airbnb, C or D?

I get nervous about first time or relatively new hosts, but one of the best AirBnb experiences I had was renting a small apartment room smack in the middle of Times Square for like $90 a night. I showed up and the hosts handed me a glass of Shiraz and said "let's do a toast" on arrival

Cos I was their first ever guest

Wish I could find the old Spy Magazine article where the author stays at an under-the-table New York B & B where the host is doing naked yoga (this is long before Air B & B).

This place now has a second review, positive but uninformative.. Then I checked his review of the guest

"i enjoyed my time with Victor.. i showed him the place around and we were together in canyon, he loved it and he appreciated so much that i spent my day with him.."

I also enjoy being in canyon with my air b& b host

I canceled this as my work plans changed.

But separately we've just had a host cancel on us, or try to - she's asking us to cancel (so theres no penalty for her) due to something unforeseen happening with the apartment (and used the phrase force majeure), though its not for another 3 months

Despite the supposed unavailability of it he calendar both sides of our booking is still free to book and the price is now 2.5x what we paid. Pulling a fast one to free up the calendar to get bookings at 2.5x what we paid? But there are no bookings in the 6 weeks prior to ours, and no bookings at all afterwards, so no one is paying for it at that rate

Is there some event at the destination that would now allow for a 2.5x rate?

Highly unlikely, also it was for 36 days! Its a lot to lose/gain

I guess we have to cancel because otherwise get there and she's telling the truth and it really is unusable and then what. 3 months notice at least!

Don't cancel or acquiesce to the host. Air BNB has penalties for hosts who cancel on their guests, force them to go through that process. Also reach out to them and report the host. This host is slimy and the company is actually doing a lot to push back on them for exactly this kind of situation. It hurts their brand. A good friend of mine works for them, I see and hear a bunch of terrible shit hosts do and a lot people who work there are tired of it.

otm, they are doing the thing that incurs the penalty, so the penalty applies, and it's because the cancellation is a huge pain in the ass for you that AirBnB don't want it to happen

if it's force majeure or whatever, let her argue that with AirBnB

I definitely get it, and understand why she is asking me to do the canceling rather than doing it herself. But on the flipside, what actually happens if we get there and the reason really is "major renovations due to damage"? We're booked for over a month. Her calendar for weeks either side is bookable but she has no other bookings so if she's chasing a dollar she's chasing one that isn't there

Why would it be bookable on either side if it's going to be undergoing major renovations? Why are major renovations scheduled months in advance for exactly the time you booked? Make her cancel.

This conversation triggered memories of my last attempt to book airbnb which was a condo in Honolulu in 2016.

As soon as I booked the owner (who lived in AZ) replied back to me that she could get me an even better rate if I cancel and rebooked ASAP.

Me, a sucker, decided to follow her instructions and sure enough when I looked at the new rate it increased ~40% compared to my initial booking.

I immediately replied to her showing screenshots of the rate variance and the owner said it looked cheaper "on her side" and that she couldn't help me anymore.

I reported her to airbnb and then told the story to someone we knew at airbnb marketing at the time and we got vouchers for our trouble but yeah, that was the last straw. Hotel loyalty programs have their pros/cons but they are so much more stable and worthwhile in the long run.

and yes, I'm still mad!

Why would it be bookable on either side if it's going to be undergoing major renovations? Why are major renovations scheduled months in advance for exactly the time you booked? Make her cancel.

Its not a good look that its bookable, though thats theoretical as its not bookable without her accepting - and as there are no bookings either side I can't tell if she's turning down all other bookings or just no one is interested (also just noticed the dates after our stay are 2.5x more but the dates before are about 15% more)

I had a weird one I tried to book last year and the guy said we're not currently taking bookings and rejected it, I looked afterwards and the calendar remained competely open but also completely empty. The most recent review was from 2016

yeah like I've said above, AirBNBs can be (or at least, used to be) more affordable than hotels and be preferable in other ways (like not having to share a space with 500 other people), but some of the logistical nightmares that come up are very unique to AirBNB only and it's put me off of ever using it.

we used one in January where my friend booked it and he was told he'd get instructions on parking, as this was a crowded area, and those instructions never arrived (to be fair, my friend should have asked earlier in the day when he noticed this, but he forgot). he tried texting the guy late in the evening, but as expected, didn't get a response.

when we got into the house, the house had a sign that said you could park anywhere that said Guest parking or didn't have a number, so he moved his car to an unmarked spot. the next day, we saw the neighbor passive aggressively double parked him in, and he knocked on their door and they yelled at him for 'taking their space', even though it was an open space per the instruction given on the sign in the house.

the host gave my friend a semi-negative review for sending him messages late at night demanding him to answer (even though he texted, not called, and wasn't 'demanding' anything), never mind the fact that he never provided the instructions via AirBNB and the sign had bad instructions on it.

it feels like the whole platform is "advantage: hosts"

I don't think its necessarily that way, guests can cancel way more easily without penalty (ironically we were considering canceling this one anyway as plans might be changing), hosts have to jump through this hoop of asking us to do it (and what happens if we don't I'm not sure - we definitely wouldn't be doing if we were inside the no cancellation window of a month)

We've almost always had great Airbnb experiences, generally better than hotels, tbh. Though I know lots of places and communities are now pushing back against Airbnb, which makes us feel guilty for using them.

i mean the circumstances are kinda different though? as a guest, you're going to a strange city out of town and you need a place to stay, and nothing is scarier than getting into town and finding your lodging cancelled. it's easier for a host to fill a vacancy than for people who just got into town and suddenly have no lodging. esp if they're not permanently living in the house and have helpers doing the things like bedsheets/etc.

one of the reasons i quit using airbnb is that i much prefer the hard distinction btw customer & service provider at hotels. hotels arent perfect but they dont have this weird artificial social dynamic where youre paying them a lot of money but also sort of made to feel like theyre doing you a favor, never had a hotel manager message me like "hey can you do us a solid, it would save us an unnecessary fee if you did such-and-such". not my job as a customer to make it easier for anyone to make more money on their real estate investment.

Lol yea the chores are the real bullshit. I'll do chores if my stay is free

Like throwing shit away, ok, even in a hotel I do that, I don't expect people to clean up after me. But I ain't doing laundry

It's not called passive income for nothing!

Another issue is that Air B & B's take buildings out of the long term rental stream. There was in article in my local paper a few years back about it and a "host" admitted they could make more money doing the AB&B thing than renting it out as actual housing.

Yeah, that's the backlash I've increasingly seen. On the other hand, Airbnb serves some specific needs that hotels really can't fill, namely hosting big family gatherings. Getting a couple of hotel rooms just for the four of us adds up, but throwing in another family or grandparents or however many total people and it makes more sense to get a whole house with a kitchen and a pool and lots of space, for significantly less than the hotel equivalent. Is there an alternative to Airbnb that can offer that? (Aside from VRBO, which is more or less the same thing.)

She cancelled us. I kind of regret not canceling myself now, our period is blocked out and she can't rebook it and I was curious to see if she actually got any bookings for that period. Though she doesnt have any bookings for any other period so I guess I can if anyone ever books it. It seems unlikely as only 4 reviews so far presumably at the price we paid, and if she's not getting bookings at that price getting them at 2.5x the price seems impossible.

None of this really makes any sense, I don't think it was a cash grab, and she can't rebook those dates now anyway so its a guaranteed loss

If there were more apartment hotels available everywhere I’d probably never book airbnbs. I like having a separate bedroom from the kids and a kitchen. I like the option of being able to eat a light meal at our place instead of greasy restaurant food every meal. But that combined with the predictability and professionalism of a hotel, maybe also a swimming pool, is always going to be better than the who knows what you get with a private house owner.

Never even think about one if traveling alone.

Really? The type of hotels you mention seem to be everywhere now: Residence Inns, Springhill suites, etc.

A lot of those places either don't have multiple bedrooms or have very limited availability ime. It's usually a studio apt type deal.

limited availability for the multi-bedroom suites I mean

Sometimes you can find a 1BR room with a fold-out sofa for the kids, which is not bad.

I'm gonna be up in Madison to see King Crimson this November, and even though it's only two hours away, we decided to stay overnight. My buddy requested his own room, because he says he snores like a train. Two rooms at a hotel would cost afaict over twice as much as one airbnb with two bedrooms.

C: Having a kitchen, not seeing 1000 other people when you walk through the lobby in your sweatpants to get something from the car, privacy, separate bedrooms.
D: Predatory, reduces already low housing availability, encourages non-residence property hoarding from bad actors, is both nefarious in intent and also used even more nefariously by parties who know they're acting outside the supposed intentions of "making your extra room available for a small fee" model.

I thought we didn't have AirBnB in Madison, but I guess it's just heavily regulated (you need to apply for a license, they inspect the property, the owner needs to remain on site when renting it out so no investment properties that are only AirBnBs).

Maybe it's technically outside the city? dunno.

there are definitely a lot of "SuperHosts" who have like 20+ properties in a city around here.