7 ms·

Can't comment on the macroeconomic trends, but personally as a consumer, hotels are more attractive than AirBNBs for <1-week stays due to cleaning fee and chore

Can't comment on the macroeconomic trends, but personally as a consumer, hotels are more attractive than AirBNBs for <1-week stays due to cleaning fee and chore lists ($250 cleaning fee per stay, still have to clean up the house and pack the garbage out). Most of my travel is solo for work for 2-3 days so this nudges me towards hotels. For 1+ week stays AirBNBs make more sense (family vacay, larger house with children), though it seems like the house owner lists the same house on VRBO and for whatever reason prices it slightly cheaper there, so I just book it at the cheaper place.

carabiner 3y ago
I've stayed in 30+ airbnb's around the world and I've never encountered the cleaning fee on top of a chore list that is so reviled on reddit and twitter. The only time I had to clean, the host just informed me that there wasn't a cleaning fee so I'd have to do it myself. Still sucked (went out and bought cleaning supplies and took a whole day) but seemed fair.
- hattar 3y ago
  Interesting. I travel mainly in the US and of the approximately 10 visits I can’t remember an instance where I didn’t pay a cleaning fee while also dealing with a chore list. It’s pretty sharp in my mind because it always frustrates me so much.
  - carabiner 3y ago
    Yeah most of mine were in San Jose, CA, but this was 4 years ago and they were single rooms (not an entire apartment), so I wonder if the practice has grown since then. I still don't like airbnb for other reasons: broken stuff (even in well reviewed places), worsens the housing crisis, poor quality but nice looking furniture. The furniture is "bony."
- square_usual 3y ago
  It is very much a US thing. I've stayed in AirBNBs in India and the US, and a majority of the AirBNBs I've stayed in the US have a cleaning fee, while none of the ones I stayed in India did.
- ballooney 3y ago
  It's a USA thing.
Scoundreller 3y ago
AirBNB and the like can still have an edge when you want things like a kitchen or a guaranteed fridge. What’s the fee difference like for hosts on Airbnb vs vrbo?
- tedivm 3y ago
  VRBO is just as bad as AirBNB if not worse. We had a miserable host who showed up with her dog and stayed in the house until we all left, it was absolutely weird. VRBO removed all of our reviews about it. Also, lots of hotels have rooms with kitchens in them.
- xyst 3y ago
  Serious question: if I am on vacation, why do I need a full sized kitchen and fridge? If you are just cooking at the short term rental, and not experiencing the area. Then what’s the point of taking a vacation in the first place? At most, all you really need is a mini fridge to store take out and alcohol. The only use case I can think of for having a full kitchen, fridge, and other amenities is for temporary workers. Maybe a company has their consultants stay at an AirBnB with the aforementioned amenities and in an attempt to reel in the costs, will only approve business meals with clients and personal meal expenses if cooked at the STR (ie, grocery store line items).
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    In most of the world, takeout food isn’t the greatest for health, and possibly dangerous if your immunity doesn’t match the local’s. If you’re on the road often, as GP is, prepping your own food may again be favourable (and doubly so if you have any kind of stringent diet restrictions). Edit: would add, in some places, your takeout/dining choices vapourize on some days of the week or holidays.
  - Howitzer 3y ago
    Kids.. You're not going to have a relaxed evening at a different restaurant every day with a three years old.
  - mgrund 3y ago
xyst 3y ago
You have to complete a “chore list” for Airbnb stays now? I thought this was a meme or joke. Why do people put up with this shit, especially on vacation? Why go on vacation to do chores afterwards? May as well stay home and not have to pay for the experience.
- jkubicek 3y ago
  I'm more than willing to empty my own trash and wash my own dishes if it means I'm staying in a multi-bedroom house/condo with ample space and amenities. Staying for more than a few days in a hotel is depressing and claustrophobic.
- potatolicious 3y ago
  For single travelers IMO there isn't a good reason to pick Airbnb over a hotel. But there are types of properties that aren't really available widely in hotel-form: the vacation house. Want to gather with your family in a big house for some holiday? There isn't really anything else other than Airbnb (or Vrbo, which has many of the same issues). Some very heavily vacation-oriented places have hotels that rent out properties of that sort, but in most places this isn't an available product category. Buuuut even with this said, I'm very hesitant to stay in Airbnbs nowadays. I just had a terrible experience a month ago - rented a vacation house that had great reviews and looked great. Arrived after a red-eye flight and a long drive... and the lockbox code is wrong. The house is also in the woods so there was no cell reception, so drove a half hour to the nearest area with reception, contacted the host (hosts are never available on Airbnb, naturally), sorted that out, and got into the house... and it was filthy. Top to bottom filthy with air fresheners in every room to cover the smell. Immediately left and booked a room at the local Hampton Inn, which was overall a far superior experience. Airbnb in all of their grace only gave me ~70% back despite y'know, a totally unusable product. I'm still out over ~$1,000 over the whole thing, and Airbnb seems entirely ok with... what feels a lot like fraud? The reliability of the Airbnb experience is so poor that I'm at this point completely unwilling to hinge a family vacation on it. It's like rolling a 1d6 and needing to score 3 or above. Just way too risky.
  - ianai 3y ago
standardUser 3y ago
I don't see the logic in singling out the cleaning fee. I guess it's because AirBnB gives us the opportunity by calling it out as a seperate fee. I always look at the total, including fees. That's the only number I care about and that's what I compare to hotels. I think AirBnB would do themselves a favor by incorporating the cleaning fee into the base price and not calling it out separately. As for the chore list, I may recall a couple annoying ones from years past, but usually it's a non-issue. Though unfortunately I don't think this is something you know until after you book.
- Broken_Hippo 3y ago
  Hotels give no chore lists, though, and I'm not expected to clean. Everyone expects cleaning to be included in the price.
- low_key 3y ago
  The fees vary wildly, from reasonable to outrageous. Some cleaning fees I've seen are as much as $500. At the time I was looking, these were not shown by Airbnb until checkout. It was an awful experience.
- Arainach 3y ago
  The cleaning fees on AirBnB are dishonest (hidden by default), ridiculously high, and redundant with giant list of chores that make me do all the cleaning anyway. They're predatory and greedy and deserve all the calling out they get. AirBnB cleaning fees are the same garbage as eBay sales for $1.99, $50 shipping, and should be banned by policy.
  - haliskerbas 3y ago
    Plus you get a bad rating if you miss something on a long list. They should tell me ahead of time that I should schedule an hour to complete all the tasks before I’ve come up with my itinerary with an early morning flight.
  - potatolicious 3y ago
    > "and should be banned by policy." This is really the kicker. Not only is the phenomenon really shitty, but Airbnb's refusal to police the practice shows that their interests are firmly aligned against actual guests and instead aligned with hosts. A lot of the platform's problems come down to this alignment problem. As Airbnb has matured as a service I've found that hosts have gotten lazier and lazier - the chore lists are a relatively recent phenomenon of the last few years. The platform is rife with "hosts" who have no interest in actually running a hospitality business, and are only interested in passive income, and Airbnb itself refuses to uphold any consistent bar and forcing poor hosts off. This has been wildly destructive to the trustworthiness of the business. I would be more willing to attribute this stuff to growing pains if I didn't feel like these issues are only symptoms of a significant misalignment between guests and Airbnb corporate.
gdilla 3y ago
Right, longer stays with kids, AirBnBs are almost always more attractive because there can be a kitchen & more spaces. It's hard to dine out all the time with kids.
bamfly 3y ago
Hotels win for some intersection of short-duration-of-stay and low guest count (with the break-even point varying somewhat as both those figures vary) AirBnB wins for longer stays with more guests, or if you want to stay somewhere without hotels (but with houses) and also don't want to camp. Stopping one night on a leg of a long drive, not really doing anything in the room except sleeping for a few hours: hotel/motel tends to win by a long shot. Staying somewhere for several nights with a family of 4+ or a group of friends or something: AirBnB (and similar services) tends to win.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  > Stopping one night on a leg of a long drive, not really doing anything in the room except sleeping for a few hours: hotel/motel tends to win by a long shot. Unless your co-traveller (spouse or not) snores like a motorcycle and having a room to stuff them in (or escape to) has a ton of value. Oh hello my mother-in-law, didn’t expect to see you here… uhhh…
tentboy 3y ago
when traveling for work why does the cleaning fee factor in, or is it just the chores does your work not book your travel? or do they give you a flat fee and tell you to find your own accommodations and any money extra/left over is your own deal?
- Gud 3y ago
  I travel 300+ days a year for work. I book my own place to stay using my company credit card. Never really tested the upper bound of what I’m allowed to pay per night, but I do live comfortably. The megacorp I work for has a booking system we’re supposed to use, but I’ve never used it. I figured if I bend the rules to everyone’s advantage, no one will complain. Generally I use booking.com(for those sweet sweet miles & more points) or call the establishment directly to get the best possible price.

carabiner 3y ago

I've stayed in 30+ airbnb's around the world and I've never encountered the cleaning fee on top of a chore list that is so reviled on reddit and twitter. The only time I had to clean, the host just informed me that there wasn't a cleaning fee so I'd have to do it myself. Still sucked (went out and bought cleaning supplies and took a whole day) but seemed fair.

hattar 3y ago
Interesting. I travel mainly in the US and of the approximately 10 visits I can’t remember an instance where I didn’t pay a cleaning fee while also dealing with a chore list. It’s pretty sharp in my mind because it always frustrates me so much.
- carabiner 3y ago
  Yeah most of mine were in San Jose, CA, but this was 4 years ago and they were single rooms (not an entire apartment), so I wonder if the practice has grown since then. I still don't like airbnb for other reasons: broken stuff (even in well reviewed places), worsens the housing crisis, poor quality but nice looking furniture. The furniture is "bony."
square_usual 3y ago
It is very much a US thing. I've stayed in AirBNBs in India and the US, and a majority of the AirBNBs I've stayed in the US have a cleaning fee, while none of the ones I stayed in India did.
ballooney 3y ago
It's a USA thing.

Scoundreller 3y ago

AirBNB and the like can still have an edge when you want things like a kitchen or a guaranteed fridge. What’s the fee difference like for hosts on Airbnb vs vrbo?

tedivm 3y ago
VRBO is just as bad as AirBNB if not worse. We had a miserable host who showed up with her dog and stayed in the house until we all left, it was absolutely weird. VRBO removed all of our reviews about it. Also, lots of hotels have rooms with kitchens in them.
xyst 3y ago
Serious question: if I am on vacation, why do I need a full sized kitchen and fridge? If you are just cooking at the short term rental, and not experiencing the area. Then what’s the point of taking a vacation in the first place? At most, all you really need is a mini fridge to store take out and alcohol. The only use case I can think of for having a full kitchen, fridge, and other amenities is for temporary workers. Maybe a company has their consultants stay at an AirBnB with the aforementioned amenities and in an attempt to reel in the costs, will only approve business meals with clients and personal meal expenses if cooked at the STR (ie, grocery store line items).
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  In most of the world, takeout food isn’t the greatest for health, and possibly dangerous if your immunity doesn’t match the local’s. If you’re on the road often, as GP is, prepping your own food may again be favourable (and doubly so if you have any kind of stringent diet restrictions). Edit: would add, in some places, your takeout/dining choices vapourize on some days of the week or holidays.
- Howitzer 3y ago
  Kids.. You're not going to have a relaxed evening at a different restaurant every day with a three years old.
- mgrund 3y ago

xyst 3y ago

You have to complete a “chore list” for Airbnb stays now? I thought this was a meme or joke. Why do people put up with this shit, especially on vacation? Why go on vacation to do chores afterwards? May as well stay home and not have to pay for the experience.

jkubicek 3y ago
I'm more than willing to empty my own trash and wash my own dishes if it means I'm staying in a multi-bedroom house/condo with ample space and amenities. Staying for more than a few days in a hotel is depressing and claustrophobic.
potatolicious 3y ago
For single travelers IMO there isn't a good reason to pick Airbnb over a hotel. But there are types of properties that aren't really available widely in hotel-form: the vacation house. Want to gather with your family in a big house for some holiday? There isn't really anything else other than Airbnb (or Vrbo, which has many of the same issues). Some very heavily vacation-oriented places have hotels that rent out properties of that sort, but in most places this isn't an available product category. Buuuut even with this said, I'm very hesitant to stay in Airbnbs nowadays. I just had a terrible experience a month ago - rented a vacation house that had great reviews and looked great. Arrived after a red-eye flight and a long drive... and the lockbox code is wrong. The house is also in the woods so there was no cell reception, so drove a half hour to the nearest area with reception, contacted the host (hosts are never available on Airbnb, naturally), sorted that out, and got into the house... and it was filthy. Top to bottom filthy with air fresheners in every room to cover the smell. Immediately left and booked a room at the local Hampton Inn, which was overall a far superior experience. Airbnb in all of their grace only gave me ~70% back despite y'know, a totally unusable product. I'm still out over ~$1,000 over the whole thing, and Airbnb seems entirely ok with... what feels a lot like fraud? The reliability of the Airbnb experience is so poor that I'm at this point completely unwilling to hinge a family vacation on it. It's like rolling a 1d6 and needing to score 3 or above. Just way too risky.
- ianai 3y ago

standardUser 3y ago

I don't see the logic in singling out the cleaning fee. I guess it's because AirBnB gives us the opportunity by calling it out as a seperate fee. I always look at the total, including fees. That's the only number I care about and that's what I compare to hotels. I think AirBnB would do themselves a favor by incorporating the cleaning fee into the base price and not calling it out separately. As for the chore list, I may recall a couple annoying ones from years past, but usually it's a non-issue. Though unfortunately I don't think this is something you know until after you book.

Broken_Hippo 3y ago
Hotels give no chore lists, though, and I'm not expected to clean. Everyone expects cleaning to be included in the price.
low_key 3y ago
The fees vary wildly, from reasonable to outrageous. Some cleaning fees I've seen are as much as $500. At the time I was looking, these were not shown by Airbnb until checkout. It was an awful experience.
Arainach 3y ago
The cleaning fees on AirBnB are dishonest (hidden by default), ridiculously high, and redundant with giant list of chores that make me do all the cleaning anyway. They're predatory and greedy and deserve all the calling out they get. AirBnB cleaning fees are the same garbage as eBay sales for $1.99, $50 shipping, and should be banned by policy.
- haliskerbas 3y ago
  Plus you get a bad rating if you miss something on a long list. They should tell me ahead of time that I should schedule an hour to complete all the tasks before I’ve come up with my itinerary with an early morning flight.
- potatolicious 3y ago
  > "and should be banned by policy." This is really the kicker. Not only is the phenomenon really shitty, but Airbnb's refusal to police the practice shows that their interests are firmly aligned against actual guests and instead aligned with hosts. A lot of the platform's problems come down to this alignment problem. As Airbnb has matured as a service I've found that hosts have gotten lazier and lazier - the chore lists are a relatively recent phenomenon of the last few years. The platform is rife with "hosts" who have no interest in actually running a hospitality business, and are only interested in passive income, and Airbnb itself refuses to uphold any consistent bar and forcing poor hosts off. This has been wildly destructive to the trustworthiness of the business. I would be more willing to attribute this stuff to growing pains if I didn't feel like these issues are only symptoms of a significant misalignment between guests and Airbnb corporate.

gdilla 3y ago

Right, longer stays with kids, AirBnBs are almost always more attractive because there can be a kitchen & more spaces. It's hard to dine out all the time with kids.

bamfly 3y ago

Hotels win for some intersection of short-duration-of-stay and low guest count (with the break-even point varying somewhat as both those figures vary) AirBnB wins for longer stays with more guests, or if you want to stay somewhere without hotels (but with houses) and also don't want to camp. Stopping one night on a leg of a long drive, not really doing anything in the room except sleeping for a few hours: hotel/motel tends to win by a long shot. Staying somewhere for several nights with a family of 4+ or a group of friends or something: AirBnB (and similar services) tends to win.

Scoundreller 3y ago
> Stopping one night on a leg of a long drive, not really doing anything in the room except sleeping for a few hours: hotel/motel tends to win by a long shot. Unless your co-traveller (spouse or not) snores like a motorcycle and having a room to stuff them in (or escape to) has a ton of value. Oh hello my mother-in-law, didn’t expect to see you here… uhhh…

tentboy 3y ago

when traveling for work why does the cleaning fee factor in, or is it just the chores does your work not book your travel? or do they give you a flat fee and tell you to find your own accommodations and any money extra/left over is your own deal?

Gud 3y ago
I travel 300+ days a year for work. I book my own place to stay using my company credit card. Never really tested the upper bound of what I’m allowed to pay per night, but I do live comfortably. The megacorp I work for has a booking system we’re supposed to use, but I’ve never used it. I figured if I bend the rules to everyone’s advantage, no one will complain. Generally I use booking.com(for those sweet sweet miles & more points) or call the establishment directly to get the best possible price.