Airbnb will now tell you about any annoying checkout chores before you book | Hacker News Reader

Airbnb will now tell you about any annoying checkout chores before you book

businessinsider.com

58 pointsmiles34 comments

I've come to the conclusion that Airbnb simply isn't worth the hastle. Just give me a hotel that does things professionally. There's always something. Last place I stayed at was showing off a nice hifi system in the photos - turns out there are no cables and it's all just for show, like an Ikea display.

Same. At this point I look to hotels first, and then AirBnB if I can't find anything that meets requirements for price / location / quality.

I generally don't have to question if my sheets have been washed, and don't get bamboozled with extra cleaning or BS. If there is a problem I can go straight to Marriott or Hilton corporate and they'll usually handle it.

To be clear, I've had a lot of good experiences with BnB's... but also a lot of meh, and a few bad ones. A few 100s, but also a few 60s and a couple of 10s. Pretty much all of my hotel stays were solidly 70-80 out of 100 and at this point I prefer the predictability.

Feels to me that Airbnb peaked probably around the time they went public. It’s now just another thing to check while booking accommodations on a trip. Not sure if folks here feel that way or not

I agree, for trips under a week in duration. But for stays of 30+ days, Airbnb is still the best option (aside from unofficial alternatives like facebook subletting groups).

But even for short stays, Airbnb put downward pressure on hotel prices, which is the only reason they're now somewhat comparable.

I’ve had better selection and prices through vrbo and homeaway.

Airbnb has left bad impressions the last few times I used them with surprise fees and owners contacting before and after.

I listed with both about 3 years ago: Airbnb I had six months of non stops bookings.

After six months I got an inquiry on VBRO. I had forgotten it was even listed.

My last two airbnbs were:

- burglar alarm went off all night. Host and airbnb acknowledged problem, would not give refund.

- woke up with a white spot on my body after a couple of nights. Turned out this was a strep infection.

> Turned out this was a strep infection.

This is my biggest fear with AirBNB. There’s no health inspections and I think it’s way more likely that the owner will just pocket the “cleaning” fee and rely on charging it to make renters think they are cleaning.

Hotels aren’t perfect but at least they have someone whose job it is to clean. So likely some training and experience in cleaning things and washing sheets.

I’m supposed to believe they are paying someone to hang around for 2-4 hours it takes to wash sheets in the house instead of spraying febreeze. I like to find a well stocked laundry closet with at least a few changes of sheets for each bed. But that’s pretty rare from my Airbnb experiences.

>Hotels aren’t perfect but at least they have someone whose job it is to clean. So likely some training and experience in cleaning things and washing sheets.

While true, a lot of hotels skimp on cleaning so much that you should definitely at least wash all the cups again that you use.

> But for stays of 30+ days, Airbnb is still the best option

This really depends where you are. In countries where monthly apartment rentals are common it's still a terrible deal.

I was looking recently for a trip and it was 40% more for the exact same building where the management simply puts an ad on the local rentals site with their walk-in monthly rate.

When you are on the road a lot, I'm happy to pay more for a kitchen but you should be aware of the local conditions, AirBnb takes a massive cut that obviously the customer pays. It only makes sense in cities where short term rentals are rarities.

Which countries have accessible monthly rentals? I'd be interested to know for trip planning.

> Airbnb peaked probably around the time they went public

They appear to be doing better than ever in terms of bookings [1].

[1] https://fourweekmba.com/airbnb-bookings/#:~:text=Over%20393%....

I think your take is spot on.

Airbnb customer support isn't equipped to handle complicated cases. They pass the buck from one support person to the other and their staff doesn't understand the company's own policies. I'm hesitant to use Airbnb nowadays after three bad experiences where hosts lied to customer support in order to avoid refunding some or all of my money when things went wrong.

Never had that problem with Booking.

In other words, it went downhill once the VC subsidies ran out and they had to compete in the free market.

I've never not had things go wrong with Airbnb. There's ALWAYS something... be it slow running drain, broken sliding door, missing detergent, A/C problem, misleading photos (which I expect)

With that said, I will continue to use the service oversea when financials make sense (Which is becoming less and less the case, unfortunately).

everytime there's articles about Airbnb, people talk about dirty places, hidden fees, chores, last minute cancellations, and more. But for me they've only been great. I make sure to pick a property with good reviews . I book a place with a kitchen. And the first day of my trip I go grocery shopping. Then I simply make home cooked meals. The prices of Airbnb's are definitely more expensive than a few years ago, but the savings on meals evens it out.

I just stay at home and cook in my own kitchen. The savings on travel and accommodation (both time and money) are massive.

Very informative!

I felt the same way until a drunk host in Canada cornered me in the room and yelled at us until I barricaded the door and my wife called the police.

True story.

Airbnb remove bad reviews. They state they break guidelines but won’t say which ones (former superhost here).

Food for thought: maybe airbnb and hotel prices converged because of plain old market forces. Hotels got somewhat cheaper and airbnbs a bit more expensive, and they end up in an equilibrium.

And yes, you take a risk when you book airbnb, but it's not a big one, and it goes down dramatically when you look at reviews and maybe filter by superhost. If you just hunt great deals and don't even look at how many reviews they have... you just don't understand how airbnb works.

We moved country a couple of years ago and with all the covid restrictions still in place, we needed a place to stay for a few days,as our apartment wasn't ready by the time we landed. So we got this really nice apartment in a nice part of the city with great access to shops, etc. The place had tons of positive reviews. We walk in and you could immediately tell it hasn't been cleaned. Stains on the bed, wc not cleaned, the fridge is filthy,etc. The place was managed by a company so eventually I ended up talking about to someone and they confirmed it hasn't been cleaned and offered to get a full refund or some massive discount if we stay. We couldn't get out fast enough. It was also impossible to leave a review, because the booking was cancelled..

My problem is with the review system. I feel like some hosts like to dish out negative reviews even if you did everything in the chore list and they have a cleaning fee.

We just got a bad review for leaving dirty dishes in the dishwasher. We had run the dishwasher before leaving, as instructed. It just seems some plates came out dirty because it's the cheapest no-name dishwasher they could find.

There was nothing very dirty in that thing. Also anybody who owns a dishwasher knows that they don't always work 100%.

The place was affordable but had some issues. The dishes in the cupboards weren't super clean. Some kitchen appliances weren't working properly. I don't want to give a super negative review because of some details.

But I think there should be something like a conditional review. I will only give a positive review if theirs is positive as well.

Since I'm willing to overlook some details if they're willing to as well.

Airbnb is making home ownership unaffordable where I live. Heck, I have a friend who's a realtor and he's straight up telling me he's main income now is coming from selling any place using Airbnb in his pitch.

Airbnb prices are also similar to hotels and resorts but none of the upsides (all-inclusive, breakfast, chores included, etc...).

Annoying check-in chores are becoming popular as well, including having to sign up for apps that store and share your private data.

Sine the article doesn't link to the source, here is the list of the 50 changes from the AirBNB CEO...

https://twitter.com/bchesky/status/1653735980875018246?cxt=H...

Way too late. Tiktok has a huge hate boner for Airbnb because of these now.

They're not wrong though. Not having to mow the lawn, do the dishes or take out garbage is why I stay in hotels. All that plus the overnight fee and the cleaning fee hotels end up being cheaper half the time anyways. Plus with a hotel you can come and go when you please and not have to deal with some key code that's broken or meeting up with the host at 2:30pm on a Tuesday etc.

Mow lawn? Is that really a thing in some places?

It is mentioned in the opening paragraph of the submitted article.

your tiktok. Mine never mentions airbnb. The downside of a good ML algorithm is that you can't really generalize what it shows you.

otherwise known as "customer feedback".

https://archive.ph/1UJ85

Still can’t believe chores are a thing.

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