary 4y ago

My wife is an Airbnb superhost (i.e., highly rated), but our property is in Flagstaff, AZ and was directly affected by the Tunnel and Pipeline fires (but not burned). We just got massive flooding last week due to the burn scar. We've had to cancel guests to make repair to the property including the driveway being washed away and 12 inches of mud being deposited across the entire property. The property is currently a safety hazard until the county fixes the runoff problem. The flash flooding hit before the cellphone based alarms went off. Fortunately, our guests had not arrived because their car would have been destroyed or stranded in a sea of mud. Airbnb required us to provide photos AND a letter from our county to document the reason for the cancellations.

jandj5 4y ago

For the life of me, I don't understand the appeal of Airbnb. In my experience, the prices are comparable to local hotels of the same quality - especially if you also take into account hotel amenities like room service and breakfast not included in Airbnbs. So I don't see a cost benefit. I have never in my life had a hotel cancel a reservation on me. Never. On the other hand, in only a few months of using Airbnb regularly while traveling for work, I had three last-time minute cancellations. This makes renting through Airbnb incredibly stressful, because then I have 'will they cancel on me last minute?' in the back of my mind, and who needs that extra stress? Finally, when something is wrong with the Airbnb there's not really anyone you can call to fix it, if the host is unresponsive. I was once in an Airbnb in Nevada where the temperature outside was higher than 110, and the air conditioner was not working. It took the host something like 12 hours to get back to me, and that was only to tell me that they've scheduled a repairman to come in a few days, when I would no longer be there. On the other hand, if you were to have broken air conditioner in a hotel, you'd be switched to another room promptly. So I just don't get Airbnb's appeal. It's not a good deal either money-wise or stress/quality-wise.

apricot13 4y ago

First time I used airbnb host cancelled on me for no reason. I've never used it since as I just don't trust hosts anymore.

golergka 4y ago

I've read all the comments in this thread, and I'm left completely baffled by people claiming that hotels are cheaper. Where on earth are you booking hotel rooms with a kitchen, living room, dedicated working desk, balcony a full-size bath for under $100 a night?

itsthejb 4y ago

Congrats to Airbnb for, a decade after they first became big, finally doing something to address the number one reason why the service leaves people with a sour taste, and at worst leaves customers in severe jeopardy General statement, other than probably getting your money back, they do next to nothing to support customers when something goes wrong

andrewl 4y ago

There are lots of comments on this Twitter post from Paul Graham about an Airbnb cofounder and his commitment to users: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1550276733110063104 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1550276733110063104 They are similar to the ones here.

charlie0 4y ago

I've had very few issues with AirBnb. My process is as follows: 1. Heavily prefer Superhost 2. Never be among the first guests at a new property unless there's a heavy discount. 3. Stay away from professionally managed hosts or hosts that have more then 3 listings. These are generally more expensive, have minimal furnishing and are overall less "homey", and are the same people contributing to rising home prices. Airbnb should be a place for homeowners to make side income, not investors turning over a considerable amount of housing into rentals.

cheviethai123 4y ago

Airbnb isn't great anyway

iudqnolq 4y ago

One interesting thing to know when reading AirBNB reviews is that if you have a dispute and they decide you're in the wrong you're not allowed to share anything related to that dispute. So you'll never see a review that says a host did something unreasonable and then AirBNB sided with them.