Maybe I'm in the minority but I've generally had very good -- or at least, "good as I expected" -- experiences at AirBnbs, even recently. Sometimes I've stayed with rich friends who book nice places, and the experience is, as expected, very nice. Many other times I have stayed at bottom-of-the-barrel places, which were, as expected, bottom of the barrel flophouses. But tolerably so, and true to the advertisement (funny how they all have that exact same fake black leather futon though).
People say hotels are as cheap, but they never have the same amenities, and the location in town is often worse. An AirBnb with a kitchen is essentially $20-30 cheaper per day than a hotel without one. Add to that laundry, more privacy, and other perks and it's not really a fair comparison. It does seem like there are more hotel resellers and leasing companies using it as a stopgap between tenants, which I understand, but hate.
I get why they want to be an "everything app" (rich people have more money to spend on "experiences"), but other commenters are spot-on regarding the dangers of taking their eye off the ball. Seems like a better use of company attention would be to really boost and reward the genuine hosts that put their heart into it, and at least put in a modest amount of friction to slow down the corporate resellers with barebones apartments in half-remodeled buildings.
I think the people who say hotels are better than AirBnb aren't traveling with kids.
Having an actual kitchen when you travel with kids is great. Having actual separate bedrooms so we don't have to go to sleep at 8pm when the kids go to sleep is great. Being able to do laundry without tracking down a laundromat or pay exorbitant hotel prices is great. Having a living room or similar area with at least a few square metres of floor space where kids can sprawl is great.
Perhaps the difference is that you’ve been fortunate enough to never need Airbnb support to help you on something serious.
When things go well, it’s amazing. When things go poorly, you realize how anti-guest the policies and support team behave.
That’s when it changed for me. I realized how pro-host, anti-guest they are. Hotels generally seem to care when something goes wrong. Airbnb support behaves like you have inconvenienced them by raising the issue.
Yeah, Chesky is crazy if he thinks people are going to trust AirBnb enough to use it as a passport. You pay them money but their support is what you'd expect from Google's free services, i.e. nonexistent.
For me AirBnb has the dubious distinction of being the only online service I'm banned from, and I have no idea why. I barely used it and the few times I did the hosts were happy. One day I tried to log in and the app wouldn't work properly. I filed a support ticket and they told me they weren't going to tell me anything and there was no appeals process either. And that was that. My guess is I got IP clustered with another person whose account was legit banned, but really, who knows. What's the point of the ID verification process if they act like a free webmail operation anyway?
With booking.com and hotels, you're paying about the same but avoid the BS that comes with Airbnb. It's a much more reliable and predictable experience. The idea of people requiring Airbnb for anything more important than a vacation rental is horrifying.
Are you based in EU? If so, you should make a GDPR request to understand why you have been banned (ask ChatGPT or an equivalent to write one and for instructions in general to have a nice email that is based on GDPR).
The hotel I’m staying at right now is dirty as fuck.
The valve for the shower does not operate properly, the water pressure is extremely low and it barely gets above 90F. Other rooms in the same hotel have a different valve and the showers work fine.
“We will send a maintenance person right away” it’s been a week.
There is old food under and behind my bed.
They empty trash in the hall once a week, it fills up in two days.
They advertise laundry but the driers are all out of order. Apparently the only reason is the change collection bucket is full, the owner doesn’t trust anyone but himself to empty it, but he’s two states away.
I can hear everything through all the walls around me. I can hear people fart.
Sorry to hear that. Sister had an aneurysm a couple years ago. They coiled it, lasted two weeks, then gone. Best wishes for your father and your family.
Known chains I've stayed in there have generally been fine--but be prepared for fairly high prices and generally small rooms. Also, any sort of a view is very hit and miss given how close many tall buildings are to each other. I have had some very nice rooms but it's partly luck of the draw and partly someone else paying the tab.
Oh wow. Do I have a story about one of their competitors.
I booked a cabin via VRBO for a few nights as a celebration. It was somewhat remote, but the architecture was neat, and it was a decent deal for my budget. There was some weird cotton-like stuff and...snapping?...in one of the walls that was a bit off-putting, but nothing seemed serious.
Then, night came.
I awoke in my bedroom to something moving. Bleary eyed, I turned on the bedside light and saw something flitting almost silently in the darkness. It seemed like a large insect perhaps to my blurred vision. But whether it was the size or the weird sounds, it eventually clicked: it was a bat trapped in the high-ceiling bedroom.
So, after swiftly getting out of the room, doing some hasty research, and calling animal control, I learned two things. First, bat encounters in the area have a standing policy to IMMEDIATELY see the nearest emergency room to receive a rabies vaccination. It turns out bat bites can be super-tiny and difficult to detect, and they are carriers.
Second, I struggled to convince the limited support channels at VRBO that there was a freaking bat in their property. There was no real emergency line for support I could locate at the time, and I really hope that the information I left would somehow be used to prevent someone else using said property from, ya know, potentially contracting rabies.
To this day, I find myself more wary of property encounters. I don't think I ever got a refund for that debacle, but admittedly I may have been a bit more focused on my mortality.
There are plenty of hotels where you can get multiple rooms and a washing machine. When traveling with kids, one big advantage of hotels is predictability.
The last thing I want to do when I'm pulling in after a long flight an hour past the kids' bedtime is to deal with potentially dealbreaking problems with the place. In a hotel, they generally have maintenance on staff and extra rooms to switch into in case of problems. Generally with Airbnb, the staff is 30 minutes away and is annoyed that you've called them. Most of the time, everything is fine, but there can be snafus with locks, plumbing, cleanliness, etc, and kids make these more complicated. This is all not to mention being asked to strip beds, take out trash, etc, after you've paid thousands of dollars, including cleaning fees for the place.
A trick is to know which brands you need. Marriott's Residence Inn is a big reliable one (for multiple "rooms" and kitchen/laundry) that exists almost everywhere in the US. It's a part of the whole Marriott system and often in tourism lulls in various cities has deals that keep it comparatively well priced with other Marriotts in that city and will let you use Marriott points to further defray costs.
Hilton and IHG both have similar brands, but their exact names escape me at the moments. The search keywords are "extended stay" and "apartment hotels".
Depends where you are. Maybe in expensive cities where space is at a premium. But suite hotels (with various levels of kitchenette/kitchen) in the US are not, in my experience, notably more expensive--though often have simpler facilities--than more conventional hotels. (Bedroom may not be actually a different room from living room area but is often at least somewhat separated. So may not help with kids. Stay in this type of hotel in the US a lot.)
The parent led off with the value of having a full kitchen, which you have dropped—obviously because there are extremely few hotels in the U.S. that include this.
Your description of how well hotels are run does not match my experience. I’m sure it’s true of very nice hotels. It’s also true of very nice AirBnB’s! And VRBOs, which are not as well known but similar idea.
There are a whole lot of hotels that include a kitchen in the U.S. Many extended stay/suite hotels have a stove, microwave, utensils/dishes, refrigerator, and some a dishwasher. It's more rare to have an oven, although I have seen it.
There are long-term stay hotels that generally cater to business clientele, plus most of the chains have a laundry room somewhere on premise for guest use.
I haven’t seen one on each floor, either, but that’s still not as convenient as one in the room that’s yours so you can run it while you’re out to dinner or overnight while you sleep. It’s shared so you have to plan around it.
I have stayed at many hotels of varying degrees of quality all over the U.S., and I have never, not once, seen the laundry being used. It’s always been available.
On my trips outside the US, the hotel laundry rooms are usually busy. Enough that many of the hotels show individual machine status from a top-level page in the TV menu.
Do you mind elaboration on at least what region of the world you are talking about? I think this whole main thread is suffering from the globalism v diversity collision; we are a global group of people trying to compare regionally, nationally, local, or even personal experiences that differ so widely that it regresses into noise.
My experience is that e.g. it used to be a lot easier in the USA to find hotels that even just had a kitchenette or even a pay to wash “laundromat” (which is what I assume you are referring to), but maybe that is also just my personal experience. But my sense is that those offerings have been in stark decline especially over the last decades, and especially outside of the inland western half of the country that in some places is still a kind of real America that has not yet succumbed to con job level corporate practices.
It seems fairly accurate to include AB&B in those who have succumbed to “enshitification” for whatever of the several reasons that may be. In the case of AB&B it feels like MBA Wall Street types pressed to slide or chip away at ever more standards to drive “growth” and/or “cost cutting”, the only two real tricks the number monkeys have in their bag.
> My experience is that e.g. it used to be a lot easier in the USA to find hotels that even just had a kitchenette or even a pay to wash “laundromat” (which is what I assume you are referring to), but maybe that is also just my personal experience. But my sense is that those offerings have been in stark decline especially over the last decades, and especially outside of the inland western half of the country that in some places is still a kind of real America that has not yet succumbed to con job level corporate practices.
American here. The opposite is true -- there used to be few of these, and they were "upscale". Now there are tons of different low-end chains that specialize in it. Homewood Suites, Marriott/Hilton/Sheraton Suites, Embassy Suites, DoubleTree, Hyatt Place, Springhill Suites, and maybe half a dozen others.
These are usually, but not exclusively, located in areas that are a bit more rural -- I don't know if you'll find one in Manhattan, for example, and you'll see definitely them by pretty much every major freeway interchange. But I've stayed in one on Maui, in San Diego, and near the airport in SF, so you see them in "tourist" places as well.
No, I just was typing fast and grouped everything together I could think of. Embassy Suites is one of the OG "suite" chains that I'd characterize as "formerly high end, maybe mid-level right now", but YMMV.
I wouldn't characterize any of those as genuinely low-end which I'd reserve for things like Travelodge and below. Probably various shades of the midrange scale with some on the upper and some on the lower side. I'm in a Marriott SpringHill Suits at the moment which is boring but clean and comfortable enough.
Yeah, it varies. I think fundamentally you're paying for square footage, so bigger rooms will always be "mid-market", to some extent. The ones in tourist spots are fancier than the ones by Exit 5A of a freeway interchange in rural Nebraska.
The suite hotel I used in Maui, for example was pretty fancy: pool, restaurant, bar, gym, balcony rooms, etc. But the price point was certainly below equivalent hotels in the same area.
In North America, across hundreds of hotel stays, I have seen exactly zero ensuite washing machines. For extended stays, being able to kick off your laundry and leave for the day is absolutely priceless. Having to set timers and babysit coin-operated laundry on a different floor just isn't worth it, to the point where I'd rather just pay $$$ for hotel laundry service over using their communal laundry room.
A lot of "extended stay" hotels have this. One brand I've used and have had pretty good luck with is Sonder. They're not quite full service -- they have a spartan reception and want you to use their app for everything, but they do have multiple rooms, an adequate kitchen, and washing machines in the rooms.
> There are plenty of hotels where you can get multiple rooms and a washing machine
Ok... Can you show me some like that in the EU?
> This is all not to mention being asked to strip beds, take out trash, etc, after you've paid thousands of dollars, including cleaning fees for the place.
I staid at a hotel in Lisbon [1]that had a kitchen and washing machine. (And a kids club that would watch the kids)
There ended up being an issue with the dryer not drying. So the hotel staff took a laundry basket of clothes and delivered them washed and folded the next morning. That level of service would not have happened in an Airbnb.
Yes, trivially. There are filters for it on booking.com. Here's a link for rooms in Paris suitable for 2 adults and 2 kids with 2 bedrooms, a kitchen/kitchenette and a washing machine.
Most 4 start hotels and resorts have either connecting rooms or family rooms in Europe (the latter especially true for resorts). They are far less common on lower categories though.
I suppose to book connecting room you might have to call sometimes rather than going through online platforms though.
Hotel with kitchenette and washing are not that hard to find either. They certainly more common on location were people tend to spend longer stay rather than in touristic cities were people spend on average just a few nights (ie. mountain and seaside places were people sometimes spend weeks or even months), usually they call them aparthotels or suites depending or something like that.
For the same price, airbnb usually provides more than hotels (but with higher variation in quality).
Hotels tend to be pretty consistently good when it is over a certain price point, and at any higher price point, all you get is better views/location (and may be some amenities such as gym or pool) - aka, quality caps out and just becomes expensive.
Airbnb prices are quite correlated to quality. High priced airbnb (for example, a holiday lodge) can be _very_ good for the price. But airbnb is a sort of buyers beware type deal.
Hotels also provide tons of variation in quality. Just look up hotels in, say, Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City where the options are much more than just the typical Western chains. Or compare the many non-chain "motels" in North America.
I think what you mean is "chains" tend to be pretty consistent. Which, yeah, that's always been the main value prop of a chain. You go to McDonald's in Tunisia and you have a pretty good idea what you're going to get.
Kids enforce a filter on what sort of fun you look for. Without kids, the bottom tenth percentile hotel experiences is often a few hours of bad sleep before escaping in the morning. With them, it's hours of tantrums, desperate searches for acceptable food or sleeping arrangements, and worrying for days afterwards about the effects of smoke, mold, dust etc on their health.
Going to a local place doesn't necessarily mean going in shitty places, even with family. I traveled in many countries, especially Europe and Asia, with my 2 daughters and while they do throw the usual tantrum for their ages, we always find something local they like to eat, and they don't really mind one room or another to sleep, as long as they are in the same room with at least one of us.
Yeah for sure, normally it's fine and more fun. But the potential 10th-percentile scenario can be much worse. I don't for a second judge parents that decide based on that.
I don't judge parents either, my initial comment was more global, plenty of tourists with no kids in international fast-food chains for example.
For hotels also the "chains sample" is usually skewed. There are basically no low/mid-range chains outside their core country or region. You just find high-end hotels (Hilton, Radisson, Sheraton, Four Seasons etc) all over the world.
>and worrying for days afterwards about the effects of smoke, mold, dust etc on their health.
I mean, that one is on you. It is possible to go on vacation even camping with kids without having anxiety attack over everything.
Also, while some kids are difficult and kids are slow and certainly limit you, hours of tantrumps every holiday and impossibility to eat are not normal.
Sure. I've camped at a festival with a 1 yr old. Even stayed in a campervan at a festival when they were 6 weeks old. I'm just explaining why parents might prefer the safety of well-known chain hotels vs whatever "fun" darkwater was referring to.
I’m not sure I follow the implication here, but: my point was that “camping” is generated seen as a fairly healthy vacationing option, so it seems weird to use it as the lower-bound on a spectrum that contains moldy Airbnbs and hotels.
Well, there's a reason people build homes and apartments to live in, and a reason that societies with homes and apartments are healthier than societies that sleep in tents and shacks. Dirt is... dirty.
And yes, the point being advanced in the thread is that compared to camping - which is generally healthy and not something to freak out about! - homes are going to be cleaner, occasional mold issues aside. So it's silly to freak out over the infinitesimally-slight chances of little Timmy and Sally getting dust-mold-smoke cancer-AIDS from a less-than-perfectly-sterile room.
People build houses to protect ourselves and our stuff from the elements (and other climate control reasons), for privacy, for security, that sort of stuff. They are necessary for high-density living (plumbing helps to keep poop away).
Generally though, I would expect camping to be healthier than a hotel room. Hotel rooms and airbnbs are places that many humans go through, and humans are generally the main carriers of human pathogens. The only germs on your camping gear are your own ones.
For food and drinks, I agree, but when I’m ready to go to bed, I don’t want an adventure, I want a comfortable and quiet room that I’m already accustomed to.
I have three kids. We prefer to stay in hotels with suites where the kids can sleep in a separate room. I prefer the fact that they have on-site staff. All hotels that we've stayed in for the past few years include a breakfast buffet.
The kids generally prefer hotels because they have pools.
We've found plenty of professionally run "resorts" where the space is like a small apartment, with a full kitchen and multiple bedrooms. These tend to be right in ski areas where we could walk to the lift if we were staying during the ski season. We did stay in one that was AirBNB-like because it was privately owned but the ski area handled the reservation and any issues that came up while we were there.
As I pretty avid skier its my experience that at most ski towns airbnbs cost about 50% more than hotels but have about 3x the square ft for the cost. Yea I can pay 4 grand a night for 4 hotel rooms or whatever setup youve got, or I could pay a half of that for a 3 bedroom airbnb with an outdoor hot tub. Easy decision for me
I can't put a finger on it, but I have never used AirBnB, so I probably do not know what I am missing. I have kids now, and when we move around within the EU, I have always found the hotel experience predictable and reliable (and like many say here, perhaps more expensive, though I don't know by how much). Our daily life at home/base camp is filled with chores - laundry, cooking, cleaning etc. So going and staying at a hotel with good amenities and services is a welcome change. Nice breakfast every day, in-room service, laundry on-demand etc. Of course there is a price tag, though our family has found it quite affordable with a regular EU software paycheck. Also, my experience does not extend for stays beyond a week. Anything longer would demand an apartment, for sure.
I, like you, prefer the hotel offering. Messing around with hosts and their rules is not on my list of things I want to care about, the fact that there are hidden fees and stuff leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Hotels, I know the rules. Don't destroy or steal, make life easier for the maid: done.
With AirBNB, there's the cleaning fee, there's the self-replacement of items situation, there's the unknown state going in; and there's some faff about checking in.
However, the laundry fee's are definitely killer in hotels. I prefer to travel light and paying €8 for a pair of socks (or.. depending on the hotel manager PER SOCK) to get them washed is just painful. It's not just a high price tag at that point, it's borderline criminal markup.
I have also noticed that amenities such as Irons are less common in hotel rooms these days, which is annoying as I've started wearing shirts in my old age- worse still is the toilet situation. Modern hotels must think we're all voyeurs or something. The majority of hotels I've stayed at in the last 3 years I would not want to be with a child, frosted glass bathrooms, rarely a lock, sometimes it's just slatted wooden cabinet doors... idk, something wild is going on with hotel bathrooms man.
IME, you can quite often get an iron and ironing board brought to your room (or to pick up somewhere) by asking for one at the reception. It's kinda standard in any hotel that gets business travelers, which is most of them.
Strange. As a father of two I prefer hotels over AirBnB. Laundry could be an issue, yes, but not having a kitchen is actually a feature for me. Someone else taking care of feeding the little ones is exactly what hotels are for
Sounds like you are looking for the hotel apartments. I stayed in plenty of those and they are good deal, you get kitchen, plenty of space. Think it was 100GBP/night and with the company discount it went down to 75GBP/month
At hotels you also don’t have to worry about spy cameras, upset neighbors and questionable legality.
I did use AirBnB years ago with my family and it was great. However the quality tends to reflect the country. I have had wonderful experiences in Northern Europe and the worst in San Francisco.
Normally, I never use a kitchen when traveling. When with GF, she does often like eggs in the morning though. So if there isn't a hotel/inn breaffast that can sometimes be useful.
I agree with respect to circumstances where you want houses or at least multi-room apartments though. Hotels aren't mostly a good fit for that although suite hotels sometimes have a couple of bedrooms.
Hotels aren't designed to be cooped up in. Hotels are designed for 2 things: Housing many people at the same place, and giving you a comfortable place to sleep, shower and have a breakfast in. And they're great at those.
I have 2 kids and I kinda agree but I now stay with hotels with kitchens. I have not stayed at Airbnb since they ruined me and my family’s stay during my wedding. The flat we had didn’t have a working toilet and they refused to find us a new place. They just offered a refund (only if the host confirmed toilet can’t be fixed)
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. If the kids are not toddlers any more, booking a place where you share the apartment/house with the host (or maybe other travelers) can also be a great experience.
I mean, it's an adventure, and those can also go poorly, but our experiences have been just excellent. And at those bottom-of-the-barrel prices mentioned earlier.
Just as much as many parents think having had kids is one of the proudest decisions (or happiest accidents) they have made, I think not having them is one of my best decisions, travelling is one of my many reasons for that, and I find the assumption from some parents that we should bend around their choice is a little presumptuous.
Furthermore, ignoring various other definitions of better, hotels are sometimes better value (or, at least, just less expensive) then AirBnBs these days, unless you are lucky, and inexpensive/value-for-money seems to be a very important factor for parents that I know.
Having said that I still use AirBnB sometimes, it just certainly isn't my only/preferred option as it was for a time.
It isn't about tolerance for the kids. I have no objection to them being around¹, I don't begrudge my taxes going into education and relevant parts of the NHS for them.
My issue is the assumption, amongst many of those with kids, that everything should be optimised for people with kids, and anything that isn't is wrong. Because why would you want to optimise anything for other conditions in some cases?
>Why not show the same courtesy?
There is courtesy, and there is being expected to accept suboptimal things for myself so that everything can be optimal for other peoples' choices.
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[1] except perhaps the particularly uncontrolled ones, and I acknowledge that is sometimes unavoidable
How exactly is everything optimised with families in mind? Ask any parent and I'm sure they will tell you how unoptimised their life is.
Why does a single person with their own expendable income worry so much about being catered for specifically? Your only responsibility is to yourself. Do you look around and bemoan family specific services? It's such an odd thing to care about unless you had a grudge.
Kids aren't a 'lifestyle choice' like deciding to travel. Do I need to go into the reasons why kids are important or who will be paying to keep you alive when your older?
In your response, yes. Either that or you are significantly misreading my posts.
> How exactly is everything optimised with families in mind?
It isn't. I didn't say that at all. Some things are, possibly not enough, but many parents think everything should be and everything that isn't implies some deliberate slight.
> Ask any parent and I'm sure they will tell you how unoptimised their life is.
Ah, the old “you are not a parent, you don't know how hard it is”. I know many parents, and even without that personal context the issues with parenthood are well documented throughout our culture. If anyone is ignorant of reality here it is parents who are surprised to find it isn't easy…¹
> Why does a single person with their own expendable income worry so much about being catered for specifically?
I don't, and that isn't what I said.
> Your only responsibility is to yourself.
Incorrect. I have parents, other family, friends, pets, my work (though that could be filed under responsibility to myself I suppose - I'm not a public servant by any description), other organisations (both commercial and charitable) that I interact with, certain responsibilities we all have to society in general, etc.
> Do you look around and bemoan family specific services?
I very much do not, I don't even bemoan funding them, and I explicitly said as much (to quote: “I don't begrudge my taxes going into education and relevant parts of the NHS…”). Try reading what you reply to before replying to it!
> It's such an odd thing to care about unless you had a grudge.
Not a grudge as such. Just an irritation that if I'm sometimes seen as selfish if I appreciate something that is optimised for my lifestyle. I've been called selfish for just not wanting to have kids.
> Kids aren't a 'lifestyle choice'
They very much are. It is a choice that affects your lifestyle in a great many ways whichever side you choose (or, in some cases, have chosen for you).
> Do I need to go into the reasons why kids are important
No need, I've been told these things, despite already knowing them, many many many times already!
> who will be paying to keep you alive when your older?
That is a complicated discussion that I really don't have time for ATM, but further to “why kids are important” I am well aware of the problems an average ageing population can cause.
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[1] Obviously excluding those whose kids have specific issues, be they physical, mental, or both. Those matters are not predictable unlike the general challenges almost all parents face.
Most parents want everything to cater to their family... you say. This irritates you.
However, you find it irritating when people call you selfish when things are catered for you.
Who are these people calling you selfish by the way? Who has said your selfish for not having kids for example.
This frustration with parents seem to come from a sense of guilt? Not that I agree you should feel that way. But all this talk of feeling selfish and being called selfish. I have never felt that way about any friends or family I know without kids. Never even crossed my mind.
If you're truly happy with your lifestyle choice, these things shouldn't bother you at all.
> Most parents want everything to cater to their family... you say.
You are twisting my words again. I'm strongly suspecting this is deliberate, to make my position sound more hard-line, rather than a misunderstanding on your part. I said many, which is far from most, and to those with kids not to their specific family¹.
> This irritates you.
Not directly. If you pay attention to the start of this thread² you'll see that the source of irritation was the implied “you aren't a parent so you don't understand”. Here it was said lightly, but often there is more than a hint of suggesting that those without kids, particularly those who very much don't want them, are somehow both inferior in terms of knowledge, intellect, morality, or some mix of the three.
> Who are these people calling you selfish by the way?
Currently, directly to me? No one. I've successfully convinced the world around me that my line ending here is not a bad thing!
Though it was explicitly stated in my direction in my younger years when talking about future life plans. Who was saying it? Quite a mix of people, though there was certainly a bias towards those to whom religion was an important part of how they gauge the actions/intent of others. In some cases I think people take my explicitly not wanting that way of life is me saying that the other choice is generally wrong and that they, by inference, are wrong³, which is not the case. My original home town has a prevalence of certain opinions about the world, and there was from some people a suggestion that other cultures having more children than was a concern so breeding is some sort of duty, but that is part of a different kettle of mouldy fish.
As an example more outside of myself: I have a couple of friends who would like to have themselves rendered incapable without the hassle of pills and other treatments which, for them and quite a few others, can have significant side effects, but that isn't something they are allowed to choose in this country even at their own expense. The word selfish has definitely been levelled at them (also “misguided” and similar, along with “you'll change your mind and regret it” as if they are a 14-year-old wanting a face tattoo not a 30-something trying to make their life less problemful for a week each month).
> This frustration with parents…
Again, your wording seems to be trying to frame me as saying things that I am not, here that all parents have unreasonable expectations. That is rather disingenuous of you.
> seem to come from a sense of guilt?
Nope. I don't see what I would feel guilty about here.
> If you're truly happy with your lifestyle choice, these things shouldn't bother you at all.
I am, but I have to admit to not being high-minded enough not to be bothered by the implied inferiority (“you aren't a parent, you wouldn't understand”, etc.) or that everything should cater for the other choice.
Also, I am not the only one who matters here. That the pressure to conform to traditional family models exists, means that some end up in a place that they really wouldn't have chosen for themselves and that they are not happy about.
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[1] The latter would imply I think that their view point is from an entirely self-centred perspective
[2] Assuming you are not an LLM with a limited context window so don't have access to that!
[3] This certainly applies to a couple of people who have since popped out enough, or been the cause of others having them, to make up for my lack of desire to have any. How much it applies more generally is less provable.
It is really location specific. For some locations, the hotel experience is better/cheaper and hotels (serviced apartments) can have kitchens/privacy.
The problem is not much of the hotel/apartment but rather the platform. AirBnb manipulates search results, prices and UX to squeeze harder. It now wants to up sell "experiences" that it puts in your face every-time you open the app. It is just exhausting as the rest of everything on the internet that is taking the same path.
I don't even really understand the concept of comparing AirBnB prices to hotel prices? Unless you're literally just looking for the cheapest place to safely spend the night with zero considerations beyond that they just aren't the same product. Staying in an apartment or house and staying in a hotel are vastly different experiences.
Want hotel quality and safety with apartment perks? Just go to an apartment hotel! It costs more than a hotel/AirBnB but you're also not at the whims of random hit-or-miss listings and shady shit. And they clean your room if you want them to!
They're not nearly as common as Airbnb apartments in most countries. I also trust Airbnb listings and reviews more than what I find on most booking sites.
I don't trust AirBnb reviews much at all. When I've found the same place on AirBnb and Booking, the difference was always clear: AirBnb has only glowing reviews with nothing wrong at all, while Booking reviews were much more realistic with also some critical but fair observations included.
The AirBnB review system feels fairly useless. I've had some pretty poor experiences with AirBnB, but I am loath to give severe ratings or write anything too awful. I would like to give fair warnings to subsequent guests but it never feels like it would help. Instead I do try to give direct feedback to hosts if they are available.
Maybe some way to secretly write problems, and get next guests to agree/disagree with each concern?
Repeatable patterns of problems (rather than one-off bad luck) are what I'm most interested in avoiding.
I find booking.com has been more reliable, and less risks of unexpected costs. AirBnB is usually way less professional.
When writing reviews in-app, there's a certain pressure to not fuck someone over.
For instance, hypothetically, there might be a listing that mentions plenty of clean towels, a swimming pool, and a walk to a convenience store. I get there and there were two towels, the swimming pool was one of those above-ground models, and the convenience store was a 20 minute walk.
Leaving a negative review on AirBnB might fuck the guy over in search results or certain incentives, so I wouldn't really delve into the definition of "plenty" and how a "swimming pool" should mean "a pool that's large enough to swim in" and not "a big puddle that's perfectly suited for splashing around in, but less so for actual swimming". I might mention them in a private note to the renter or something, but it's not egregious enough to sabotage the otherwise-perfectly-fine service I was provided.
There's no such direct gamification with a third-party review site, so I might bring these things up there.
It's similar to leaving a thumbs up for an Amazon driver who walks on the lawn because he didn't notice the paved walkway. Was it "perfect delivery"? No. But is it something I'd want the guy to have negative employment ramifications over? Also no.
The problem I've seen with those is that all those places have turned to using Airbnb to manage guests and bookings. The whole little industry that spawned is beyond bizarre to me. Like everyone wanting to hyper optimize and the uniqueness disappeared.
From a utility perspective not really. You need a safe comfortable place to sleep, a clean bathroom, maybe a TV, some space for your stuff and that’s basically it.
The experience is OUT THERE, not where you are staying.
So yea I’m looking for the cheapest place that meets the bar. Sometimes it’s Airbnb but usually it’s a hotel.
I used to like Airbnb. It's not better or cheaper than hotels, but when travelling with kids it makes a big difference.
Until I had a bad experience, that turned horrible. I saw a side of the company that made me think "never again".
I rented a place from a "superhost" that looked very nice on paper. It was in fact very bad. Everything in the description was misleading, photos were doctored to look nice, "windows" opened to a wall on the next building two feet away, there was mold everywhere, the shower flowed into the bedroom, etc.
At this point it wasn't the end of the world; I stayed two nights and went home. Then I wrote a bad review. It was simply descriptive and contained no harsh language of any kind.
The review was immediately taken down; I asked why, and received a barrage of emails from Airbnb (some automated, some maybe not) saying that they were very sorry, they understood this wasn't the outcome I expected, but they couldn't publish it.
Turns out, Airbnb will go to extreme lengths to protect their hosts, because they are much more valuable to the company than one random customer.
But if the reviews are fake or filtered, then I can't trust the platform.
I went back to booking.com; they now have properties in addition to hotels, and are much more professional.
I don't agree that Booking.com handles customer complaints better than Airbnb. I had booked a flat through Booking.com. The host wanted a deposit of my credit card information via an untrustworthy customised Italian website for a deposit before handing over the pin to collect the key. I do not speak Italian. Giving my credit card information to a strange website whose language I don't speak was not part of the agreement. The host then refused to give me access to the flat. My complaint to Booking.com was answered with standard texts pointing out that the deposit was obligatory in the small print and therefore part of the contract. However, the small print, which I admittedly had not read before booking, stated that the deposit was to be paid in cash. It didn't say anything about credit cards. I tried over five rounds of back and forth to get a complaint and a refund via Booking, as I didn't actually receive the flat and therefore didn't get any service. Booking then simply stopped replying. When I then wanted to take legal action and claim the amount, it turned out that I would have had to sue somewhere in Holland. So all the money was gone and I had double the cost for that night because I had to book a room elsewhere. So I've had the worst experience with booking.com customer support.
I booked one with swimming pool, advertising enough room for 6 person.
View was amazing, as advertised. The bed in the living room was inflatable and deflated over night. Only three forks in kitchen drawer.
Convoluted scheme to enter the building and room cause they want to hide the fact it's an Airbnb as it's not really allowed in that building.
Swimming pool was on maintenance since 2 months.
Airbnb couldn't care less, basically I was being annoying to them. They didn't publish my honest review.
Sure having a kitchen and a comfy place to rest is nice, since that experience I'm very reluctant to take again that risk, especially with kids.
Same experience here. It was shocking how bad Airbnb’s customer service was. When 95% of the stays are good it doesn’t matter but that one bad stay soured me on the company entirely
Almost every Airbnb I've stayed over the past few years has been subpar compared to how it is advertised. The most recent one in Malaysia had cockroaches in the kitchen. Airbnb is now the last resort after I've exhausted staying in hotels.
At this point, I stay away from serviced apartments altogether. At least with a hotel you can go to reception and demand they fix your issue.
The only exception is actual vacation homes that people rent out when they're not there. If it's not clearly a vacation home, I know that it's going to suck in at least one way.
This is the same asymmetry why I wont buy a tesla until tesla allows any mechanic to fix problems with it.
ie, you are beholden to the manufacturer or seller, and are at their mercy. This becomes more important as the car ages.
In this case also, it appears that the customer has no recourse (bad reviews are taken down.)
In Germany it's apparently illegal to leave a bad review of a business. Even if their experience was bad. Even if you can prove in a court of law that they lied on their listing.
Leaving a negative review is not outright illegal, but it can lead to legal consequences if deemed defamatory or false. If a review contains unsubstantiated claims or personal attacks, the business can pursue legal action for defamation.
The nuances of these laws can vary, so context matters significantly in legal interpretations.
I've been a digital nomad for the last 9 years. Airbnb is a huge reason why my experience has been so great. How else can I show up in a city in a new country , spend 5 minutes the day before I arrive, and end up with a nice furnished apartment in a great location for a week's stay?
Oh, how lovely it is so convenient for you, e.g. the "silent majority" while the residents of those cities foot the direct and indirect bill from reduced availability of the real-estate and the ever-increasing costs.
Anywhere you could build a hotel you could also build more housing, so they pose the same issue. There is necessarily some tension between using space for permanent housing and using it for tourism / short term stays. Tourism often keeps a city's economy healthy, and having short term stays is important for those visiting even for non-tourism reasons (e.g. in town to visit family, for work, etc).
The housing issue is more complex than just Airbnb / short-term housing as well: is there enough housing investment? what is the effect of international or corporate investment? are local regulations supporting or sabotaging the effort to build more housing? is there a large speculation market?
Ignoring some nuances, I see what you're saying-- At least in the long run.
The issue is however in the short run, air BNB encourages taking existing rentals out of the market to turn into short term rentals. The effect is driving long term rental prices toward the short term price level supported by income level of the visitors. (untenable for most residents).
The conversation of new units refers to a decades long process dependent on credit cycles and investment interest.
It is like arguing that the exodus from the rust belt in the late 80s and 90s was good for the cities because it made the cost of housing go down.
This is true if we focus entirely on housing cost and basically ignore all the down sides. Of course, ignoring the perspective of those who owned real estate too at that time.
Real estate always has quite a bit of preference falsification associated with it too. Everyone is always publicly outraged at the cost increase of real estate while those who own the increasing real estate are internally quite happy with the situation. I suspect that is the main variable why we can never solve this problem.
But...why should some direct investment towards "housing" if they can direct them towards the day-rentals ? Its definitely in their economical self-interest. So as long as we allow these platforms (be it AirBnB, Amazon or FB) to amplify a single parameter at the detriment of everything else in the society as a whole, I am afraid all the philosophical discussions about "complex" aspects will not help.
This is a supply/demand problem. Your solution is to restrict the supply of short term rentals. Restrictions rarely work, the hypothetical situation you mention would benefit from allowing more building of long term rentals.
No, I did not suggest the solution you are implying my comment meant. What I am saying is that these PLATFORMS are not the right way to handle the supply of short-term rentals, as they incentivise the home-owners to take them off the market for long-term rentals. I would be perfectly fine with short-term rentals which were not the converted living units. We have to think differently here. But if the push comes to shove, actually restrictions would work here in favour of the long-term rentals, because being, as you said yourself, a supply-demand problem, it would raise the supply of long-term rentals and reduce the prices. Just as it was happening before AirBnB. Its just that we have to be moral enough to recognise that the basic human right of a local in a tourist location to live affordably is set higher than the luxury problem of the so-called digital natives, namely, booking a short-term rental in a city center (so they can produce yet another piece of "content"). Not to mention that a platform which does not generate profit should not even be allowed to exist.
Most of the case it is because more building is simply not possible.
And anyway as long as there is no restrictions on the day-rental, investor will choose the option in their economical self-interest. Restriction must apply to force long term rentals.
I think what's at play here is the unusually palpable crowding out effects of tourism compared to any other industry. That is, when local stores get replaced by tourism shops, Landmarks etc. become more important than everyday amenities and the town becomes a sort of museum of itself.
Of course tourism can pipe in money and help a place invest in high quality services and amentaties compared to catering to industry.
However tourism often has a tremendous income distribution problem (see Hawaii or Colorado living conditions of service workers). This remains a fundamentally political problem to guarantee income distribution through living wage guarantees etc.
> Anywhere you could build a hotel you could also build more housing
Not really in practice. Ex: there's lots of hotels around airports and highways. Would anyone want to buy a house there? Definitely not. The markets and thus economics are totally different.
> having short term stays is important for those visiting even for non-tourism reasons (e.g. in town to visit family, for work, etc)
I don't know about "important", but "useful" yeah. The thing is like, how ubiquitous is this? I'd naively guess for every 1 person who finds this useful, 1000s more are negatively impacted by Airbnb.
There is endless housing immediately by airports and highways. Like literally any major American airport or highway has tons of housing right next to it. Even in more rural areas people deliberately building a house right by the airport to make routine traveling easier
You're blaming the wrong people for the issue. Obviously there is demand for tourism in a way that hotels do not fulfill and the people who bought and rent out/host these residences are the ones enabling it by adding supply.
As someone who spends time being digital nomad myself, it isn't my fault when I stay in an AirBNB that is available somewhere since I'm just consuming the available supply that is permitted by the local government and I'm all for residents having priority. Often time its a local resident who owns and rents out the place in the first place, blame them for not renting to locals if you want. Its the local regulations and governments responsibility to regulate this.
I started out loving AirBNB. Then I had quite a few bad experiences and flipped back to hotels as the price equalised. In the last year or two I’ve gone back to AirBNB as the hosts seem to have professionalised and hotel prices have headed north.
Hotels.com also cancelled a brilliant loyalty programme of buy 9 nights get the 10th free which was another motivation to look elsewhere.
I am currently on vacation in the Mediterranean and find a hybrid model to be the best of both worlds. We strictly use booking.com (we need to find a hotel at 6pm and check in at 7. Same thing the next day.Airbnb would never work.) Booking.com lists apartments too. I would imagine there's a huge overlap with airbnb properties. This way you're using the better company (they helped me out a bunch of times. And the listers are more inclined to behave on booking.com.) but staying in the same apartments with all the positives you listed. It's all self check in now too. I have yet to see any owner or manager.
This has always been my experience as well. And like I mentioned above, the people listing places on booking.com are much more likely to try to deal with you properly. I think on AirBNB the renters can even look at your prior reviews to judge how likely you are to give a positive review before they accept the reservation. And they can cancel at any time even after you've paid.
I think the core value prop of Airbnb is (or should be) to provide a different experience than a hotel. It may have been "cheaper than a hotel" at one point and idk what the numbers are on how people are using it but in my experience it excels for larger groups or for people just looking for a more house-like experience than a hotel. Being able to stay in a nice house with a bunch of friends in any city is an amazing thing they made a lot more accessible.
Doesn't really make a lot of sense to me to just shop on price and then compare the experience to booking a hotel room, it's totally different.
Anecdotally I've never heard anyone say "VRBO." Maybe they are using it but just saying "yeah we stayed in an Airbnb" kind of like if you use Lyft but call it Uber cause that's the more common noun.
So I feel like they did successfully establish themselves as the noun for that kind of thing, which to me speaks to the power of the idea and the marketplace they created because the name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
But overall I think the hotel room market is just much larger than the "boutique group stay" market so they have to maintain position as a direct hotel competitor (but I think it is an issue vis-a-vis people complaining here about things like having to coordinate with an individual even though they willingly chose that route).
I agree with all that. One or two people mostly looking for a decent place to stay in the right location without hassle probably describes most travelers under most circumstances. I know it does me and I've travelled over 100 days a year at times. And that's probably not atypical of a lot of business travelers.
Even these days I'm not mostly looking to deeply research my overnight stays much of the time and often default to my hotel chain of choice or a hotel/Aparthotel that I have previous experience with.
Chesky is having a Jobs moment, when Apple went from making Computers to smartphones and much much more. It didn’t happen in a day though. More importantly, by that time, Jobs had already built Next from the ground up, and supported and funded the growth of Pixar into an animation powerhouse. He had all the additional experience shaping his perception on what people want and how people will react to something.
I think Airbnb will have a branding issue. By transitioning from rentals to offering a wide range of services, they might dilute their brand before people have the chance to fully embrace and experience the new offerings.
Perhaps they should reinvent themselves as a platform that manages travel and stays, emphasizing that their “airbnb certified experience” includes access to specific facilities and guarantees. This way, users can choose from other service providers in their marketplace with their own standards. That way, expanding to more services over time would seem like an organic expansion.
Essentially, Airbnb could transition from managing services to a marketplace model that also hosts managed services and other providers. However, by maintaining a focus on “stays” or “travels” and slowly adding more ancillary services would prevent dilution before their metamorphosis is complete.
There will be a rebranding in the next ten years. Airbnb will get a slightly more blocky or rounded version of the same logo and ads everywhere announcing how "Airbnb is now Air".
I can't tell who owns air.com, but the website it hosts is a tiny landing page from someone who would obviously sell.
The rebranding will be met by a slew of astonished articles asking "they spent how much?" and almost as many apparently-thoughtful midwit counterpoints saying no, it looks obvious in hindsight, but it took real marketing genius to conceive of this in advance.
My issue with Airbnb stays is privacy. I don’t trust that the vendors (they’re really not ‘hosts’ nowadays) have not placed cameras and microphones throughout the rooms. I do trust that most (not all!) hotel owners don’t.
is this even a widespread problem? kind of reminds me of the tiktoks of "hotel safety tips"[1]. Makes me think these levels of paranoia are unique to the US
> Airbnb prohibits indoor security cameras and recording devices, including audio, in most listings globally.
It should not be difficult to find a security camera. (Microphone is a different matter.) If you find one, you can report to AirBnB, and I am sure the renter will be immediately delisted. And, it is probably just plan illegal in many jurisdictions.
Security cameras (like Google Nest) are not the concern people have: hidden cameras are. It is possible to rig an entire property without any chance of guests finding the cameras. The scale at which it happens is a question (and varies based on country) but the illegality isn't the issue. The dissemination of videos and photos secretly recorded of guests and their children is the issue. There are people in prison for doing this but the damage is done, videos and photos of their guests are online forever.
and my point is that there is no reason to think this is enough of a problem that any well-adjusted person should factor it into the "should I use Airbnb?" calculation. If someone thinks that is an issue then I would assume they never use public bathrooms.
This is not a useful response. The intent of my comment was to say: If you are renting an AirBnB and you find "hidden" cameras, then you can first complain to AirBnB. If the local jurisdiction prohits cameras, then you can call the police to report it.
That's not real. People don't live like that. That's just engagement slop for tiktok.
Also, I would argue that it may not be common, but it's much more likely with airbnb versus a hotel chain. Two reasons; more access to the space without witnesses, and the owner is more likely to know if their preferred gender is going to occupy that particular space.
Meaning, hotel staff can be walked in on by other hotel staff, and there is no guarantee that the attractive person you want to see nude is going to get room 203. Whereas you can see who is renting your Airbnb, and you have access to it by yourself all the time.
Yeah, I've had pretty great experiences with Airbnbs. I'm usually traveling with kids, hotel rooms are small, it's really nice to have a kitchen with kids, and a lot of airbnbs have amenities that the kids like.
Hotels try to milk parents with kids and either force you to take basically another booking, or have few 2-bedroom (or 1 bedroom and living room = parental bedroom) ones, often for almost double the price. Most were designed in another era, and it shows - booked rooms are basically just caves for sleeping.
We only use such if there are no other options in given area or if we want food prepared (this quickly becomes another chore with small kids).
I've never seen a well rated airbnb place with many reviews being bad. They may not be stellar in some aspect, ie small maintenance may be lacking but otherwise having a full kitchen with wash machine is pretty amazing for any type of trip, and one has a wide variety of locations and prices. Also it allows you to experience the place a bit more, compared to hyper sterile and uniform hotel experiences.
Lets not forget airbnbs would never become a thing if they werent cheaper than hotels (or at least provided much better experience at similar price).
They've gotten much much better in the last 5 years. After all the small time would-be "empire builders" who overcharged for shoddy units and abused residential real estate laws got cleaned out of the system, it seems like what's left is a decent middle ground of professional operators running full time rental units, with a few of the original style unique experiences left here and there. The standards have gone way up, and it's generally better than a hotel at the same price point again, which it was absolutely not for most of 2015-2020ish.
Depending on the location you get a bunch of people basically who own a vacation home they get priority to use and rent out the rest of the time. Which is honestly rather nice for both the guests and the hosts.
That was my preferred experience too - well maintained and lived in just enough to make sense. Some places do cheap out on "perks" that seem there only to boost themselves in rankings/filters, but otherwise been a pleasant experience.
We did this in the 80s and 90s so this is not something unique to airbnb, airbnb just did it "on an app". When I say "did this" I mean rented a duplex or house for a couple weeks for a vacation.
VRBO did whole-house vacation rentals in the U.S. well before AirBnB. Still around and works well. I’d say we book about half the time through VRBO and half the time through AirBnB.
AirBnB’s differentiator on launch was “rent just one room” in an owner-occupied dwelling. Remember when it was “the sharing economy”? There are still listings like that, but I think most of the money is in whole-dwelling rentals now.
I genuinely love that 'rent just a room' (or even just a bed!) function of Airbnb, and continue to use it till this day. Have met many interesting people (or as I heard another comment on here say "weird in a non-dangerous way" lol), and it's always felt like a safe and quality experience to me (so long as I always do the due diligence and use common sense to stay with hosts that have tons of positive reviews, etc). IIRC Airbnb had a push a few 'releases' ago to revive this core part of their founding purpose, but now it seems they've moved on to 'services'.
Rented 25 Airbnb’s . half were bad. by bad I mean they were not as advertised. Claimed to have parking for my car. didn’t. claimed to have wifi. didn’t. claimed to be at a particular location on a quiet street, were actually several blocks away on a busy street. been to ones who’s hvac was so loud as to be unusable, etc…
The whole cleaning routine for these places is getting pretty ridiculous though. I have to pay a cleaning fee, get the sheets from the bed and put it in the laundry, and whatever arbitrary stuff is in the checkout list. It never felt turnkey as a hotel.
I think I’m the wrong audience though, as I’m happy as a clam with something like a Best Western or a Motel 6.
Prices are pretty close to hotels, but laundry and Kitchen always tilt the scale in favour of AirBnb.
When travelling for a week, I don't want to each out every day. I appreciate having a couple of things in the fridge for lazy moment, or being able to cook breakfast if I want to stay in late.
And I can wash a bunch of clothes instead of paying €8 to wash a single shirt.
I was a digital nomad for 4 years. The ability to do your own laundry is why I prefer an Airbnb over hotel, especially when you’re only living out of carryon luggage with a few days of clothing. Relying on hotel laundry is hard to time and is not cheap.
How widespread those are depends very much on the country. There are some in which most people haven't seen a laundromat in their life outside of American movies.
I didn't say that they are unique to America. And yes, many countries do have them in abundance. Many others do not, or they are rare enough that you might not have one nearby.
I'm from Russia originally and the first time I have ever seen one outside of a movie was when I moved to Canada. Russia does have them, but, generally speaking, only in large cities.
markets are, by and large, too competitive for the "everything" app to ever exist. Air BnB works because they have figured out managing search and and a network of "hotels". This may not translate to other services in a way that other platforms could not do better. 'Why doesn't Uber do hotels?' - type of thing.
People say hotels are as cheap, but they never have the same amenities, and the location in town is often worse. An AirBnb with a kitchen is essentially $20-30 cheaper per day than a hotel without one. Add to that laundry, more privacy, and other perks and it's not really a fair comparison. It does seem like there are more hotel resellers and leasing companies using it as a stopgap between tenants, which I understand, but hate.
I get why they want to be an "everything app" (rich people have more money to spend on "experiences"), but other commenters are spot-on regarding the dangers of taking their eye off the ball. Seems like a better use of company attention would be to really boost and reward the genuine hosts that put their heart into it, and at least put in a modest amount of friction to slow down the corporate resellers with barebones apartments in half-remodeled buildings.