I travel a lot and have stayed at 50+ airbnb places all around the world -- but the biggest problem is that the reviews are always so artificial you honestly have zero idea of what you're getting into.
Worst of all is the amenities, which are more often incorrect than not. I generally filter for places with washer + drier, as I'd rather not be looking for laundromats. Probably over 80% of listings that say they have a washer and drier do not. Most of the time the "drier" is a drying rack or a hair drier. Other times the host explains that I can visit his house or a laundromat, so that counts. Or the last place there was a shared washing machine between 30+ places.
And because you can't leave anonymous tips, I just add the problem by leaving positive reviews even when I'm unhappy with the place. Currently my airbnb profile shows me an an exceptional guest (I have nothing but positive reviews for me, and have given nothing but positive reviews) so have never had a problem getting any place I want. I don't really want to pollute my profile with candid feedback.
When I'm staying somewhere for 1 or 2 nights, I tend to just get a hotel. There's too much friction and problems in airbnb for it to be worth it.
> but the biggest problem is that the reviews are always so artificial you honestly have zero idea of what you're getting into.
> I just add the problem by leaving positive reviews even when I'm unhappy with the place
So stop actively making the problem worse. Retaliatory reviews aren't a thing, because the host can't see your review until after they post theirs, and the only outcome from a potential host tracking down all of your past hosts' listings, digging through possibly dozens or hundreds of reviews to find yours, and finding out that you said that the listing wasn't as described is that you'll get suckered by fewer accommodations that aren't as described. There's no good reason to post a falsely positive review of a bad listing.
> Future hosts will see your reviews and refuse to host.
People keep saying this like it's a universal truth, but it's not actually true for any host worth renting from, and I say it as an honest reviewer who has spent years not being in the same city for more than a few weeks at a time and never has trouble getting a place. How? Because I leave honest feedback _and_ I'm an excellent guest.
You're basically saying that you think it's a good idea to get scammed so that you don't miss the next opportunity to be scammed. It's insane. There are so many good hosts out there. You don't need to be afraid of the bad ones.
My biggest issue is hating all the weird host rules. I don't want to tip toe around and abide by your curfew when I'm on vacation. I also don't want to pay an outrageous $250 cleaning fee. At least with a hotel I know what I am getting and don't get any surprises.
Obviously you need to be able to compare fees, but I don’t see the issue with a large cleaning fee if that is what it costs. One friend has an Airbnb in a ski village and he pays the building cleaners $150 to clean his rather small unit because that’s what the resort mandates unless he gets an outside cleaner. Most people won’t want to pay that cleaning fee for a night or two but for a longer trip it doesn’t change the overall cost by much. It would be difficult for him to manage a third party cleaner so he uses the building cleaners and passes the cost on. Sometimes it works for people and sometimes it doesn’t.
I actually prefer this to bundling a cleaning fee into the nightly price. I don’t want the place cleaned every day and it would make Airbnbs unaffordable for longer stays to do so.
On EBay they would just lie and call it all shipping so they didn’t have to pay fees on the “shipping”. With Airbnb, hosts should actually prefer higher nightly prices as they’ll get those prices for every night of the reservation and not just once like on eBay. The comparison to eBay would be paying separate shipping costs when buying several of the same item when they could all fit in one envelope.
I’m sure there are many situations where there are high cleaning fees.
I have my entire house deep cleaned for $200 for 3 people over two hours. There’s no way that takes place for a two bedroom condo.
My last rental charged $140 and we talked to the owner who said she comes and changes the sheets, sweeps up and washes the dishes. The owner of the cabin.
I pay my turnover crew a living wage and it's $350. It's a 6 bedroom and takes nearly all day to do it right. Laundry is a big part of the fees. If it's bigger than an apt and you aren't paying much for cleaning they probably aren't doing it right. And you're likely sleeping in uncleaned sheets.
I don't think most hosts are gaming it to make money, it's just expensive in relation to the nightly. Usually when I explain the costs the guests understand.
Many see the actual cleaning fee, think it's ridiculous even though it's not and then decide to trash the place because they think they paid to do so. And then that causes you to have to go higher to cover the average turnover.
Yes sometimes the owner does it and they are free to value their time as they see fit. If it’s too much I simply won’t stay there especially for a short trip. I would be pissed if it wasn’t clean though.
If I had to do your dishes, I definitely wouldn’t charge a small cleaning fee either :)
The only thing wrong with the cleaning fee is the name. As as host i prefer longer stays rather than having to exchange keys every day because that's what cost me time/money. It's not like i need $200 to clean but i might have to take half day of work, drive a long distance, wait for delayed guests etc. Much easier to just deal with long staying guests.
"I don't really want to pollute my profile with candid feedback."
This is how I feel about most things. A lot of times I give everyone 5 stars (things on fiverr, reviews for customer support, airBnB reviews, etc) even if the service is mediocre, partially because I don't want to deal with the potential problems of giving poor reviews.
Potential problems include being unable to get files after a project (fiverr → giving someone a bad review), staying at a previous airBnB (giving them anything less than 5 stars), potential harassment (giving anything in general a low review), someone getting fired for anything less than 5 stars (Customer support), potential tampered food (not tipping even if poor service or leaving a bad yelp/google review).
Its kind of silly that the public standard (for 5 star reviews) is 3 stars is bad, 4 stars is ok, and 5 stars is good in general. 1 star is just biased, 2 stars are worse than 1 stars in my opinion just because it shows you put enough consideration to give them a 2.
This applies to reviews on airBnB, uber, amazon, ebay, etc.
Some sites practically force / really encourage you to leave a review (e.g. spam you with email reminders until you do, have seriously annoying UI that won't go away until you review). Apps will constantly ask you to review it, but this can be circumvented by clicking the link and ignoring it.
But if a review can be tied back to your account (e.g. the review is not private, rather public) this could hurt you long term. A good example of this is airBnB. If you have written less than stellar reviews to some hosts, some superhosts (those that require initial contact, e.g. not the ones with lightning bolts) might potentially ignore you because you are a liability of poor reviews.
This ends up limiting the overall options you have with airBnB when you need to stay at a city. Not only that, some hosts would rather see you left a good review if you only used airBnB a few times.
Another example is writing an honest review about your employer, whether its on reddit, glassdoor etc, and that review happens to be bad. If these things end up being traced back to you publically, you might be burning bridges / not having recommendations down the road.
It is selfish that I write good reviews because it gives me less problems down the road, thereby making ratings not as honest for everyone else. At the same time it can be incredibly selfish writing a poor honest review, because not everyone rates things equally (what is average rating, is it 3 or 4 stars?). What if that was a first time airBnB host with no ratings (having a poor first review is like a death sentence)? What if your stay as poor and it wasn't entirely their fault (e.g. outside noise was bad, washer broke, your sleep was awful, cockroach infestation next door, etc).
My point is, sometimes you need to write a review, and its hard to define what an honest rating is, and how detrimental it can be to you and the other party, especially if its on a personal level. I prefer to leave the honest part on just the text portion of the review, not on the 3 out of 5 stars part.
Sometimes people just need a helping hand and a good review goes a long way even if the service was mediocre. As long as they showed good faith and did their best I give them a 5. I know how hard it is to run a business from personal experience, and I know what its like to be on the consumer getting shafted at the end. I try to be as fair as possible
I figure I'm reviewing the experience, not just the product. Amazon reviewers love it when I give their product one or two stars for an otherwise great product, and leave a review that says, "Product was fine, but vendor spams for reviews."
Because people are willing to externalize costs for short term personal benefit at the expense of making everything worse for everyone. The rationale in the moment goes something like "I've already stayed there, so leaving an honest review won't help me." And they just don't think about the logical consequences of that kind of behavior.
I don’t leave reviews or rate customer service or take corporate surveys. If some wildly profitable company wants my help with thier employee evaluation process or as secret shopper they can compensate me for my time. I see no reason to volunteer for the likes of Amazon, AirBnB, or Verizon.
Hosts (or anyone) can look at your profile to see the reviews about you, but not the reviews you've written. They would have to know the places you've stayed and then search through those reviews to find yours. So I don't think you should be worried about leaving honest reviews.
I think the worry is retaliatory reviews. I've been in a situation where if I left my host an honest review, I expected to get a nasty review in return.
It's honestly a problem with all of these bi-directional rating systems. As long as they make it at all possible for the ratings to leak before both parties have rated, there's a strong disincentive for any party to leave an honest rating.
Airbnb switched to a "double blind" review system several years go, so you only see the other person's review after you've written your own. If you don't leave a review within two weeks, the other review becomes public and you no longer have the option to leave a review. I did a search to see if there was any press about this, couldn't find much but there's a bit about it here: https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/building-for-trust-503... "The result was a 7% increase in review rates and a 2% increase in negative reviews."
My reason for not writing a negative review is because before staying at their place we exchanged phone numbers and other things, and now I don't feel comfortable writing a negative review and possibly having a confrontation. YMMV but I avoid writing negative reviews despite the 'double blind' review system.
Always contact them through AirBnB. You should be treating it just like contacting random strangers for sex on Craigslist, potentially dangerous. There's no reason to give a random stranger your personal contact details.
TBH I haven't used AirBNB in a long time (too many small hassles + one big bad experience), so it's hard for me to say at this point.
I do know that similar systems (Uber, at least) have had issues with leaky reviews leading to retaliation. It's hard to implement a system like that, especially when your users have safety, money, and comfort on the line.
As a guest, though, if a host is actively weeding out people because they speak out about being scammed by shitty not-as-described slumlord empty-ikea-box listings, then I probably don't want to give that host money anyway.
I totally agree. To clarify I'm a very active guest as well, so I'm well aware of mis-represented listings. I simply use this as another data point when evaluating a guest.
I don't need to know, because I automatically benefit from not having my trip ruined by staying there.
A lot of people don't seem to get that you can be honest about a booking without sounding like a complete asshole (despite how much I like to complain on HN, I promise that I don't write reviews the same way ^^).
You can say a lot of honest things like "if you expect to cook, be aware that you'll need to provide your own X/Y/Z" or "The wifi didn't work for me" or "I found the bed to be uncomfortably soft" or "It's obvious that nobody has ever lived here because so many basic things are lacking". And if any host would choose to deny you based on those, then I wouldn't want to give them money.
Possible reasons for a host to deny a booking:
1) The apartment is actually unavailable. It happens sometimes. I'm not going to cry about it.
2) The host is scared that I'm going to call them out for lying in their listing. If the listing is a lie, then I don't want to stay there. If the listing isn't a lie, then a good host won't be scared by honest reviews about misleading listings.
3) The host doesn't like my face. It's unlikely but possible. Again, I don't want to give money to a person who makes judgements like that.
I've never had any difficulty finding places while staying honest. Honesty doesn't reduce the number of good hosts available. Dishonesty does increase the number of bad hosts available. I do sometimes suffer because other people were dishonest in their reviews, and it upsets me.
Does a host (where you've stayed) get to see your review of their place before they post their review of you? If so, I think the fear would be a traveler leaving a negative review, the host seeing it, and then leaving a negative review of the traveler in retaliation.
Airbnb employee here: both parties have to leave a review before you can both see the review posted to prevent retaliatory reviews. Also, you can leave public feedback, private feedback, and feedback to Airbnb if you have specific issues with the guest/host that you want us to address.
> My reason for not writing a negative review is because before staying at their place we exchanged phone numbers and other things, and now I don't feel comfortable writing a negative review and possibly having a confrontation. YMMV but I avoid writing negative reviews despite the 'double blind' review system.
Despite the double blind system, AirBnb's review system still requires you to have a certain personality. It is still quite adversarial.
Take for instance we stayed at a place recently, where we were quite upset at the ameneties of the place (and we were very certain to give them negative reviews), but during the last day, the host made a huge favor to us by keeping our luggage with them. This meant a lot for us, so we can't really leave negative reviews, however, this does not fix the problem with Host's place.
I would suggest some sort of constructive feedback system, based on different metrics, separate from the textual comment system.
Like something which allows me to say:
Amenities: 3/5 What can be improved: Stack up the toilet paper, fix the broken shower handle (Uber style feedback from multiple choice)
Cleanliness: 2/5 What can be improved: Toilet wasn't clean enough
Hostmanship: 4/5 What can be improved: Communication
Ok, that's completely different. If you don't feel physically safe about leaving a bad review, then you absolutely did the right thing. (Ignoring for a moment that it's pretty bad that you ended up in that position.)
The rest of what you're describing is definitely tricky. The host made you guys whole by offering an extra, unexpected benefit that was worth a great deal to you. I think you're absolutely justified in giving them points for that; it's maybe even a tacit admission that they might have known they let you down on amenities and offered to go above and beyond in a different dimension to make up for it.
However (assuming for a minute that you weren't worried about a confrontation), wouldn't it make sense to just give a high star rating that reflected your overall experience (sure, you might dock a star for the missing amenities, but then add it back for helping you out with luggage storage at the end), and then in the free-form text, describe both those negatives, and the positives as well? The host would hopefully be able to take the criticism constructively as intended, and future potential guests would also note that the host can be incredibly accommodating in the face of extraordinary needs.
Thanks for the clarification. In this case, I don't see why anyone would ever hesitate to leave a negative review or feedback if they've had a bad time. The parent who claimed he always leaves a positive review regardless of the experience is just admitting to being part of the problem.
I think review inflation is a problem in general across any service where there might be a more human/personal interaction element where you might feel compelled to be nicer or more generous. It's very different than buying a product from a retailer or rating a product from a company you've never had a direct personal interaction with. I think for most of us, it's in our human nature to be more generous unless there's an egregious violation of standards/quality.
I think it depends on what the bad experience has cost you, and about the dynamics about the particular platform/system.
If I have a bad Lyft ride, I usually won't rate any lower than 4 stars, because of exactly what you're talking about, and because I know that an average rating of below something in the mid-4s can get a driver "fired". The ride may have been sub-par, but its purpose (getting me from A to B) has been fulfilled, and that's that. It's also probably on the order of single- or low-double-digit dollars, so I didn't spend too much on the bad experience. And again, the actual purpose of spending that money has been fulfilled. (Now, if a driver is actually driving unsafely, they get 1 star, plus an email to Lyft customer service, no matter what.)
If I've planned a vacation, however, and the Airbnb ended up being a bad experience, I'm absolutely going to write a bad review. I've likely spent a decent chunk of change on it, and I'm specifically spending that money (plus the money spent for transportation to get to this place) to have a good time. If the accommodations aren't as promised, and it impacts my ability to have a good time, then I'll leave an honest negative review because I haven't gotten the value I expected for that money.
I rented a place in Tahoe for New Years this year that ended up having some significant negatives. My friends and I still had a good time overall, but having to deal with the issues was frustrating and definitely detracted from our fun. It wasn't through Airbnb, so I left a detailed negative review of the management company on Yelp. I didn't feel bad about this; the people from the company I interacted with were friendly and attempted to be helpful (but fell a bit short in execution), but the cleanliness and condition of the property was below what I expected, so... bad review.
No. You get something like 10 days to complete the review and the host does not see it and you don’t see their review until either the time period expires or you both leave reviews. After the time period expires you can no longer leave a review
You complain about the problem but then add to it yourself. Post honest reviews. Host can't see it until they already wrote your review. There's also star ratings. I write honest reviews and also have "profile that shows me as an exceptional guest".
And they are only doing this in the big cities where there is plenty of competition. When I've stayed at sketchy AirBnBs, it was not a surprise. The real problem is in the boonies where there might only be a couple places available in an area and there is a shortage of experienced hosts. I recently left a 3* review (only one 4* out of 24 stays) for a place 30 miles outside Cleveland. Place was a dump with an absent host who had me call the cable company to fix the WiFi and then gave me a runaround for weeks when I asked for a discount. Three butter knives in the silverware drawer, bedroom door that had no key so God help you if you locked it. But it had great reviews!
Anecdotally, having stayed at dozens of AirBnBs, a large percentage of listings are not people renting out their homes while briefly away. Many listings are from large-scale property owners who take several apartments off the rental market, put the least possible investment in them, and then list them on AirBnB, often using multiple host accounts to make it look like they aren't doing this, while living somewhere else.
Forget about drying racks. Many listings don't have a trash bin or toilet paper or soap or a knife suitable for chopping vegetables or a cutting board or pans that aren't half-rusted mangled garbage or blankets. Many listings are for private rooms but don't tell you that the "private" room is in a crumbling 10 bedroom house occupied entirely by other transient AirBnB guests and that there are no locks on any of the doors.
A lot of people don't do the distinction between a washing machine and a drying machine. I'd be surprised if the places you visit did not have a washing machine at all.
Yeah I think this may be partly an issue of what people are used to. In most countries the dryers are terrible anyway so everyone hangs their clothes to dry.
This is strange marketing as it almost sounds like the non-Plus listings aren't what people already expect to some degree from an airbnb.
> With Airbnb Plus, you can always check in effortlessly. Every home is equipped with a lockbox, keypad, or a host who is on-call to greet you.
This is so weird. How would you otherwise check in to a home if it doesn't have self check in or a host?
> When you book an Airbnb Plus home, you get the focused attention of our Airbnb Plus customer support team–a highly-trained team committed to great service and faster responses
Okay, so if there is no self check in and no host to greet me at a non Plus home, I'm stuck with a poorly trained unresponsive agent.
I realize that they want to differentiate the hotel-like quality airbnbs from the others, so they can give it a badge and therefore justify a higher price for it, but the delivery is odd, as other commenters have pointed out.
An alternative approach could be to describe such listings as "Guaranteed X, Y, Z". I think with that language it wouldn't undermine the quality of the non Plus listings as much.
Airbnb employee here: Re: the check-in and on-demand requirement, this means that there is 24 hour check-in available vs. a pre-set check-in time that you would have to coordinate closely with a host. This would mean that there's a keypad, lockbox with a key and/or a doorman or local key person who will bring the key on demand when requested.
I already do this and this is standard with the local airbnb hosts I know. I get that this obviously does not happen across the board but I can assure you anyone serious is already doing this. In some cases I even pickup guests.
Many Airbnbs I've stayed in will just have a key under a house plant or doormat. The key can be a little tricky to find that way but for a lower cost listing it's totally fine (by me).
I suspect that's the sort of practice they're trying to parse out for this Plus offering.
I've even stayed at one where they just didn't even offer a key and left the front door unlocked... Granted it was a house in the suburbs, but what about security from previous guests?
I've never understood that. I grew up in seemingly safe neighborhoods in suburban New Jersey and semi-rural Maryland, but leaving our door unlocked (even while we're at home) was unthinkable.
In our exceedingly rural area, doors are left unlocked very often. Not everyone, of course, and not all the time (most of the people I know do lock their doors at night or when they're on vacation, but otherwise leave them open). You're not crazy for doing it.
If someone wants to get in to steal something, they're going to get it done. That could mean a broken window, a broken door, or it could mean nothing broken at all. There's no-one within listening distance to hear a window break, so they're not going to get caught that way. But, your neighbors know your cars, and the sense of community commonly leads to a quick "hey there's a brown Buick outside your house, is that you guys?" call/text. There aren't very many "drive-by" robberies; houses are so far apart and all it takes is one person who sees a suspiciously slow driving car, or a car visiting multiple driveways, to call the police. Oh, and if you thought no one was home and you're wrong, there's a great chance they're armed, and they saw the car you used to get there. And the police are never busy, so they'll be there in minutes.
That seems a pretty common pattern for the semi-rural New England area I live in as well. I lock the house at night or if I'm headed out for an extended period but I don't really worry about it. If the house is all opened up on a summer day I'm not going to shut everything up if I'm going out for a bit and certainly not if I'm around my property somewhere.
During the time that you were home, but it was not immediately obvious from the outside - how many times have you had someone walk up to your door, and try the doorknob?
If the answer is never, then having your doors locked hasn't meaningfully increased your security (Only the perception thereof.)
I don't usually care about naming at all because it's typically irrelevant to the actual product. But "Plus" seems like surprisingly bad naming, especially for a company that has excelled at branding (I don't love the new logo). Uber's "Select" and, to a lesser extent, Lyft's "Premier" seem better.
Agreed and as an Airbnb host myself, slightly confused. To add to what you said, why book and pay a premium for an Airbnb+ when there are thousands of standard listings that already crush plus listings.
As it stands, I have hosted 273 stays and have 184 reviews with an average rating of 91% five star reviews between two rooms.
The number one comment I get from guests is that my place is far better then a hotel and far less expensive. Enter Airbnb Plus "hotel like quality" which from my perspective and my guests, Airbnb Plus would appear to rank lower than many standard Airbnb listings.
And this does not even take into account hosting element.
I feel the same way - I am not a host but have rented via AirBnB a few times and I think this differentiation does not seem fair to well-rated hosts who did not make it to "Plus" whatever the reason.
I understand AirBnb is under pressure to put up a product to counter Stay Alfred, Sonder and Parallel Travel, but this adds confusion.
I mean, it sounds fairly accurate. Checking in at my last AirBnB required texting the guy who rented it who had to drive out there to give me a key and it had to be between 5 and 7 pm. And don't get me started on tech "innovator" support...
Except that most standard listings are a step up on plus. Which just goes to show how bad they messed up here. In some ways it has an Apple feel to it, charge more for less.
This offering looks nice, but half the bullet items listed as benefits were things that I already thought were guaranteed by AirBnB... This seems like an excuse to lower their standards on non-Plus listings.
But then again, they don't seem to make any hard commitment as a result of said inspection, something like "everything is verified in person so if something is missing/wrong we book you in the nearest five star hotel for free", only a vague promise about a more trained customer support agent if something goes wrong. Does not seem very reassuring honestly.
A lot of people stay in hotels because there is a certain consistency even if they are more expensive and less nice usually. Airbnb Plus is a way to make sure Airbnb is as consistent as possible to compete. If you want the cheapest possible room, you can just get a normal Airbnb and not pay slightly more for someone to check that there is an extra toothbrush and a bottle of wine when you check in
I have no idea if this new tier will actually result in a consistent curated list of places to stay. However, to the degree it does, I would absolutely consider using it to a greater degree than Airbnb today.
AirBnb sells feelings of authenticity, but it comes across in an uncanny-valley sort of way. I did an AirBnB cooking class experience in the suburbs of Mexico City. It was really fun, I got to meet a few great people, and it was in a lovely house. But how genuine are the host's laughs at my jokes when I'm paying him for the class? It doesn't feel real.
Staying at an AirBnB is a less homogenous than staying at the Hilton. There's a bit more risk involved (not necessarily safety, but cleanliness, noise, etc). Hotels, on the plus side, are run like businesses and feel more impersonal. It's more honest than an AirBnB experience in a way.
More to the point, I'm surprised the company keeps improving their product like this. It's not Dropbox or Yelp, which don't feel too different after 10 years.
I semi-regularly stay at Bed & Breakfasts when I travel. I've never booked through Airbnb but I observe that a fair number now list there. I expect this also fuels the perception that Airbnb is more expensive than it used to be. B&Bs (in the small inn sense) aren't typically all that inexpensive.
It really depends what I'm looking for. With a lot of business travel in particular, I'm looking for a consistent experience with a 24 hour desk in a convenient location. For a weekend getaway I often look for something that's a bit more "local."
AirBnB has also made it pretty easy to use their service for business travel. If you're under cap, you could possibly upgrade to a better plane seat. Personally, I prefer a cheap hotel and a good plane ride. A lot of the old-school business travel services like fax machines and gyms I don't ever use anyway.
I haven't been able to opt out of amenities that apparently AirBnB considers essential for business trips. I'm a scientist - I don't wear a suit and I don't need a hairdryer. Sadly this limits my choices of places down too much, so after looking at it once I changed back to the normal view.
I have pretty good status on my regular airline so I typically book directly. With hotels, I often go for "serviced apartments" and long-term stay oriented suite hotels. I want a staffed desk but other than that I really don't use full-service hotel features all that much. And the alternatives are often at least a bit cheaper and can have larger rooms.
Airbnb is trying to make more money by offering experiences (events that generally seem very expensive to me) and moving to a more high-end branding. If I open the website I mostly see the more exclusive places first.
I think this opens opportunities at the bottom. A website that focusses on functionality and cheaper rooms. The public is now familiar with the concept. Some people do not want to pay above hotel prices to stay somewhere for the night only. They are looking for a simple, clean and cheap bed. I am one of those.
I used to rent out a room on Airbnb, it was a great experience. Both renting and staying I met cool people, as they were often keen to chat or hang out. And cheaper than a hotel, usually hostel prices. I never minded that staying in someone’s house would often mean a haphazardly tidied room with no available cupboard space.
Fast forwards a few years and I rent out a spare room to a friend at below market price, well below Airbnb price. I can’t be bothered with the standard that people now expect, I hate the attitude of Airbnb (ie use instant book or get fcked), and I find myself feeling guilty at contributing to the short supply in housing.
Nor have I stayed in an Airbnb for a couple of years, I’m back to hotels. It’s not cheaper (what are their fees even for?), and it’s usually a purposed Airbnb property, rather than someone’s home. It’s lost it’s magic.
The problem is that businesses initially built around genuinely amateur money-making on the side (Airbnb, eBay, Etsy, I'm sure many others) tend to attract professionals who often push many of the initial users out. And the higher volumes are more attractive for the businesses mediating the service so they don't have much incentive to really stop it.
It does open up the opportunity for new entrants to come in that are like "X but in the old days." Though it's now harder with a big incumbent and the cycle will probably repeat again if they're successful.
I'll agree with the previous post that renting a room or a flat on airbnb is a terrible experience. People really have crazy expectations and you need to be a professional hotel to handle it.
I'm a firm believer that most hosts will stop renting after a few guests. The turnover must be high, only covered by the new supply of hosts following the hype. It will dry up eventually and mostly professional hotels will remain.
I felt the same way about eBay back in the day. I quickly came to the conclusion that there were very few items I wanted to get rid of that were worth the hassle. The last time I had some camera equipment to get rid of I just sold it to Amazon. I'm sure I could have gotten more $$ through other channels but it was so hassle-free that it was worth it to me.
I actually have bad reasonably good experiences selling random stuff around the house on eBay. I also thought it had been overtaken by professional sellers, especially when bidding is basically no longer a thing on eBay anymore, but I set up 7 day auctions for a dozen items I wanted to get rid of (books, computer accessories, old games, etc) and all but one sold without much hassle.
I'm guessing the dollar amounts involved for the sorts of things you mention would be less than I could be bothered with. I pretty much decided that less than $50-$100 was about my floor where I would consider eBay.
If you're referring to the resort fee I've only ever heard that that's charged by hotels in the US and I think it's a scam.
I've never ever encountered mandatory fees for (often shitty) WiFi and a daily paper, which I don't want. Some hotels (usually at the upper scale) may charge for WiFi if I chose to use it, but won't just tack it to the bill if I don't.
Offering a low price to then switch to a higher price, which is not even visible when you book, but only when you're about to use the service and can't turn back without penalty is a bait and switch it's fraud; plain and simple.
I don't get why the law doesn't hammer down hard on such practices.
It’s not enough to have a slider, you also need to actively market to people looking for cheap places to stay in the first place, or they will never even think to use your precious slider.
This splits AirBnBs marketing on two fronts: high end and low end. This either doubles their marketing cost or halves their marketing budget for each audience. Take your pick.
A company focused on low cost listings only has to market to one audience, which results in significantly cheaper marketing cost, which means better profitability, which means longer staying power, which means eventually they own a large percentage of the low end market.
I don’t understand, how would AirBnB segmenting their marketing cause it to cost twice as much?
Imagine AirBnB and the low cost company both exist as you imagine. Now suppose AirBnB buys the low cost company and doesn’t change their marketing at all. Of course marketing ROI for each of the two segments doesn’t change. Compare this to the case where AirBnB operates in the two segments without buying low cost company. How are these cases different?
Furthermore, many of the major hotel chains have a bunch of brands, each of which caters to a particular demographic. Usually one or more of the brands cater to the price conscious and others are higher-end. If anything, there's an argument for AirBnB to have come up with more distinctive branding for a new product.
When a marketing budget that once served a uniform segment splits to serve multiple segments, you must either divide the budget amongst segments or increase the budget to support the previous standard of marketing activity for a segment.
Yes but, if you serve multiple segments vs. just one, you presumably can amortize your marketing dollars over more volume. (And if you're not increasing volume by going after more segments, those new segments obviously aren't working out for you.)
In this case the low end market becomes a drain on AirBnB because the ROI is not nearly as high as their high end market. However the ROI would be acceptable to a smaller player. Is it worth for AirBnB to dilute their brand at this critical juncture just to hold on to as wide a market as possible?
Yes, but they also did not use Marriott Plus for obvious reasons. Marriott can fully control their brand segmentation, Airbnb cannot. As it stands there are plenty of standard Airbnb listings hitting far above the Airbnb Plus segmentation. In the end you end up with a plus but not a plus and a higher nightly rate. And now I'm laughing.
There's always room for improvement. You could have said the same about craiglists -- what's the need of airbnb, craigslist/couchsurf.com etc. already exists.
I think grandparent post has a good point, I'm also one of the people looking for something cheaper, and most airbnb's are often out of my price range.
From my experience relying on the slider means you miss a lot of options. For example, some hosts have huge differences in pricing depending on the length of stay. I have found weird results where it's been cheaper to rent for a month than for 2 weeks at the same property.
My accommodation in Eastern European services apartments for this weekend is cheaper than the fees would be on Airbnb. The price slider cannot fix that.
I think transaction is important because it's explicit, and people are far likelier to respond. Couchsurfing is free, so the incentive is low, but the community is the most important part of it. I think combining community and transaction is a huge opportunity (I'm also biased :))
That is definitely an interesting perspective and I would agree there are a lot of people who just want the lower cost and clean bed for a night. However, is this move to add functionality really moving Airbnb out of the low cost market? You can still find very inexpensive options (as long as there are hosts) on the website. Airbnb, I would say, is just expanding their market pool not limiting it.
I would say there's very little motivation for hosts to have cheaper rooms. These services make a bad reviews so high cost to the host that everyone just tries to make it 5 stars.
That and in the in the bottom there's always normal long term house renting for very little effort.
I think hotel booking sites are already moving into that market. Agoda has listings for whole property rental that previously would've only been found on Airbnb.
They don't explicitly state this, but I really hope one of the things they guarantee with Plus is that the host isn't expecting you to cover up the fact that you're in an AirBNB.
I love the service overall, but I absolutely hate getting the morning-of-checkin email saying "Hey can't wait to host you, by the way, tell the receptionist you're my cousin and if any of the neighbors are in the hallway please just pace around the elevator until they leave." This seems to happen 90% of the time in New York places.
This happened to me in Toronto (my local coworkers said it was a common thing) and the doorman threatened to not let me in and to not return my bags that the airline temporarily lost and delivered there.
Exactly - in which case, I don't understand why AirBNB allows listings in those places, or at least warn you. It's a terrible user experience to find out you're an unwitting co-conspirator in someone else's crime.
Because they don't give a shit. They make money on the rental anyway and as long it doesn't threaten to wind up with terrible PR or cost them tangible money why would they care?
I used AirBnB twice in Japan and booked a couple experiences (which I thought were really expensive for what they were) and I always cringed at their email sig :
From AirBnb with Love
It's not about spreading love. It's about a pretty ruthless business. Externalities be damned.
I hope their check includes people listing "whole homes" as actually being an entire house and not just someones basement or granny flat. Also a room with an attached bathroom isn't an "apartment". Seen quite a few of those being listed as whole rooms too. I don't really get it, if they fool me do they expect me to be happy when I show up and find out Im basically sleeping like harry potter?
Because a lot of the amenities listed are actually in the main house. If Im renting a "whole home" I dont really want to be in the owners back yard, ya know?
Every startup can be summarized in one sentence or company can be summarized in one sentence. For instance, linkedin is facebook for business users. Uber is peer to peer ride sharing. News.Ycombinator is reddit for tech oriented users.
Ratings are always going to be biased to some extent. If companies can game any marketing in general, it will be done. Tags are also biased as well, not everyone has the same definition and need for what a "table" is. A dining table, a standing desk, a computer table? 30"x30" or larger? Round or square? Real estate / renting /airBnB is going to be always driven by short summarized text / tabular data (square footage, cost/square foot,location) and interior/exterior images so the potential tenant can make their own decision.
No the general rating isn't specific enough as you say. You may want a table, a hairdryer, working wifi, etc. which may not alter the overall rating much.
Reliable check-in
With Airbnb Plus, you can always check in effortlessly. Every home is equipped with a lockbox, keypad, or a host who is on-call to greet you.
Love the implication that the check in process for their regular listings is unreliable :^)
Otherwise, as others are pointing out, interesting to see where their priorities lie - certainly these high touch experiences are bringing them more money than people renting out a spare bedroom.
I do wonder how much of a pain this must all be for hosts - anyone who’s ever been in a slightly expensive place knows how entitled people spending money can get, and that must be a huge pain to deal with when it’s someone staying in your house making a fuss because you didn’t offer them organic orange juice in the morning. This happened to a friend of mine who hosted someone for a few nights, on regular Airbnb, with no promise of breakfast whatsoever in the first place. Again, people can get really entitled when they’re spending money. She stopped hosting as the result of that experience (they complained about more than the breakfast, but that’s one thing they were weirdly pushy about).
I’m just writing with respect to personal experience, but I would rather book a hotel even over an Airbnb Plus. The reasons? Rewards are harmonized, reliable rooms, cleaning, 24-hour person on site should there be a problem. With an Airbnb, I might get a few of the qualities listed above, but never all of them. And Airbnb pricing often is the same as comparable (if not better) hotels.
Airbnb employee here: That's a perfectly fine personal preference especially if those are the attributes you care about the most. There are tons of B&B's and boutique hotels that also satisfy those requirements that list on Airbnb. If you're looking for places with kitchens, a backyard, more interaction with a local host, larger space for a family gathering or a group event etc. then an Airbnb could do the trick. I personally also sometimes find that we have listings in places that hotels are not present in. For example, in San Francisco, all the hotels are pretty much concentrated either in downtown near the super commercial Union Square area or along Lombard St. in the Marina district. If you want to stay in the other 95% of the city, you're going to have very limited options.
I rented a place with Airbnb. A lot of the reviews said it's 13th floor with a gorgeous view. The actual place was on the 2nd floor. I called airbnb and the angry lady said that they are not responsible for the reviews and advised me not to trust them. She said I'll get no refund.
To me the homes, people and their experiences in the video feel artificial. Thus the whole video makes me strangely uncomfortable, even though I am probably in the target audience.
So they basically just used user feedback to sort their existing catalog into two catagories letting the upper one increase their prices.
Makes sense. You were able to find some killer deals with extremely nice places that where waay underpriced because the hosts were decent human beings. They'll likely get contacted by AirBnB with "You could join airBnB plus... and you can price it 40% higher than current with us only taking twice our usual cut" or similar
Makes sense - a subset that's had a bit more oversight from AirBnB, to filter out the ghost hotels and places with one fork, no coffee machine, and furniture that's all basic IKEA stuff.
I use Airbnb a lot. When the location is bad the reviews are often bullshit. People are afraid to leave a negative review. I would be willing to pay more to know the history of complaints that Airbnb receives directly through their support line. In the past I've discovered that Airbnb knew that there was a problem with a location but gave the owner another chance and did not follow up.
Thanks for posting something that actually makes sense today.
Win - additional revenue stream for Airbnb
Win - guests find quality hosting
Win - good hosts increase occupancy
How much of AirBnB's current valuation is predicated on the assumption that they'll eventually capture a hearty share of the business and high-end/luxury traveller segments (i.e., the high-margin profit drivers)?
I see moves like Plus as AirBnB trying to "professionalize" aspects of their product, but they'll never be able to provide the "guarantee (or recourse)" of an established hotel chain.
Outside of those who are cost-conscious, or those with unique accommodation needs (large groups, etc.), it's hard to imagine why any discerning traveller would opt for an AirBnB over a traditional hotel, all things being equal.
Way to level up! I actually think this combined with the new superhost incentives are a very well-considered, combination to elevate the overall quality of the platform overall.
The down side is: it seems like this may alienate new hosts by creating an (overwhelmingly) high bar for a listing. Not everyone is a semi-professional hotelier. How will that be balanced out?
Be careful not make would-be hosts feel too self-conscious to list their space. It's a fine line between building community and alienating it when curation bias turns into a core pillar of a company's identity.
I think discouraging new hosts by setting the bar (and company identity) so high is a net-negative for long-term community building. It makes total sense short-term, and it makes sense for an OTA like Booking. Long-term: it shoots the notion of home-sharing in the foot and without new hosts feeling welcome, a growing market can't sustain the demand.
Personally (I'm obviously biased lol), I'm obsessed with the notion that everyone is a host. Everyone would host someone, and it's a platforms job to help match those people to public listings, homes privately listed (networked via communities / friends), homes that have professional photos, homes that even have no photos (because if you're booking a friend's home, who cares). I'm not saying lower the standards, I'm saying change the frame; it's as a matching game threaded by community.
I usually check AirBnB but lately the best prices after fees are higher than mainstream hotel brands. To a certain extent this is controlled by property owners more than AirBnB itself, they've figured out they can charge more.
The result is that while I used to go to AirBnB for the discounts, it's now becoming a premium brand with a premium price.
It may be worth noting that I always opt for "whole place." It may be different if you're willing to get just a room.
Same, Always search for superhost, whole place, free onsite parking (rules out a lot of condo highrises), two bedrooms (Filters out basement apartments, granny flats, rooms being listed as whole houses).
Recently scored a whole house for ~60/day using this and you know what, it wasn't that bad.
The main part I like about this is Airbnb actually verifying things in properties. It's always annoying when a listing has tiny lies in it about wifi and other small things. I really want that Airbnb rewards program though
How much of a premium are you willing to pay for this verification? Secondly, it is going to be even more annoying when you expect it to be verified and your WIFI and small things are still missing or non-functional.
Wow. First I was confused and then on reading closer I can only say - what a load of bs. So, they take the same experience and re-package it to charge more money. And here I thought Uber's packaging on some of their ride categories was bs.
Honestly a little disappointed. Thought the „Plus“ would be more like an offering like Amazon Prime in the sense that you wouldn't have to pay these „AirBnB fees“ every single time you make a booking and instead pay a membership fee. (hate these fees displayed separately - why not display a single price to the customer - I don't care what it consists of - edit: and while we are at it, please get rid of these absurd „cleaning fees“ that get misused by dozens of hosts)
This seems like a smart and natural step for AirBnB.
Step 1) enable existing hosts who are great hosts to 'step up' to a prestige status which creates visibility and pushes more hosts towards wanting to get there too, thereby improving the overall quality on AirBnB.
Step 2) (I'm skipping a few steps) - eventually fill the void with AirBnB property/amenity management as a service for hosts.
Hosts who don't want to manage or deal with the pain of trying to get to Plus status will simply pay AirBnB for the cleaning, the linens, the supplies etc, no worries, no problems, and let AirBnB manage it all for you. Also gets more people wanting to host who are aloof to finding or trusting a manager they don't know.
It will take time but it's well worth it, even if it is only partially successful.
It's hard to get a predictable service quality from AirBnb hosts and locations, so the Plus program could be a step in the right direction.
Maybe, AirBnb should just become a platform on which a branded/franchised networks should appear that stick to certain standards. Verified by "Philton". Quality controlled by "Karriott".
Can't users already grep these type of homes by using price and rating filters? So the premium is based on a "verified" distinction due to an official inspection? I guess that's useful but it may make these kinds of gems harder to book (and more expensive) if they are easier to distinguish.
One would certainly expect that certification or other sorts of quality/service guarantees would allow properties to set higher prices relative to those that don't have them. There are reasons why many people (generally including myself) are more likely to buy used camera gear, for example, from reputable dealers rather than eBay even though the prices are usually higher.
Why do they never link to the listings when they advertise these beautiful homes? It's such a simple thing to do, I wonder if they purposefully leave the links out. I'm curious how much that LA home is to rent.
My one and only experience with AirBnB was horrible. I booked a place so I could take some family and friends on a nice little vacation. Fast forward to three days before check-in. The host messages me asking me to email them a copy of my photo ID. Obviously, I told them no. 1) You should never let anyone have a copy of your photo ID (identity theft). 2) You certainly shouldn't _email_ your ID. 3) Communication outside AirBnB is against their rules. 4) A copy of your photo ID is not required, again according to AirBnB's rules.
Anyway, I told the host it would be too dangerous to comply with their request and that I would be happy to _show_ the ID in-person at check-in. They ignored me and just re-iterated their request. At this point I was already ID verified by AirBnB, so there's really no reason for the host to personally verify me except at check-in. So I contact AirBnB support.
Well the host stonewalls me and support for the 3 days leading up to check-in. AirBnB support is friendly, but their messages are often confusing and contain broken english making them difficult to understand. Their helpfulness only extends as much as to say "yes, this is against our rules, but the host won't budge."
So I had to cancel the trip last minute and break the news to my family and friends who had already made plans around this vacation. Everything was ruined.
The best AirBnB offered was to give us extra "credit" to book someplace different. Oh, great. Let me just go book another AirBnB, who might _also_ break your rules, last minute. No thanks. I was too stressed by having to deal with all this garbage to work up the energy to try and book someplace last minute. The thought that I would have to cancel the trip and disappoint my friends and family who were so excited to go ... that ate away at me the _whole_ time I was dealing with that horrible host and the limp AirBnB support.
We were lucky in that our destination was a road-trip away, rather than a flight. Imagine if we had booked flights depending on this AirBnB booking?
I don't see how anyone could entrust their trips to the whims of AirBnB given this behavior. They clearly can't enforce their own rules and don't go out of their way to help their customers.
On top of all this, I had the misfortune of visiting the AirBnB subreddit. Wow. The AirBnB host culture is rife with self-entitled control freaks who are ready to throw guests under the bus under the guise of "well this is my personal home, so you have to obey my rules." No, this is a business. We're _paying_ to stay at your _business_ property. Not your home. It stopped being your home when you offered it for sale. Of course I would always treat people's property with respect, home or not. But the attitude that they somehow are above the rules of a business because they're renting their "home" is toxic.
Other commenters frequently point out how the rating system is also completely broken. Guests won't rate their stays low, even when there are problems. Which means you can't trust the ratings. And if you can't trust the ratings, how can you choose a place to stay? And how is AirBnB Plus supposed to work if every place has 5/5?
Since my stay was cancelled, I had no way to leave a review. I have serious doubts AirBnB themselves will take any action against the host. So I can only imagine all those poor naive souls out there just emailing copies of their IDs to strangers on the internet.
Seems they may have missed the mark here. I would not classify hotel-like quality as the premium segment. Many of the standard Airbnb's I've stayed at beat hotel-like quality in every way.
Worst of all is the amenities, which are more often incorrect than not. I generally filter for places with washer + drier, as I'd rather not be looking for laundromats. Probably over 80% of listings that say they have a washer and drier do not. Most of the time the "drier" is a drying rack or a hair drier. Other times the host explains that I can visit his house or a laundromat, so that counts. Or the last place there was a shared washing machine between 30+ places.
And because you can't leave anonymous tips, I just add the problem by leaving positive reviews even when I'm unhappy with the place. Currently my airbnb profile shows me an an exceptional guest (I have nothing but positive reviews for me, and have given nothing but positive reviews) so have never had a problem getting any place I want. I don't really want to pollute my profile with candid feedback.
When I'm staying somewhere for 1 or 2 nights, I tend to just get a hotel. There's too much friction and problems in airbnb for it to be worth it.