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Comment by CharlesW | Hacker News Reader

Airbnb users: Is there ever a scenario where it makes sense to book a hotel room using Airbnb?

(Not blaming the customer, and I completely agree that a "total price display" that leaves out fees that Airbnb knows about is predatory.)

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Not from my experience. I’ve found the inverse to be true with the likes of booking.com now having some apartments.

Booking isn’t perfect but it is definitely my go to for travel accommodations. Their customer service is always helpful and easy to get in contact with from anywhere I have traveled to.

Agoda usually has better coupons and sometimes mobile specific ones, better than Booking if they have the same listing. But the prices will also vary. Same parent company.

> Booking isn’t perfect but it is definitely my go to for travel accommodations.

Definitely keep an eye on your transactions, I had an additional fraud $1500 transaction from Booking.com Netherlands shortly after I booked a stay in Norway.

I reported it to my credit card and all was fine but there are probably some bad apples working at Booking.com.

That’s crazy, glad you got your money back. Was it a booking which asked you to pay directly by any chance?

I recently had an apartment (in the Netherlands also) request that I pay them directly with a bank transfer before I arrived but it seemed dodge to me so I booked with another

No, I paid for the (intended) Norway booking via Booking.com in full.

I then got a fraud charge a couple days later. I never gave my credit card info directly to the Norway property (not sure if Booking shares it with them?) but I'm more inclined to suspect someone at Booking who had access to their saved credit card database OR superuser access to book some other resort using my saved payment info.

Booking.com and other OTAs often will book the reservation with a virtual card that they fax the details over with the reservation (or otherwise communicate the virtual card payment information in the OTA extranet).

What could have happened is someone compromised the hotel's side of the extranet and grabbed your (and other) bookings' virtual cards and attempted to start racking charges against them which would then go back on your card you gave for the reservation to Booking.

While there's supposed to be fraud controls on the cards, who knows what could have let the extra charges fly.

Is there ever a scenario where it makes sense to book a hotel room using Airbnb?

IME, not really. Hotel web site first, then Airbnb if I'm staying in a place where there are no hotels.

Third choice is booking.com, which has the ability to book motels in some small towns I frequent that don't show up anywhere else, and the motels use booking.com as their sole room management system.

Yes. Sometimes Hotels have cheaper rates on Airbnb. Not sure why. Possibly because they don't want to advertise those lower rates on their own websites or they have exclusive deals with Airbnb.

Edit: Another reason is that Airbnb simply provides more eyeballs for hotels. Sites like Booking.com is very crowded already.

If you can, I would always call the hotel and ask for price matching. 9/10 they say yes and sometimes I even received a free room upgrade because I paid with them directly and not a 3rd party.

Yes, any hotel manager would be a fool to give 15% to 20% commission to Expedia/Booking/Airbnb rather than split that with the hotel guest and have both parties come out ahead.

I've had instances where I've extended my stay, and they've found me a cheaper room. However, calling the hotel itself prior to booking has always resulted in higher or identical prices.

It's anecdotal, but I've not personally found it to be worth the extra hassle.

If it is a major brand hotel, they should not be advertising lower rates than on the hotel brand’s direct website:

https://www.ihg.com/content/us/en/customer-care/best-price-g...

https://www.hilton.com/p/price-match-guarantee/

https://www.hyatt.com/info/best-rate-guarantee/

https://help.marriott.com/s/article/Article-22050

https://www.choicehotels.com/deals/best-rate

https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/hotel-deals/best-rate-guarante...

Because they can use reviews to filter out the 2-3% of customers who cause most room damage and are otherwise expensive.

they own the app "hotels tonight," which is the only way i use airbnb.

I just checked the closest hotel to me and hotelstonight was $25 more than the hotel's website rate and hotels.com. May be a great way to find vacancies, but I'm not sure why you would book through them unless you find a one-night room at an extended stay place.

I need a kitchen because I eat lowcarb otherwise I'd be eating $100/day/person at restauraunts.

Sure, that's the huge advantage of AirBnB in general, but GP's question was about using AirBnB to book a hotel room (which rarely has a kitchen).

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