Airbnb still has better selection than most platforms, especially for longer term rental. also having comments and ratings of hosts is useful when booking overs

Airbnb still has better selection than most platforms, especially for longer term rental. also having comments and ratings of hosts is useful when booking overseas. It is always possible to contact the host directly and bypass the platform, but only when breadcrumbs of info are left by the hosts (e.g. a logo to a website, reverse image search, etc) however making payments is much more difficult from past experience and not all hosts prefer this option Of course, if you already are in the city and not pressed for time, you can typically find much better deals in person, especially in cities that are not very tech savvy