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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 s

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).
    - rightbyte 4y ago
      > You own a house and I don’t, so screw you. Renting AirBnB is way more expansive than owning the home so you are the rich guy screwing with the neighbourhood not the other way around.
      - enos_feedler 4y ago
        Maybe. The calculus works out from my pov. Maybe I just really value the flexibility
    - libraryatnight 4y ago
      You sort of answer your own question but the fact you haven't caught it yet doesn't bode well for anybody trying to explain it to you.
    - probably_wrong 4y ago
      I think you focus on the neighbors alone, in which case I can understand the "f you" point of view. From my POV one reason to care about is because AirBnB is making it harder for the "have nots" to become "haves": those that could have afforded their starter house suddenly can't because available properties are now AirBnBs, and those that could have rented near their work must now live further away, taking hours off their free time. Meanwhile, the "haves" reap more cash with less effort.
    - lovehashbrowns 4y ago
      > I am offering a genuine take that puts airbnb as sort of a weapon between the haves (house owners) and have nots (nomads). AirBnB is one of the weapons being used to keep you as a have not, though. You're basically helping to pay for the rent increases that are keeping you as a have not.
      - enos_feedler 4y ago
        Not if all my free cash is in their stock
    - brandonmenc 4y ago
  - marvin 4y ago
    Gentrification and housing shortage is caused by bad policy. That's the root of the problem. Enforcement of existing zoning regulations, and also zoning regulations that dramatically under-provision the city for number of homes.
lr4444lr 4y ago
Why not let your credit card company fight for you?
Moto7451 4y ago
Thankfully I haven’t had this bad of an experience but I agree with the sentiment. It’s good for “luxury” rentals like a whole craftsman house for 10 people in an interesting part of the country. For short notice/basic stays I have had a much better experience with Hotel Tonight and standard travel deal sites. I think the biggest issue is that the three way dynamic between guests, hosts, and AirBnB leads to weird situations where the guest needs to thread the needle between everyone else’s rules and pass through rules on a rental that represents very little margin for anyone involved above you. It’s easy to run afoul of them and get a bad rating or fine. There are the extra fees that are not shown by search results that may make the stay cost more than a hotel. And often the “it has a kitchen” remark means a bunch of single serving oats, a kettle, and a toaster. A random hotel breakfast has as much variety.
kaczordon 4y ago
I likewise had a horrible experience where 5 hours before check-in the host asked me to send an additional $1k as a “deposit” over Venmo before giving me the key code, I had multiple other people arriving as well. Needless to say Airbnb support was useless so I ended up paying. And upon arrival the apartment was not even close to what was advertised. When I left a review detailing my experience Airbnb took down my review. I had to do a chargeback on my credit card to get back my deposit since Airbnb was also completely useless in this regard. Never using Airbnb ever again. Hotels know how to treat people correctly.
- lovehashbrowns 4y ago
  That's a nightmare-level experience! The scary part about AirBnB is how differently hosts can handle things. I've used AirBnB only once exactly for these reasons. That uncertainty is killer when I'm gonna be staying in a city where I don't know anyone who lives there and can help me get out of a jam. There's a piece of mind to getting a hotel and knowing for sure that I will have somewhere to stay. If something goes wrong, there's a company policy I can review that has explicit steps for recourse.
- sankha93 4y ago
  I have experienced something similar as well. I was visiting NYC, and the place we booked did not look anything like the online listing showed. Regardless, the hosts were nice and helpful, so I left them a 5 star rating on all parameters except cleanliness. This was the first time rated something on Airbnb that is not 5 stars, and I have travelled quite a bit before. Few weeks after that I receive racist messages from the host on my personal cellphone. I am shocked Airbnb would share my personal details just like that. I reported it to Airbnb, but they were pretty clueless as this was happening outside their messaging system. I finally had to share screenshots of the text messages, and they said they will take down the hosts account. They did for sometime, but after a couple of months that host's account is still live and his place is still accepting reservations. My review has been taken down though.
- bambax 4y ago
  > When I left a review detailing my experience Airbnb took down my review. Same thing happened to me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32194057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32194057 Before then I didn't know AirBnb was moderating bad reviews in such an aggressive way. Good reviews mean nothing if all the bad ones are automatically taken down. It's ridiculous, and made me very wary of ever booking again with them. (There's an interview of Bezos somewhere where he explains that when starting Amazon, publishing houses were complaining to him about the bad book reviews, and he told them something to the effect of: it's because we let bad reviews up that people trust us. Obviously things have changed and Amazon reviews aren't what they used to be, but still. Bezos in 1997 understood something that AirBnb fails to grasp.)
fuckcensorship 4y ago
In these kinds of situations, I prefer to just dispute the transaction through my bank, get a temporary credit for the full amount (with Capital One at least), and let my bank investigate it. Most of the time this will be the end of it but in some cases you will need to provide additional documents/info to settle the dispute.
Freddie111 4y ago
Now that I'm reading all these horrible experiences, I'm wondering why there isn't a review system for businesses where I can read about such issues? I guess Trustpilot has a rating for Airbnb, but it's not very well known. How else could we make other consumers aware of such cases?
ryandrake 4y ago
Their competition isn't much better, either. I spent ~3 months trying to get a refund for a canceled booking from VRBO, that the host happily and enthusiastically provided. VRBO kept the money until I started trashing them online, then all of a sudden my case was escalated to someone who could correct the problem. For everyone who has sworn off Company X, there is someone else who has sworn off Company Y. I've currently got a month-long AirBNB booking coming up and every day I cross my fingers and pray for no surprises. I don't remember ever having this kind of uncertainty and anxiety when booking with a plain old hotel.
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arprocter 4y ago
At least when it happens in a city your chances of finding an alternative are hopefully better We got cancelled on the week before Thanksgiving in a rural area...
cbozeman 4y ago
The reason AirBNB will always have garbage service is because the hosts are their moneymakers, not you. The host has the property, the host sets the price, the host assumes all responsibility (even if they often do not live up to those responsibilities). You're just one more weary traveler who will be near-instantly replaced by someone else, so fuck you. This is also why I've never once booked with AirBNB, and why I've always booked a hotel wherever I travel. Yes, it's more expensive. It's also guaranteed. I also get someone to clean my room everyday. I also don't have to worry about walking into the kitchen and seeing an entire sink full of dirty dishes. I don't have to worry about a random teenager in the hotel taking up my bathroom for an hour. I don't have to worry about another teenage following me around and talking to me. I don't have to worry about the bathroom being dirty, and I don't have to worry about seeing a roach in the house. What I just described was the experience of a former Marine buddy of mine who booked a 6 week stay in Plantation, FL. He was moving down here from Brooklyn, NY and needed a place to stay until his apartment with ready. The AirBNB provider he booked with labeled a SuperHost. If that's what a SuperHost rental gets you, I'm totally uninterested in seeing what anything less gets you. I'd rather stay at a Motel 6.
- zippergz 4y ago
  "SuperHost" is such a joke because most of them are professional airbnb managers who don't actually own the properties. If they're good at their jobs maybe they would only accept properties that meet some standard, but from what I've seen they will work with anyone who will pay them.
  - bogota 4y ago
    They should really make it more clear what places are owned by property management companies vs people.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      This is the Amazon quandary: your core product is ostensibly "quality" (from an end user perspective), but at some point you've consumed the total available market of quality sellers... So AirBnB has to keep allowing (and encouraging) property management companies, because no one else can bring them the volume they need to grow.
bambax 4y ago
> They were doing everything they could for the host. For some reason AirBnb is very protective of their hosts. I had a bad experience a few months ago with a so-called "Superhost" where the property didn't match the description or the reviews. After my stay I left a negative review (my first ever; always left very nice reviews before then). Well... AirBnB simply removed the review, for completely bogus and irrelevant reasons. Made me extremely suspicious of any listing; it will probably be a long time before I book again.
- bena 4y ago
  Without the hosts, AirBnB has nothing to offer. There's always another fool who has yet to be burned bad enough ready to roll the AirBnB dice. Guest churn is expected. But no hosts in an area means AirBnB has nothing to offer in the area.
- unclebucknasty 4y ago
  >For some reason Airbnb is very protective of their hosts The host is Airbnb's customer, listings are non-exclusive (e.g. VRBO), and switching costs for hosts are low. The hosts bring an extraordinarily valuable asset (real estate) and without the hosts, Airbnb has no business. You are the hosts' customer. You might argue that without the renter, there is no business, but that's true irrespective of the platform. Those hosts will list somewhere and get renters, as long as there's a market. Presumably, bad hosts (not Airbnb) would take the hit of offering a poor experience over time, and better hosts would prevail. So, Airbnb's goal is to stay out of that fray and keep as many hosts as possible on their platform in order to capture as much revenue as possible from the good hosts, as well as any revenue available from hosts on the descent.
  - bambax 4y ago
    Yes, that's probably right. But they are slowly (or not so slowly) destroying their brand for short-term gains. It doesn't sound clever, or sustainable.
    - unclebucknasty 4y ago
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nemothekid 4y ago
Had this same experience - my girlfriend and I booked an AirBNB for New Years roughly 5 years ago. I spent considerably more than a hotel on the AirBNB for a luxury highrise condo. We show up, host is MIA. Of course trying to book anything on New Years in NYC is like pulling teeth. I had been using AirBNB for years before I realized that my only hotel experience had been cheap Holiday Inns and I had bought into the marketing that Airbnbs were universally better in my early 20s. When it works its great, when it doesn't, the stress alone makes the whole thing not worth it. I haven't used Airbnb since.
olladecarne 4y ago
When Airbnb is bad, it's really bad. You're gambling with the possibility of completely ruining whatever trip you had in mind. I've had both cases where a host cancelled last minute and also where I tried to cancel months in advance and was denied. Both of those experiences cost me more than I'll ever save by using Airbnb in my lifetime. I'm never using Airbnb again if I can help it. The last time I booked a hotel I felt so much less stressed and I realized whatever premium they charge is 100% worth it.
- ghaff 4y ago
  That's probably true. Your chain midrange business hotel probably has some rooms that aren't in a great location and maybe it's a bit overdue for a refresh. But I can't remember the last time I had a genuine problem with a hotel whether room availability or billing. I have used Airbnb once. And it was quite pleasant. In a tourist area where the hotels were really pricey and this was somewhat cheaper (though not cheap)/likely better. So it worked out. But I'm aware it's probably a bit of a crapshoot.
- rdtsc 4y ago
  > You're gambling with the possibility of completely ruining whatever trip you had in mind. Exactly. Landing in a new city with the family, taking time off work and then gambling on some random guy with a house coming through and not ripping us off is just too much risk. AirBnB might even “fix it” but then we’re running around at night, with suitcases, to a new part of time and then spending days on the phone getting refunds. Maybe that sounds adventurous and exciting for someone else but just doesn’t work for us.
altdataseller 4y ago
So why not just stay at hotels next time? I know Airbnb are good for families but just pay a little more for hotels with a kitchen.
Aperocky 4y ago
Airbnb has been more expensive then hotels lately and there is absolutely no reason to book airbnb unless traveling in large groups for larger homes or secluded mountain locations. Hotels are nicer in almost every single way.
- rjh29 4y ago
  Or for stays of more than 2 weeks - airbnbs often have a weekly or monthly option and in certain countries the price isn't too much more than what you'd pay to rent a real property.
wnolens 4y ago
Yep.. showed up at my Airbnb in NYC around 8pm. Followed the instructions texted to me by the host, let myself in and waited in the living room with no one around, not sure which room was mine. Host came after 30 mins to tell me he double booked me and that I had to leave. He could barely make eye contact with me. ! The only thing airbnb did for me was to give me a coupon for my next booking. It was small, and expired before I was able to use it.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  A coupon is such a ridiculous way to try to “make things right” by the customer in that situation. You need a place to sleep. That night. Not some night in the future. Why would someone even use the service again after they’ve been left without a roof over their head?
  - wnolens 4y ago
    > Why would someone even use the service again after they’ve been left without a roof over their head? I still use it. When the only other option is $300+/night for a hotel, a $100/night airbnb is mighty nice. And I often stay for 1week to 1month, and Airbnb's give a nice discount which I'm not sure hotels would. So often the comparison is.. $2000/month for airbnb, or more like $9000 for a hotel for a month? That gap is closing in larger cities though. In Toronto it's hard to find an Airbnb where i get the whole place that isn't a basement for under $150/night, so creeping into hotel territory.
jliptzin 4y ago
I also swore off Airbnb after a couple bad experiences. Then went back to hotels, which are better in their own way, but still couldn’t shake the feeling that I’m getting swindled every time I check into one, between resort fees, $30/day slow wifi, rooms that look nothing like the pics, etc. Then I realized that the entire travel industry just tries to rip everyone off as much as possible since they know you’re probably only coming to that one destination one time anyway, so they might as well slaughter the cow instead of milking it. Once the pandemic hit and I couldn’t travel, I realized how much I actually don’t need to travel to have a relaxing vacation. Between airlines packing you in like cattle (if you can even get on a flight on time that hasn’t been delayed/cancelled 7 times first), the TSA, being treated like a drug lord at every border crossing, tourist trap shitty restaurants and hotels manipulating their reviews and every other business in the tourism industry trying to swindle you as much as possible, no thank you. I would need to take additional time off just to recover from the stress of that “vacation.” Now I just spend travel money on home projects to make my house so good I never want to leave, and couldn’t be happier.
- rjh29 4y ago
  That is a fair opinion but probably not an accurate representation of travel for most people. I've never paid for hotel wifi ever for example. It might be because you're using resorts, where they know you're going to be stuck in that place for a long time and can exploit that to charge more for everything.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I'm admittedly a member of pretty much all the chain loyalty clubs. But, for the most part, paying for WiFi access is mostly a thing of the past. Other than mandatory resort fees that include WiFi in some places (e.g. Vegas and actual resorts), I don't know the last time I specifically made for WiFi either.
- motoxpro 4y ago
  I travel for work 6 months or so out of the year and your experiences are definitely not representative of mine. "between resort fees, $30/day slow wifi, rooms that look nothing like the pics" This is 100% because you are staying in "luxury" hotels. Less expensive hotels don't have any of these. https://www.marketplace.org/2014/01/27/why-do-luxury-hotels-charge-wi-fi-cheap-hotels-dont/ https://www.marketplace.org/2014/01/27/why-do-luxury-hotels-...
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designium 4y ago
Now I usually stay in Sonders and hotels. Better prices and similar locations and more stable outcomes. Hotels and Sonders won't cancel you last minute.
karmakaze 4y ago
Glad you got a refund. I booked one for a month and because of travel delays got there after midnight. On first sight, I refused to stay there as it wasn't anything like the pictures or description. On trying to get this sorted out, found out I should have read the fine print. Monthly rentals are subject to different terms and conditions. Paid for the entire month, never stayed there, no refund.
sokoloff 4y ago
I’d have to look to be sure, but I’ve likely got over 100 nights in over 50 AirBnBs. Most were as-expected or better. One was definitely dirtier than I’d have taken the family but I was crashing there during a trip in support of one of my hobbies and spending only sleeping time in the place. The one “screw job” I got was in Vegas staying in a sub-$40 place for one night waiting for my family to join me. Place had no running water. AirBnB support asked me if that was a problem. “Yeah, it’s 100°F outside and I’m going to need to shower and probably going to use the toilet at some point.” Got asked to wait about 15 minutes while they tried to reach the host and then got a refund with no fuss. Was no problem to find a crappy casino hotel room in Vegas in July. But plenty of the AirBnBs are places that I couldn’t find an equivalent. Two nights in a tree house in Costa Rica. Two massive houses on Martha’s Vineyard. A cabin backing up to a nature preserve in Belize.
benjaminwootton 4y ago
Clicked through to type a similar comment. They have let me and my family down so many times, the trust is gone. They should have been harder on this stuff from day 1. Their marketplace needs both supply and demand to work.
drdaeman 4y ago
It's weird to read this and also see how hosts are absolutely pissed over Airbnb not doing anything about guests abusing hosts - trashing the place, making false claims, etc etc. It's almost like if Airbnb just doesn't do anything to resolve issues, both for hosts and guests. All this said, my personal Airbnb experience was positive. Surely beats rental classifieds or searching Google Maps, and I'm not aware about any serious general-purpose alternatives. My issue is that hotels are simply conceptually (and practically) different - there's a huge difference between a proper rental house/apartment and a hotel room (though Airbnb goes there, it used to be good but today many listings aren't better if not worse than a hotel room now). Sure, hotel brands had realized this and started to offer some curated properties, but this is very uncommon.
ineptech 4y ago
I empathize, but there are terrible hotels too, right? It sounds to me like you're better at distinguishing decent hotels from fleabags than you are at distinguishing good rentals from bad ones.
standardUser 4y ago
It's not guaranteed to work, but I'm always extremely careful about choosing my rentals and I have been disappointed on very few occasions. Everyone has an occasional bad experience with a business (see: all of Yelp) but I'm not going to write off the thousands of highly-rated hosts I haven't interacted with because a few in the past have given me problems, especially if those ones did not have exceptionally high ratings and plenty of them. But it is a risk/reward proposition, and a hotel is always going to be the lower risk option. But I like the "reward" that you can sometimes find in the form of unusual locations, interesting living spaces or just a cheap place to stay.
ipaddr 4y ago
Scheduling a vacation with family (kids) over Christmas, flying into New York City and using Airbnb is rolling the dice. Spend the extra few dollars for a hotel room and enjoy your vacation. You got what you were promised: a discount for an unstable experience and easy to use booking platform.
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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).
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    > You own a house and I don’t, so screw you. Renting AirBnB is way more expansive than owning the home so you are the rich guy screwing with the neighbourhood not the other way around.
    - enos_feedler 4y ago
      Maybe. The calculus works out from my pov. Maybe I just really value the flexibility
  - libraryatnight 4y ago
    You sort of answer your own question but the fact you haven't caught it yet doesn't bode well for anybody trying to explain it to you.
  - probably_wrong 4y ago
    I think you focus on the neighbors alone, in which case I can understand the "f you" point of view. From my POV one reason to care about is because AirBnB is making it harder for the "have nots" to become "haves": those that could have afforded their starter house suddenly can't because available properties are now AirBnBs, and those that could have rented near their work must now live further away, taking hours off their free time. Meanwhile, the "haves" reap more cash with less effort.
  - lovehashbrowns 4y ago
    > I am offering a genuine take that puts airbnb as sort of a weapon between the haves (house owners) and have nots (nomads). AirBnB is one of the weapons being used to keep you as a have not, though. You're basically helping to pay for the rent increases that are keeping you as a have not.
    - enos_feedler 4y ago
      Not if all my free cash is in their stock
  - brandonmenc 4y ago
- marvin 4y ago
  Gentrification and housing shortage is caused by bad policy. That's the root of the problem. Enforcement of existing zoning regulations, and also zoning regulations that dramatically under-provision the city for number of homes.

lr4444lr 4y ago

Why not let your credit card company fight for you?

Moto7451 4y ago

Thankfully I haven’t had this bad of an experience but I agree with the sentiment. It’s good for “luxury” rentals like a whole craftsman house for 10 people in an interesting part of the country. For short notice/basic stays I have had a much better experience with Hotel Tonight and standard travel deal sites. I think the biggest issue is that the three way dynamic between guests, hosts, and AirBnB leads to weird situations where the guest needs to thread the needle between everyone else’s rules and pass through rules on a rental that represents very little margin for anyone involved above you. It’s easy to run afoul of them and get a bad rating or fine. There are the extra fees that are not shown by search results that may make the stay cost more than a hotel. And often the “it has a kitchen” remark means a bunch of single serving oats, a kettle, and a toaster. A random hotel breakfast has as much variety.

kaczordon 4y ago

I likewise had a horrible experience where 5 hours before check-in the host asked me to send an additional $1k as a “deposit” over Venmo before giving me the key code, I had multiple other people arriving as well. Needless to say Airbnb support was useless so I ended up paying. And upon arrival the apartment was not even close to what was advertised. When I left a review detailing my experience Airbnb took down my review. I had to do a chargeback on my credit card to get back my deposit since Airbnb was also completely useless in this regard. Never using Airbnb ever again. Hotels know how to treat people correctly.

lovehashbrowns 4y ago
That's a nightmare-level experience! The scary part about AirBnB is how differently hosts can handle things. I've used AirBnB only once exactly for these reasons. That uncertainty is killer when I'm gonna be staying in a city where I don't know anyone who lives there and can help me get out of a jam. There's a piece of mind to getting a hotel and knowing for sure that I will have somewhere to stay. If something goes wrong, there's a company policy I can review that has explicit steps for recourse.
sankha93 4y ago
I have experienced something similar as well. I was visiting NYC, and the place we booked did not look anything like the online listing showed. Regardless, the hosts were nice and helpful, so I left them a 5 star rating on all parameters except cleanliness. This was the first time rated something on Airbnb that is not 5 stars, and I have travelled quite a bit before. Few weeks after that I receive racist messages from the host on my personal cellphone. I am shocked Airbnb would share my personal details just like that. I reported it to Airbnb, but they were pretty clueless as this was happening outside their messaging system. I finally had to share screenshots of the text messages, and they said they will take down the hosts account. They did for sometime, but after a couple of months that host's account is still live and his place is still accepting reservations. My review has been taken down though.
bambax 4y ago
> When I left a review detailing my experience Airbnb took down my review. Same thing happened to me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32194057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32194057 Before then I didn't know AirBnb was moderating bad reviews in such an aggressive way. Good reviews mean nothing if all the bad ones are automatically taken down. It's ridiculous, and made me very wary of ever booking again with them. (There's an interview of Bezos somewhere where he explains that when starting Amazon, publishing houses were complaining to him about the bad book reviews, and he told them something to the effect of: it's because we let bad reviews up that people trust us. Obviously things have changed and Amazon reviews aren't what they used to be, but still. Bezos in 1997 understood something that AirBnb fails to grasp.)

fuckcensorship 4y ago

In these kinds of situations, I prefer to just dispute the transaction through my bank, get a temporary credit for the full amount (with Capital One at least), and let my bank investigate it. Most of the time this will be the end of it but in some cases you will need to provide additional documents/info to settle the dispute.

Freddie111 4y ago

Now that I'm reading all these horrible experiences, I'm wondering why there isn't a review system for businesses where I can read about such issues? I guess Trustpilot has a rating for Airbnb, but it's not very well known. How else could we make other consumers aware of such cases?

ryandrake 4y ago

Their competition isn't much better, either. I spent ~3 months trying to get a refund for a canceled booking from VRBO, that the host happily and enthusiastically provided. VRBO kept the money until I started trashing them online, then all of a sudden my case was escalated to someone who could correct the problem. For everyone who has sworn off Company X, there is someone else who has sworn off Company Y. I've currently got a month-long AirBNB booking coming up and every day I cross my fingers and pray for no surprises. I don't remember ever having this kind of uncertainty and anxiety when booking with a plain old hotel.

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arprocter 4y ago

At least when it happens in a city your chances of finding an alternative are hopefully better We got cancelled on the week before Thanksgiving in a rural area...

cbozeman 4y ago

The reason AirBNB will always have garbage service is because the hosts are their moneymakers, not you. The host has the property, the host sets the price, the host assumes all responsibility (even if they often do not live up to those responsibilities). You're just one more weary traveler who will be near-instantly replaced by someone else, so fuck you. This is also why I've never once booked with AirBNB, and why I've always booked a hotel wherever I travel. Yes, it's more expensive. It's also guaranteed. I also get someone to clean my room everyday. I also don't have to worry about walking into the kitchen and seeing an entire sink full of dirty dishes. I don't have to worry about a random teenager in the hotel taking up my bathroom for an hour. I don't have to worry about another teenage following me around and talking to me. I don't have to worry about the bathroom being dirty, and I don't have to worry about seeing a roach in the house. What I just described was the experience of a former Marine buddy of mine who booked a 6 week stay in Plantation, FL. He was moving down here from Brooklyn, NY and needed a place to stay until his apartment with ready. The AirBNB provider he booked with labeled a SuperHost. If that's what a SuperHost rental gets you, I'm totally uninterested in seeing what anything less gets you. I'd rather stay at a Motel 6.

zippergz 4y ago
"SuperHost" is such a joke because most of them are professional airbnb managers who don't actually own the properties. If they're good at their jobs maybe they would only accept properties that meet some standard, but from what I've seen they will work with anyone who will pay them.
- bogota 4y ago
  They should really make it more clear what places are owned by property management companies vs people.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    This is the Amazon quandary: your core product is ostensibly "quality" (from an end user perspective), but at some point you've consumed the total available market of quality sellers... So AirBnB has to keep allowing (and encouraging) property management companies, because no one else can bring them the volume they need to grow.

bambax 4y ago

> They were doing everything they could for the host. For some reason AirBnb is very protective of their hosts. I had a bad experience a few months ago with a so-called "Superhost" where the property didn't match the description or the reviews. After my stay I left a negative review (my first ever; always left very nice reviews before then). Well... AirBnB simply removed the review, for completely bogus and irrelevant reasons. Made me extremely suspicious of any listing; it will probably be a long time before I book again.

bena 4y ago
Without the hosts, AirBnB has nothing to offer. There's always another fool who has yet to be burned bad enough ready to roll the AirBnB dice. Guest churn is expected. But no hosts in an area means AirBnB has nothing to offer in the area.
unclebucknasty 4y ago
>For some reason Airbnb is very protective of their hosts The host is Airbnb's customer, listings are non-exclusive (e.g. VRBO), and switching costs for hosts are low. The hosts bring an extraordinarily valuable asset (real estate) and without the hosts, Airbnb has no business. You are the hosts' customer. You might argue that without the renter, there is no business, but that's true irrespective of the platform. Those hosts will list somewhere and get renters, as long as there's a market. Presumably, bad hosts (not Airbnb) would take the hit of offering a poor experience over time, and better hosts would prevail. So, Airbnb's goal is to stay out of that fray and keep as many hosts as possible on their platform in order to capture as much revenue as possible from the good hosts, as well as any revenue available from hosts on the descent.
- bambax 4y ago
  Yes, that's probably right. But they are slowly (or not so slowly) destroying their brand for short-term gains. It doesn't sound clever, or sustainable.
  - unclebucknasty 4y ago

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nemothekid 4y ago

Had this same experience - my girlfriend and I booked an AirBNB for New Years roughly 5 years ago. I spent considerably more than a hotel on the AirBNB for a luxury highrise condo. We show up, host is MIA. Of course trying to book anything on New Years in NYC is like pulling teeth. I had been using AirBNB for years before I realized that my only hotel experience had been cheap Holiday Inns and I had bought into the marketing that Airbnbs were universally better in my early 20s. When it works its great, when it doesn't, the stress alone makes the whole thing not worth it. I haven't used Airbnb since.

olladecarne 4y ago

When Airbnb is bad, it's really bad. You're gambling with the possibility of completely ruining whatever trip you had in mind. I've had both cases where a host cancelled last minute and also where I tried to cancel months in advance and was denied. Both of those experiences cost me more than I'll ever save by using Airbnb in my lifetime. I'm never using Airbnb again if I can help it. The last time I booked a hotel I felt so much less stressed and I realized whatever premium they charge is 100% worth it.

ghaff 4y ago
That's probably true. Your chain midrange business hotel probably has some rooms that aren't in a great location and maybe it's a bit overdue for a refresh. But I can't remember the last time I had a genuine problem with a hotel whether room availability or billing. I have used Airbnb once. And it was quite pleasant. In a tourist area where the hotels were really pricey and this was somewhat cheaper (though not cheap)/likely better. So it worked out. But I'm aware it's probably a bit of a crapshoot.
rdtsc 4y ago
> You're gambling with the possibility of completely ruining whatever trip you had in mind. Exactly. Landing in a new city with the family, taking time off work and then gambling on some random guy with a house coming through and not ripping us off is just too much risk. AirBnB might even “fix it” but then we’re running around at night, with suitcases, to a new part of time and then spending days on the phone getting refunds. Maybe that sounds adventurous and exciting for someone else but just doesn’t work for us.

altdataseller 4y ago

So why not just stay at hotels next time? I know Airbnb are good for families but just pay a little more for hotels with a kitchen.

Aperocky 4y ago

Airbnb has been more expensive then hotels lately and there is absolutely no reason to book airbnb unless traveling in large groups for larger homes or secluded mountain locations. Hotels are nicer in almost every single way.

rjh29 4y ago
Or for stays of more than 2 weeks - airbnbs often have a weekly or monthly option and in certain countries the price isn't too much more than what you'd pay to rent a real property.

wnolens 4y ago

Yep.. showed up at my Airbnb in NYC around 8pm. Followed the instructions texted to me by the host, let myself in and waited in the living room with no one around, not sure which room was mine. Host came after 30 mins to tell me he double booked me and that I had to leave. He could barely make eye contact with me. ! The only thing airbnb did for me was to give me a coupon for my next booking. It was small, and expired before I was able to use it.

elliekelly 4y ago
A coupon is such a ridiculous way to try to “make things right” by the customer in that situation. You need a place to sleep. That night. Not some night in the future. Why would someone even use the service again after they’ve been left without a roof over their head?
- wnolens 4y ago
  > Why would someone even use the service again after they’ve been left without a roof over their head? I still use it. When the only other option is $300+/night for a hotel, a $100/night airbnb is mighty nice. And I often stay for 1week to 1month, and Airbnb's give a nice discount which I'm not sure hotels would. So often the comparison is.. $2000/month for airbnb, or more like $9000 for a hotel for a month? That gap is closing in larger cities though. In Toronto it's hard to find an Airbnb where i get the whole place that isn't a basement for under $150/night, so creeping into hotel territory.

jliptzin 4y ago

I also swore off Airbnb after a couple bad experiences. Then went back to hotels, which are better in their own way, but still couldn’t shake the feeling that I’m getting swindled every time I check into one, between resort fees, $30/day slow wifi, rooms that look nothing like the pics, etc. Then I realized that the entire travel industry just tries to rip everyone off as much as possible since they know you’re probably only coming to that one destination one time anyway, so they might as well slaughter the cow instead of milking it. Once the pandemic hit and I couldn’t travel, I realized how much I actually don’t need to travel to have a relaxing vacation. Between airlines packing you in like cattle (if you can even get on a flight on time that hasn’t been delayed/cancelled 7 times first), the TSA, being treated like a drug lord at every border crossing, tourist trap shitty restaurants and hotels manipulating their reviews and every other business in the tourism industry trying to swindle you as much as possible, no thank you. I would need to take additional time off just to recover from the stress of that “vacation.” Now I just spend travel money on home projects to make my house so good I never want to leave, and couldn’t be happier.

rjh29 4y ago
That is a fair opinion but probably not an accurate representation of travel for most people. I've never paid for hotel wifi ever for example. It might be because you're using resorts, where they know you're going to be stuck in that place for a long time and can exploit that to charge more for everything.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I'm admittedly a member of pretty much all the chain loyalty clubs. But, for the most part, paying for WiFi access is mostly a thing of the past. Other than mandatory resort fees that include WiFi in some places (e.g. Vegas and actual resorts), I don't know the last time I specifically made for WiFi either.
motoxpro 4y ago
I travel for work 6 months or so out of the year and your experiences are definitely not representative of mine. "between resort fees, $30/day slow wifi, rooms that look nothing like the pics" This is 100% because you are staying in "luxury" hotels. Less expensive hotels don't have any of these. https://www.marketplace.org/2014/01/27/why-do-luxury-hotels-charge-wi-fi-cheap-hotels-dont/ https://www.marketplace.org/2014/01/27/why-do-luxury-hotels-...

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designium 4y ago

Now I usually stay in Sonders and hotels. Better prices and similar locations and more stable outcomes. Hotels and Sonders won't cancel you last minute.

karmakaze 4y ago

Glad you got a refund. I booked one for a month and because of travel delays got there after midnight. On first sight, I refused to stay there as it wasn't anything like the pictures or description. On trying to get this sorted out, found out I should have read the fine print. Monthly rentals are subject to different terms and conditions. Paid for the entire month, never stayed there, no refund.

sokoloff 4y ago

I’d have to look to be sure, but I’ve likely got over 100 nights in over 50 AirBnBs. Most were as-expected or better. One was definitely dirtier than I’d have taken the family but I was crashing there during a trip in support of one of my hobbies and spending only sleeping time in the place. The one “screw job” I got was in Vegas staying in a sub-$40 place for one night waiting for my family to join me. Place had no running water. AirBnB support asked me if that was a problem. “Yeah, it’s 100°F outside and I’m going to need to shower and probably going to use the toilet at some point.” Got asked to wait about 15 minutes while they tried to reach the host and then got a refund with no fuss. Was no problem to find a crappy casino hotel room in Vegas in July. But plenty of the AirBnBs are places that I couldn’t find an equivalent. Two nights in a tree house in Costa Rica. Two massive houses on Martha’s Vineyard. A cabin backing up to a nature preserve in Belize.

benjaminwootton 4y ago

Clicked through to type a similar comment. They have let me and my family down so many times, the trust is gone. They should have been harder on this stuff from day 1. Their marketplace needs both supply and demand to work.

drdaeman 4y ago

It's weird to read this and also see how hosts are absolutely pissed over Airbnb not doing anything about guests abusing hosts - trashing the place, making false claims, etc etc. It's almost like if Airbnb just doesn't do anything to resolve issues, both for hosts and guests. All this said, my personal Airbnb experience was positive. Surely beats rental classifieds or searching Google Maps, and I'm not aware about any serious general-purpose alternatives. My issue is that hotels are simply conceptually (and practically) different - there's a huge difference between a proper rental house/apartment and a hotel room (though Airbnb goes there, it used to be good but today many listings aren't better if not worse than a hotel room now). Sure, hotel brands had realized this and started to offer some curated properties, but this is very uncommon.

ineptech 4y ago

I empathize, but there are terrible hotels too, right? It sounds to me like you're better at distinguishing decent hotels from fleabags than you are at distinguishing good rentals from bad ones.

standardUser 4y ago

It's not guaranteed to work, but I'm always extremely careful about choosing my rentals and I have been disappointed on very few occasions. Everyone has an occasional bad experience with a business (see: all of Yelp) but I'm not going to write off the thousands of highly-rated hosts I haven't interacted with because a few in the past have given me problems, especially if those ones did not have exceptionally high ratings and plenty of them. But it is a risk/reward proposition, and a hotel is always going to be the lower risk option. But I like the "reward" that you can sometimes find in the form of unusual locations, interesting living spaces or just a cheap place to stay.

ipaddr 4y ago

Scheduling a vacation with family (kids) over Christmas, flying into New York City and using Airbnb is rolling the dice. Spend the extra few dollars for a hotel room and enjoy your vacation. You got what you were promised: a discount for an unstable experience and easy to use booking platform.

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