- Airbnb stock tumbled 14% in one day after the company predicted slowing demand.
- Some former Airbnb diehards say they now prefer the consistency of hotels.
- Airbnb said it might increase travelers’ ability to book hotel rooms through Airbnb.
I stopped looking at ABnB a few years ago. It stopped making financial and quality of life sense. The costs became nearly equal or greater than that of hotels I cross shopped.
The hassle though is what really killed it. The inconvenience of dealing with a host that was not on-site and often not available to deal with issues plus the long list of chores required and the potential penalties of not following them perfectly just made it not worth doing.
The chores are what killed it for me. I’m supposed to pay a cleaning fee and do the cleaning myself? Fuck that noise.
it costs more and offers less than hotels, landlord motherfuckers are asking me to do their chores for them plus pay for electricity and tip them for cleaning their own house i am paying for, to share with four other people?
take out your own fucking trash.
and the service fee for using autbnb directly is almost up to 15%.
no goddam way.
this message brought to you because of the assholes who sent me “so you know” messages about trash days and cleaning products.
The main Airbnb value proposition was trading some of the conveniences you get at a hotel for a significantly cheaper room.
When they are roughly the same price as staying in a hotel, why would you choose it?
The only time I’ve ever used an Airbnb was when I wanted a location that did not have a good hotel option. Which has been cabins in the woods, and beach front property. Outside of that, I would rather have the convenience of a hotel.
Sounds great.
Allow Airbnb to return to it’s roots:
Small time short term rentals used when the owner is away. And for remote locations where no hotel exists.
Yeah, it was great to stay and a million dollar house on the top of a mountain next to a state park for a weekend. But I choose a hotel when I’m just going to a city for something.
I want to slightly hijack your comment to say how innovative lots of these services were when they showed up and how they all ultimately managed to become a corporate machine crapping on both customers and intermediaries.
I mean that, when they arrived, Uber, AirBnB, Glovo/Deliveroo/Just Eat/DoorDash all brought something new and potentially useful and parallel to existing structures (involving regular people on the ground which, theoretically, can make an extra buck), but then… They all went down the toilet (I suppose since they were all losing money at the beginning to establish themselves, they had to find some way to make money, but they all irreparably chose enshittifcation)
I’ve stayed at my share of Airbnbs booked by others, but never really enjoyed the feeling of sleeping in some strangers house. Also, disliked the impact of airbnbs on local housing markets. The idea of replacing long term housing with short term housing is completely stupid from a public policy perspective and a great way to ruin a city.
Additionally, I like being a customer, and anonymous. I don’t want to be rated by the host. I don’t want to be judged on whether I put my own towels in the washing machine before I checked out. If I’m paying, that shouldn’t be my damn job.
Also, airbnbs are random. Some are good, some are awful. Some hosts are fine, some are a bit too much. Hotels do vary, but on the whole, the experience is much more consistent.
For me, it’s almost always the cheapest/most convenient way to stay somewhere with a kitchen. And it may be an okay kitchen but almost always better than a hotel’s. That’s the part I find the hardest to replicate outside of Airbnb.
Short stay apartments are a thing, but you’ll typically only find them in big cities.
To chime in on your anonymous comment, racism is a huge issue for AirBnB too. None of my brown friends are able to book one without the help of a white friend/partner, because of their names and the lack of AirBnB history.
Exactly, I lost all taste for Airbnb when we were staying for 2 nights, and every 4 hours the owner was balsting me with text messages telling me I needed to rate them 5 stars because if I didn’t they wouldn’t rate me 5 stars…but I had to take out my own trash, put all towels and linens in the washer, and make sure to tidy up before I left or else I’d incur their “clean up fee”. Fuck that shit, I’m not paying you a shitton of money to clean up after myself. Especially when half the bathrooms have black mold and rotten water damaged wood around the showers, and you have to be extra mindful because this was a time when hidden cameras were common.
Cleaning fees are just overhead on staying now. But if you don’t tidy your rating will take a hit.
It’s a scam coming and going. But it’s often cheaper and with more selection on location. The last two, I think, are really what keeps them around.
Ability to zero in on location is definitely the thing that keeps me on the platform. I can’t say its always cheaper, it maybe in some cases but its often equal or higher than a budget hotel in my experience. The fact that I can get a unit with a kitchen and within walking distance of a few of my planned vacation activities is the reason I check it out.
AirBnB is great for large groups, when all the hidden fees and cleaning duties can be split up between a dozen people. It actually works out to cheaper than a hotel, and it’s much more intimate to be together in one place with big private common areas. Plus, those big 6+ bedroom AirBnBs aren’t exactly hurting homebuyers by being off-market.
But for just a few people? Hotels all the way.
It’s as if people don’t want to pay to be personal maids of hosts.
A decade ago I loved Airbnb. Fly to a major city, get to stay in someone’s condor or home for half the price of a hotel. Left your bowl out on the counter? No problem. Didn’t take out the trash? Why would you, the host does that. Didn’t make your bed and rearrange the pillows on the couch back to how they were before you arrived? That’s cool. Now you are looking at staying in a suburb of Austin for 2x the price of a hotel plus, you need to spend hours when you are trying to leave, cleaning up and you are going to be charged $300 anyway for a “cleaning fee” even though none of the linens smelled fresh when you arrived. The only reason I’ve used Airbnb in the past couple of years is because A) there was literally no other option for where we were vacationing or B) Our dog is traveling with us and we couldn’t find a hotel that will accommodate her.
The whole point of AirBnB was that they were cheaper than hotels, but you had to clean yourself.
Now it’s just as much as hotels with shittier service.
AirBnB is a great idea that turned to shit because of greed.
Someone wants a platform to rent out…
- Their cottage when they’re not using it or lending it to family or friends
- Their home while they’re away on vacation
- A room in their home to run as a Bed-N-Breakfast
Great. Marvelous, even.
But then people realized that they could make more money from a property by AirBnBing it out rather than renting it out. So people start kicking out tenants and buying up properties to turn housing into AirBnBs, and often in areas that were already experiencing cost-of-living issues for locals.
From there, I’m guessing that AirBnB started trying to take a bigger slice of the pie, and “Hosts” started passing on the costs to “Guests”. At the same time, “Hosts” wanted more money with less work, so “Guests” started getting cleaning lists so the “Hosts” wouldn’t have to pay cleaners – just someone to come by and make sure everything was done, and call a cleaner if it wasn’t (and charge the “Guest” for it).
Enshittification hit AirBnB hard…and in turn, living within driving distance of anywhere tourists would want to be also got enshittified.
Never stayed in one and I never plan to.
TBF, almost all of this applies to VRBO too.
I’ve never used it, but I’ve been told VRBO is just a more expensive AirBnB. Does that hold up in your experience?
My experience is that VRBO is supposed to be more scrutinized than Air B&B and you always get the whole property.
Lately they are demanding a $500 cleaning fee and also demanding that you do the laundry, take out the trash, and do the dishes.
Airbnb is expensive. It also is often awkward, I always seem to get places where the owner wants to give me a tour of the place when I show up. Checkout time is always a massive stress, trying to figure out where the outside bin is, how to start the dishwasher, and remembering to return all the furniture to it’s original position, lest we break a rule and lose our deposit. You don’t get mini bars or room service or daily housekeeping, and you have no idea if the host is secretly keeping tabs on you somehow. It’s just so much more work to stay at an Airbnb than a hotel, with none of the cost benefits as a trade off.
The other week we stayed at a Hilton and I checked in and out without speaking to a soul (via the app). It’s a no brainer at this point.
After having my honeymoon practically ruined by an owner’s insane rules (posted EVERYWHERE throughout the place), I’ve vowed to never use an Airbnb again. Plus the junk fees are fucking insane.
Give me a proper hotel with proper service any day of the week.
Oh yeah, the condescending “please unplug me when done!” signs near the toaster… or trying to use the hot tub and having to read pages of stuff just to get in some warm water. We stayed at one once that made us add conditioning tablets to the hot tub at a certain time each day. Nah, this is your house, you fucking take care of it, I just want to use it.
The new requirements to be verified, even with over a decade of perfect review is astonishingly dump. I just stopped using it.
The first sentence still makes sense with the typo in place.
It’s funny - I’m often in charge of booking the stay for large family get togethers and trips, and I exclusively used AirBnb. However, after using their service for 6+ years, they ended up canceling a reservation I had had for months THE NIGHT BEFORE OUR TRIP. I didn’t even realize they had canceled on me til our plane had landed.
Turns out, they suddenly had a problem with a misdemeanor I had been charged with 8 years prior when I was 20 (minor possession of marijuana). They disabled my account and said I couldn’t rent through them anymore because of my criminal history. I reached out to them and offered an explanation, as well as reminding them that this was an old conviction of a minor drug possession. I don’t have a criminal record beyond that, and had been an avid customer of theirs for many years with raving reviews. They still denied me, and I’m still banned to this day. So yeah, they can go fuck themselves.
How is AirBnB able to access your criminal history?
It was apparently in the ToS that they hold the right to run background checks on hosts and renters alike, when they choose to. Granted, it’s not an in-depth check, but any criminal records that are accessible to the public are accessible to them.
my best stays have been apartments… my worst stays have been in apartments.
you kinda dont know wtf you are going to get, especially on airbnb where the reviews are bs folksiness “the host is amazing, thank you so much” garbage. reviews on booking.com are much more reliable and brutally honest.
hotels maybe meh, but they are far more reliable and you have a better idea of what you are getting. a “serviced apartment” is ideal, but often $$$.
i very much understand that airbnb’s sterilise communities and drive up rents. taxing the fuck out of them would remove a lot of the slum lord garbage from the market but keep the option there for ppl really want that.
Also generally with hotels, especially chains, you can actually talk to people to get issues sorted or at least get refunds etc a bell of a lot easier than just chatting with someone overseas through an app.
