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Comment by Matheus28 | Hacker News Reader

I don't see why someone would still use Airbnb for short stays. At $1.5k for 5 nights in Seattle you can surely stay at a decent hotel (which the OP ended up doing anyway, at $1.3k), and not have to deal with some weird hosts.

Hit them with a chargeback, who cares about getting banned from Airbnb.

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I used airbnb for a couple of years but soon became apparent that booking through a hotel website directly was cheaper and lots of times included breakfast and you don't have to be their housekeeping at the end. I don't know why people still do it. Since then I've only used it as backup for last minute bookings in the middle of nowhere for just a night if I can't camp because it's raining.

Homes are sometimes nicer than hotels, better suited for families with children.

True, but Airbnb isn't the only option. In the past I simply used local companies that specialize in that. It's extremely common in tourist heavy areas. And you don't have a laundry list of things to do before your checkout like some Airbnb hosts expect you do to. The keyword to google for is "vacation rental".

Or friends. We get AirBnBs for 4-10 friends at a time and it’s a blast. Way better than hotels. Nice to have a proper kitchen and living room to hangout in privately.

An airbnb feels like 'mine'. Whereas a hotel I have no confidence that some overzealous room service won't barge in and try to change the towels while I'm using them!

Put a "do not disturb" sign on your door, every hotel room has one.

I too don't like it when room service touches my stuff (it is a mess, but it is my mess!) - putting a DND sign on the doorknob and not removing it for the whole stay fixed that problem for me.

I travel for work approximately 120 nights per year, and have done so since 2011.

The number of times room service has barged into my room without my knowledge and/or permission can be counted on 0 fingers.

If this has happened to you you may want to reexamine what hotels you stay in because the only thing you have to do to not experience this, even if you forget to hang up the "Do Not Disturb" sign, is lock the deadbolt on your hotel room door.

Have you ever stayed at a hotel? Because that's not how it works.

Not an issue since COVID. Most hotels don't do any cleaning during your stay anymore unless you specifically request it or your stay is over a week.

If anything hotels have cut back on cleaning now so no one ever goes in.

And you can always physically lock the door

Don't worry about the cameras they may or may not tell you about then refuse to refund you when you find them.

My Corp just issued a new travel policy last week. AirBNBs are completely forbidden.

I often want to stay in a city for a couple weeks or a month to maximize time with collaborators. An Airbnb with a functional kitchen beats the pants off a hotel.

Some cities have aparthotels which can be a reasonable compromise. They can have similarly poorly kitted out kitchens to many Airbnbs, but you don’t have to do your own housekeeping and you are dealing with an experienced business.

This. Aparthotels (like Sonder) are imo much better than Airbnbs for medium to long stays.

Woa thanks for the name (Sonder), I wanted to investigate aparthotels more since I've found one on Airbnb in Montreal. For me hotels are fine if I'm staying on my own and for a few days only, but I like to have a whole property otherwise. Much more private too.

They're a bit more pricey than I'd like but have used it multiple times (London, New York, Venice) and have zero complains.

Hotel suites with full kitchens are not uncommon.

Surely not, I’m afraid, at least not outside of a city.

I just returned from a ski trip where in order to not pay $500/night at a hotel I turned to Airbnb, where the prices were the same. I wound up renting an off-grid cottage that stank of sewage backup and required a generator to run while bathing for $300/night- and I had to feed tbeir mangy cat and leave them a wonderful review so as not to get dinged with a personal review that might make it hard to rent in future.

sometimes it's a much better value.

portland maine in the summer's a great example.

portland's downtown hotel is The Press. It goes for about $219/nt off-peak. On-peak? >$800/nt!

However, the Airbnb's in downtown are stil going for $250/nt-ish, if you can book one.

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