hhh123

I actually don't understand airbnb's many charges where as a guest you have to pay a service fee (if at all, ask the host who has a business to pay this, or build this into the room costs) and cleaning fee (ditto same comments).

I have had a HORRIBLE experience with Airbnb (and NEVER AGAIN) and would recommend avoiding them at all costs if you want peace of mind. My experience involved the following:

a. hosts trying to cut corners by beating the system whereby they have to go through airbnb and pay the service fee

b. hosts promising you one set of terms and then changing them at whim immediately during your stay leaving you to scramble

c. hosts which are not hospitable at all, but renting rooms in their house, they wish for tenant to spend most of your time outside and resent you using their facilities (which was all pre-arranged by the way)

d. generally unreasonable behaviour which translated into an unpleasant experience.

Nobody would want to have a holiday or arrange accommodation needs under these conditions. There is no quality control or any meaningful support from airbnb whom you cannot contact anyway as a mere guest.

I am a frequent traveller and have used booking.com and other travel sites with much more satisfactory experiences. Don't let the pretty photos and supposedly good reviews on airbnb fool you - on a balance of probabilities, you are taking a risk in my opinion that you will regret it!!

flipstah

AirBnB is awesome. Just don't have high expectations for what you get.

So far, it hasn't disappointed for me especially with the money I saved.

heraclitus

I usually play it safe by going with properties that have extensive track records, i.e. many positive reviews. I leave trailblazing to people more intrepid than me... I want a known quantity.

I have to admit I am more inclined to use airbnb because travelling with children, it lets me get useful amenities like kitchen, washing machine and separate bedrooms at a very reasonable price (these often come at exorbitant premiums in hotels). If I was just going by myself or with my wife only, I'd use hotels instead.

bigsilverjet

Curious if people think AirBNB is more "budget" than VRBO. Does AirBNB attract more of the budget crowd? Are the rentals better quality on VRBO?

______________________
http://www.expressexpense.com/

heraclitus

I am still somewhat new to these types of rentals... I have used both sites, but honestly I can't really notice any consistent difference between the two other than the fact that one dominates in some cities, while the other dominates in other cities for reasons not entirely clear to me. In terms of price, both sites have a wide range of properties at different prices... if one skews more to the budget crowd then it's not clear to me, although I suppose airbnb will appeal to more budget travellers given that you can rent just a room for cheap.

(I only use Airbnb for entire home/apt rentals, so I can't speak to the room rental side of things.)

dulciusexasperis

AirBnB is full of illegal rentals and AirBnB are well aware of that fact. When a company knowingly allows illegal activity to take place within their business, what do you call such people?

What was originally a simple and reasonable concept of renting an airbed (the origin of the name) on your living room floor for a night or two, has been taken over by unscrupulous exploiters in it only for the money with no regard for anything or anyone else.

When you live in an apartment and have people coming and going all the time into the unit next door to you, then come and tell me how wonderful you think AirBnB is.
https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=...our+complaints

heraclitus

I do feel for people living next to troublesome airbnb rentals, but man, as a traveller I sure appreciate having an affordable alternative to hotels. For someone like me who travels with a child in tow, airbnb (and VRBO, and Flipkey, and HomeAway) is a game changer. I would like to see hotels adapt and respond to this challenge.

But given the obvious market for these services that airbnb has tapped, how does anyone expect the genie to go back into the bottle?

dulciusexasperis

If you feel for them heraclitus then do the responsible thing and make sure that what you rent is a legal rental. There are plenty of them out there.

As for having hotels adapting to the challenge, aparthotels have been around for a long time. Just Google any city name and aparthotels and up they pop.

The real issue is MONEY. That is the bottom line issue behind it all. People want more than they can actually afford to pay for and so look for an answer that let's them have it as you yourself admit. What has been tapped is in fact human greed and you can never put that genie back in a bottle. Instead you have to legislate laws that put the common good above the individual's preference.

We have speeding laws that are their to insure safety of the majority. We have plenty of individual's who don't care about others and want to speed. When they do, we fine them or take away their driving license if they are repeat offenders.

We have health & safety laws that say a hotel must have smoke detectors, not because the individual wants them, but because if you fall asleep in bed with a cigarette, others will have a chance to get out of the hotel safely.

We have bylaws that say you can't build a hotel in the middle of a residential area next week. Not because individuals wouldn't be willing to stay there, but because most people wouldn't want to wake up one morning and discover a hotel being built next door to their home.

Airbnb hasn't even found a loophole in the laws, they are scofflaws pure and simple. When the two original guys came up with their idea to provide an airbed in their home for people who couldn't otherwise find a room in their hometown (San Francisco) during a major event, all they were doing was offering a makeshift and cheap B&B for a short period of time.

When you now have a company that has grown and been taken over by the bean counters and lawyers who no longer are about a temporary airbed on a floor but about people who own or rent multiple properties with the single purpose of renting them out by the night 365 nights per year, you have a whole different animal.

The consumer/traveller who is unaware of what has happened, has an excuse for not realizing what they are supporting when they choose to rent from such a company. But anyone who has now read this comment has no such excuse any more.

On another forum where the Airbnb issue came up on a thread, an apartment owner in Paris wrote about how it was affecting the quality of his life in a building where he has lived for years. He made it abundantly clear that he and his neighbours did not want people coming and going in what is their home. None of them had chosen to live in a hotel and that was in effect what their home had been turned into thanks to AirBnB. He asked people to stop renting from them.

The response when you stripped out all the excuses people tried to come up with was quite simple. 'I don't care about you, I only care about me.' the Golden Rule is something they think works only one way.

cbn42

Just about any website that accepts user content has illegal activity taking place. There is plenty of illegal activity on Youtube, Facebook, Craigslist, and likely Flyertalk as well. These sites are forums, they are not responsible for everything that is posted to them. Courts in many countries have ruled on this.

I don't see why AirBnB guests would come and go more often than anyone else. They are likely to leave in the morning and come back at night, like most people do. Sure, it's possible that some guests might be loud and cause problems for neighbors, but anyone could potentially do that, whether traveling or not. If guests are violating local ordinances, neighbors can take the appropriate action.

Last I checked, no one who lives in an apartment has the right to restrict who lives in other units. This reminds me a lot of the "we never chose to have black people in our building" argument that was made in the US in the 1960s.

If the AirBnB guests are being disruptive in any way (noise, alcohol, general rowdiness), then the neighbors can call the police. Otherwise, it doesn't affect them in any way and they need to mind their own business.

B&B's have been around for years, if not centuries. Reservation services to connect guests to hosts have been around just as long. AirBnB simply moves the reservation service online, just like so many other things that we used to do offline but for which we now use the internet.

EmailKid

Yup, had to move out of a rented duplex when new neighbors moved next door.

Calling landlord or the police didn't help - I'm guessing police just got tired of coming out

flipstah

QFT. ^

dulciusexasperis

Like I said, the same excuses come up every time the issues are raised. Your comments are simplistic in the extrem cbn42.

1. That illegal activity takes place on other sites means what? Does it mean those other sites KNOWINGLY ALLOW it to continue? Or do they remove inappropriate content just as this forum (Fodors) does? AirBnB, knowingly allow listings to continue even when notified that the listings are for an illegal rental. They don't make money by removing ilegal rentals from their site cdn42.

You are right that they are not legally responsible for whether someone lists an illegal rental on their site or not. But whatever happened to MORAL responsibility? Or do you not think having morals matters? AirBnB is not a 'thing', it is a group of people. Individuals, each and every one of whom should know right from wrong.

They could easily ask the lister to provide proof their proposed property is a legally rentable. In Paris, all legal rentals have a 'property number' and in fact the Paris authorities have started asking the landlords to list that number in all advertising including online, that they do. Why can't AirBnB ask for the same thing when accepting a listing for Paris?

2. Have you ever stayed in a hotel? People on vacation do not act in the same way as they might at home. You might have say 10 people move into your building to live, per year without AirBnB listings. Try 10 a week and then talk about "If guests are violating local ordinances, neighbors can take the appropriate action." Do you really think neighbours should have to call the police etc. on a regular basis to deal with problem unwelcome 'guests'?

Are you OK with 100s or more of strangers being given a key to the entry door of your building every year? Would you feel secure and not worried about your kid's safety?

3. " Last I checked, no one who lives in an apartment has the right to restrict who lives in other units." No one is trying to restrict who LIVES in other units. If someone is living in the unit and becomes a problem then it can be dealt with if necessary. But as I have just said above, you can't do that repeatedly without it affecting YOUR life.

Do not try to talk about 'restricting who lives in other units' as if it were applicable to a hotel rental which AirBnB is in fact. There is a big difference.

In most places, B&B's are not an issue. Nor are those listings on AirBnB which are actually B&Bs. But with a B&B, the owner LIVES on the property and therefore can control what their guests do and don't do. However, we are NOT talking about B&B listings here.

A great many listing on AirBnB today are by absentee owners. Some, not even living in the same country! A Parisian told me of an apartment rented by the year by an American who has it listed on Airbnb by the night. Does that sound like a B&B to you or simply a way to make MONEY.

AirBnB added a new service to their lineup for 'hosts' (what does host mean to you). That is a full service cleaning service. The 'host' doesn't have to come and clean the place, change the sheets, check the dishes have been washed and put way, etc. They can simply pay AirBnB who will provide that service for them. What does that tell you cdn42? That they are encouraging B&Bs? Their name has no relationship to the business they are now in in many cases.

When someone is renting by the year or owns, multiple properties with the sole purpose of renting them out by the night, what do you call that person? What business would you say they are in? Those are the exploiters who are the problem, not someone who rents out a room occasionally or has a large house with a B&B sign outside and tries to rent rooms out all the time.

When 4 out of 16 apartments in a small building in Paris or New York or wherever are being rented out nightly through AirBnB, you need to think about how YOU would feel if you lived in that building.

My bet cdn42, is that you do not live in an apartment with several AirBnB rentals. As a concept it started out fine but like many things, there have been unintended consequences. AirBnB is aware of those unintended consequences but choose to ignore them. They ignore them for one simple reason. Money. I suspect you want to ignore them for the same reason. Whether as someone who rents out a place through AirBnB or as a consumer who likes being able to rent an apartment in Paris and couldn't care less what the neighbours think.

This thread is listed under 'Budget Travel' and THAT is what this issue is all about, MONEY.

heraclitus

Would I like living in a building next to an Airbnb suite? To be honest, it wouldn't be my preference. And maybe the phenomenon is getting out of hand.

But that said, I am glad that this has come to exist. I am grateful for a service that can disrupt the economics of the hotel business in a way that benefits the traveller. It is fantastic to have an affordable alternative to constantly upward-creeping room rates, not to mention access to neighbourhoods that don't have many hotels in them.

Especially in pricy global cities, Airbnb is a game changer... earlier this year in Paris, I stayed at a beautiful 1 bedroom apartment in an amazing, ultra hip neighbourhood for under US$200 a night. A broadly equivalent room in a hotel would have cost at least 3x that much. I know the hotels don't like it and maybe the neighbours aren't fond of it, but what am I supposed to do... pass up deals like that?

cbn42

AirBnB removed several illegal NYC rentals from their sites recently after the AG asked them to. It was reported in the news.

Yes, I have stayed in plenty of hotels. I have occasionally come across problematic guests, but the same thing can happen in an apartment building when my neighbors have overnight house guests. This is not unique to AirBnB in any way. And yes, calling the police is the proper way of addressing violations of local ordinances.

If that is a problem, it should be addressed by whoever is in charge of the keys, either the property management or homeowners' association. If someone is giving out keys in violation of the rules, the management can penalize them. If there are no rules, residents are free to propose them. Again, none of this is related to AirBnB.

Why is there a difference? Even without AirBnB, anyone is free to have guests over, have guests stay overnight, have guests stay when they are out of town, sublet their apartment for a long term, sublet their apartment for a short term, and so on. AirBnB might simplify the process, but it doesn't enable anyone to do anything they couldn't do before.

I live in a busy apartment building with no outside access control. I often see people who don't live here. They may be visiting someone for the day or they may be staying overnight. If anyone becomes disruptive, I take it up with (1) them, (2) the manager, and (3) the police, in that order. Whether they are residents, visitors, residents' family members or paying guests is irrelevant.

Of course it is. Most businesses are about money.

I think the bottom line is that technology advances faster than government. When the internet first came out, governments had no idea how to deal with it. They had to figure out how to prevent copyright violations, how to protect minors from exploitation, how to tax online shopping, and so on. It took several years for them to get it all sorted. The same thing will likely happen here. As AirBnB matures and its impact becomes more clear, governments around the world will figure out how to balance the needs of the company's customers with the needs of the community. San Francisco recently passed a law that is intended to do this. Uber and Lyft are going through a similar phase right now.

dulciusexasperis

People can self-rationalize anything. Peole can also use 'situational ethics' incorrectly to say that it is ok to make an ethically wrong decision on a case by case basis by using flexible guidelines that selfishly suit them personally.

Heraclitus, to ask, "but what am I supposed to do... pass up deals like that?", as a serious question surely doesn't need an answer. If you know something is illegal and that it is causing problems for people and that the site you are using knows it is causing problems but refuses to vet the 'hosts', then ethically, it is your responsibility to insure that what you rent is a legal rental.

Tell me under what circumstances you think it is OK to do something that is illegal and affects other people adversely?

Cdn42, you are well down the road of self-rationalizing your actions. When someone doesn't know what they are doing may be affecting others adversely and is illegal, they have some excuse. When someone KNOWS what they are doing is illegal and then continue to contribute to the continuance of a problem that is affecting others adversely, there is NO excuse for their behaviour.