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
But even for short stays, Airbnb put downward pressure on hotel prices, which is the only reason they're now somewhat comparable.
Airbnb has left bad impressions the last few times I used them with surprise fees and owners contacting before and after.
After six months I got an inquiry on VBRO. I had forgotten it was even listed.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
They appear to be doing better than ever in terms of bookings [1].
[1] https://fourweekmba.com/airbnb-bookings/#:~:text=Over%20393%....