airbnb, C or D?

sounds like she's fucking at it. I've been on the receiving end of airbnb bullshit before (lack of comms leading to last minute cancellation) and it is stressful af ! hope you get this sorted x

Aye I think she might be! cozen, would your advice be to bypass her and go straight to Airbnb now?

two options, I think

1. dingy her as best you can and just try to have ur best holiday, staying away from the apt as much as possible. appreciate this is difficult if she is a super on edge type & ur all cooped up w/the rain etc.

2. raise a support ticket w/airbnb, outlining all the irregularities and difficulties in your message to them & stressing the potential precarity of your situation. don't think it's beyond the pale to stress tht she's not being particularly welcoming host either. ask if they can support you by helping to locate another room or whatever

not mutually exclusive those options of course

Seems very stupid of this woman to be horrible to someone who is in a position to expose her prohibited by airbnb at best, illegal at worst activities!

I don't have any experience of contacting/relying airbnb support however so can't say how responsive or helpful they are sorry

They're pretty good ime.

jed, email or call Airbnb now!! My neighbors went on vacation and their reserved apartment was mysteriously unavailable when they got there (I forget what happened), and they complained and Airbnb put them up in a hotel within a matter of hours!!

AND refunded their money I think!

Yeah two points - one is they are collecting a substantial fee from your booking and thus their help is a service you are paying for. Two, is that it's essential this woman be reported to prevent others having the same bad experience, particularly if she's gaming the system with the multiple profiles and fake addresses.

Multiple profiles and fake (ok, obfuscated) addresses is an inherent element of Airbnb's business plan.

I was away from wifi and on limited roaming data so thanks for all of your advice. I wouldn't like to exaggerate the precariousness here. And I've already been contacted by a friend (who saw this thread, thanks) and who has offered to help me out with flight arrangements if it comes to that which I'm sure it won't!

I'm going to compose this email now and then head out for a drink!

rip

http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-governor-signs-bill-authorizing-fines-for-airbnb-rentals-1477079740

Staying at an airbnb and woke up this morning and met the host, and he said you are a foreigner, and where I'm from its tradition to give a foreign guest a shot of vodka.

I said thats great, and he said well i wont be back till very late, so then he poured me out a huge glass of vodka, said you'll enjoy your day now, then he jumped in his car and drove to work

lol

are you going to drink it?

burps

time to have an incredible day!

I too am interested in enjoying my day

didn't realise it was that easy #lifehacks

and where I'm from its tradition to give a foreign guest a shot of vodka.

So where's he from?

He is from Nigeria!

I had a little bit of it but most of the glass is now in the fridge for this evening. having said that, a little bit of a huge glass....isnt that much of a little bit, when i'm trying to do some work!

Very nice!

I have just arrived at another airbnb. the host has left me a bottle of wine in the room. there are two glasses

well if you break one

Drink both of course

that doesn't even make sense.

leave a review pointing out that the you've come to expect a Jon Bonham Breakfast and this wine nonsense is unacceptable

"All this wine nonsense! You get all these wine people don’t you? You know, wine this, wine that!. Let’s have a bit of red; let’s have a bit of white! Oooh that’s a snazzy bouquet! Oooh this smells of... I don’t know, basil! Sometimes you just want to say ‘sod all this wine just give me a pint of mineral water’."

had my first repeat AirBNB stay. there's one place for like $30 in Ybor City where they just give you codes to get in and out and the owners aren't there. good for when I'm going to get drunk at a show, Uber-able distance.

feel like I'm going to start leaving cryptic clues each time I stay there

"Detroit just banned Airbnb without anyone knowing it" https://detroit.curbed.com/2018/2/8/16991266/detroit-banned-airbnb-zoning

awesome!!

I wish I knew more about the legal issues and technological issues around information sharing of tax documents. I feel like it should be possible for cities to be able to get copies of the 1099 forms that Airbnb gives to its "hosts" and then develop better systems for collecting business tax from them. And if that enforcement and collection results in higher rates or less profits for Airbnb, then fine. But I feel like it's screwing cities out of hotel tax revenue and also creating unfair competition with actual hotels because Airbnb isn't paying its fair share of local business taxes.

i guess they aren't enforcing it https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/02/09/detroit-airbnb-ban/322991002/

just stayed on 49th and 8th in Times Square for $59 a night in a decent cramped apt. nice.

had a weird first at this latest stay in Atlanta - one I've often worried about! Renting one of those units which are owned by a guy who owns multiple properties and isn't on site - so they give you codes to access the door to the house and your room.

There's an upper lock that is no longer used per the owner. I went out for a while for food and came back. Some doofus (probably another AirBNBer) locked the top lock after they left, so I couldn't get into the house at 11:30 pm even when putting in the right code. lucky that someone in the house was up to let me in. He was a dick about it though, suggesting I was at the wrong house even as I insisted that a) all my shit was already upstairs and b) I had put in the right code and someone had clearly locked the top lock which I could clearly hear that idiot unlocking before he opened the door for me!

"after they left" should be "after they returned"

Booked 4 nights in London for my wife in July, just had an email to say that the flat isn't available on the first night and if we're ok for just the other 3 nights. As she and her sisters have booked air and planes not really so asked for her to cancel so we can get a refund.

Haven't heard back from her, so looking to cancel using the 'my host needs to cancel' option. It says it'll refund it minus the service fee of nearly £60. I haven't submitted it yet, but are we going to be £60 out of pocket through no fault of our own? Or will the fee be refunded when the landlord responds?

Get in touch with Airbnb direct and tell them the situation, should cancel without fee (that's been my experience)

I'll give her until tomorrow morning and if I don't hear anything will get in touch with Airbnb.

Got my refund, but she wanted me to cancel at first which I guess would have penalised me.

To what level are you experiencing price inflation? Going to go back to look at previous airbnbs stayed in and from even a year ago the change is eye-watering, some are double the price, some as much as 300% higher. Only place that seems to have relatively unchanged prices is Sarajevo

What is your native currency?

So one of my neighbours has taken it upon herself to rent out her flat on Airbnb, not to mention Booking.com and various others. Since it's a shared block (in London) we now have constant noise and disruption, plus lots of mail going missing where it's been left by the postie on the table downstairs - parcels, bank cards etc. So fuck you, Airbnb. Hotels need licenses for a reason.

If hotels weren't so prohibitively expensive, I'd be on board with Airbnb-bashing, but as it stands, I would have no way of travelling otherwise.

Update 11/1/19: The morning after this article was published, the FBI contacted VICE about the claims made above.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-host-scam-on-airbnb

oh yeah! that article was amazing!!

Massive dud from the POV of someone who lived in tourist town. Jacked up rents and depleted the already-small apartment/condo stock. I had to battle for a spot in laundry room with maids washing sheets and rugs every day. Ruined the community vibe of complexes. Forced me to leave the lil village I liked and move 20 miles away where the unintended side effects from this shit aren't an issue. Yet.

that was a really great article. I used airbnb the first couple of years it started and still look at listings every so often when traveling but it turned into such a hassle with bad owners, complicated key hand offs, cancellations, excessive cleaning fees/deposits.

I rented out a second bedroom in my old house about a dozen times and all guests were totally fine but I eventually just completely lost interest in hosting. I do recall one 60-70ish yr old Turkish guy who stayed with me, he was in town to "see nyc" and his wife sent some turkish bowls and turkish delight to bring as gifts for me. I noticed he was around a lot. Like all the time. Eventually he had to tell me he was really there because his son had been arrested for credit card theft and he was going to MCC (correction center) in the day to try to visit or coordinate a time to wave from outside. I think he felt a lot better after he told me. He ended up cooking me crazy dinners (like steak cooked in heavy cream???) and I would drink whiskey with him. We watched the Macys thanksgiving parade together and then I drove him to the airport.

And now we are married.

maybe everyone else is just terrible at airbnb but we never have anything other than excellent experiences

the key is a lengthy multiple-hour vetting process and an open mind about one's destination town

Helps if you know how to cook steak with heavy cream