I think one of the key takeaways for me is just how important the 29 day+ stay is for them as an emerging category which sounds right to me... in part because I enjoy that style of travel but also because lower than that Airbnb is just not very economical and many of the short term listings are basically like hotel rooms anyways, so why not go there if you're only in a city for 5 days and need to check in at 10pm.
That wouldn’t be the main risk in my country. It would be people using your home as a brothel and fucking everything up.
If AirBnB can provide a way for that to not happen, or at least for it to stop within a few days with our strong renter-protection laws then they could basically replace every long term rental business in Denmark.
Nope. I got screwed bad over this. took my parents on a trip to london over NYE a few years ago. Had a pretty expensive AIRbnb rented. obviously nye is totally sold out. Including basically all hotels. They canceled a few hours before the flight.
Luckily I found a hotel literally last couple rooms and very very expensive for what it was.
I couldn't get airbnb to do shit besides give a refund for the airbnb reservation and I think maybe I got 250 or 500 or something negligible.
They 'try' to find an alternative on the platform but wouldn't pay for my hotel (s now need 2 rooms). And since there are no airbnbs available... let alone in the city and similar.
I have never stayed airbnb again only hotels.
if they allow hosts to pull that crap they should pay for alternate hotel lodging.
Similar experience here. Had booked a fairly expensive place in the country for my extended family, over a holiday weekend, to celebrate a milestone birthday for my mother. Host cancelled a couple of days out and literally nothing else available anywhere in that region.
After causing a sufficient amount of fuss because of the urgency of it all it eventually got escalated to someone more senior but the result was the same. Best they could do was a refund, no recourse for the host, with the extra salt in the wounds with the parting words of something like "I can provide you no further help today as it's a holiday weekend and I am leaving now and will not return until Tuesday". To this day I still suspect that the host simply got a higher priced offer given it was a popular weekend that had an unseasonably great weather forecast and so they cancelled on us. No effort to find us alternate accomodation. No refund sufficient to cover the costs of doing it ourselves at such late notice. Nothing that came close to addressing the fact multiple families had now wasted their money on plans they couldn't do.
Unfortunately it's not the first time it had happened either. The story has been the same, the only saving grace in the other situations is we'd been able to work out our own Plan B. I'd never use Airbnb again unless I was confident there was a Plan B I could execute on with only an hours notice. That limits its usefulness to out of season and in areas with a multitude of options, or where I am at least ok significantly adjusting my planned location.
Airlines overbook and will try to get out of it by refunding your ticket. Refuse the refund. They'll up the price a few times. You can get up to an upgraded ticket on a later flight + hotel stay if the stars align.
It's worth knowing that most courts worldwide consider a ticket or reservation to be a binding agreement to provide the services, and to accept liability when the services cannot be provided.
That means if they boot you from the flight or hotel room, they have to pay for your costs to find a replacement.
Yes, many companies have terms that try to limit their liability, but those terms usually aren't enforceable.
EU rules allow this with at least 14 days notice. Less than that, and the airline needs to provide compensation — €250, €400 or €600 depending on the length of the flight.
Also in my experience airlines will go out of there way to help and rebook. Sometimes it is the next day though which sucks but isn't totally apples to oranges ;)
No. They may give you a voucher, however for us the voucher was only $100 (so far less than the additional cost of rebooking at the last minute) and secondly, the voucher had restrictions on which bookings you could use it on, and it expired within a month. I.e. It’s fairly useless.
If the host cancels, you lose out the opportunity, but only get back what you've already deposited and a voucher (which doesn't cover the higher cost of a new booking!)?
that sucks. I think a host should only be allowed to cancel if they offer another place with similar features (like room number, and location) for the same amount of time.
Yes, they do. Hosts are strongly disincentivised from cancelling on guests at any notice, for any reason. On the one occasion where the apartment I own and let on Airbnb was unavailable at short notice, as the boiler (new, recently serviced) failed spectacularly, I ensured the guests were in equivalent accommodation or better (ended up better, as the only thing I could find with a few hours notice was a nine bedroom house), as cancelling would mean losing my superhost status (only book with superhosts and you will more likely than not avoid the cancellation problem), and failing to provide an adequate service could result in a poor review, which again could not only cost me superhost, but also tank the business - negative reviews hugely impact your search ranking and conversion rate.
So, while there isn’t a huge amount of recompense in the event it happens (I’ve been on the receiving end, literally arrived for them to tell me that sorry, they can’t do this week - it sucks), they do penalise hosts who do this, and will almost always take the side of the guest in any dispute.
I meant not really mechanisms to stop it and it was once in several times of it happening to me. Other times they've just recommended other airbnbs that were far less of a fit instead
They KINDA do, but their support is so horrible and slow you have to book a hotel room for a few days or figure something out while you spend a few days working the details out
How many days did they reimburse you for? The OP is talking about 29+ day stays.
If your long term stay is cancelled a few days before it can be pretty much impossible to find an alternative. On both occasions that this has happened to me, Airbnb has offered only a $100 voucher.
The reality is long term stay on Airbnb is a risky bet. Still often worth the risk, but something to be aware of.
Ahh yeah it was only for a few days, and that’s when I was going to really cheap airbnbs like 6 years ago. Hasn’t happened since then and I use airbnb ALL the time (I do lots of 1-month stays as well).
I would guess that the same can happen with all other alternatives. Perhaps not for a hotel but who would want to stay in a hotel for a month? (Also that would be a huge expense)
daily rates at hotels and airbnbs add up way too fast
monthly stays at airbnb's are much closer to the local rental price, usually 10-20% above a local lease, but without the issue of actually leasing
monthly stays are also furnished (whereas it can be very hard to find a furnished place to lease at all!)
monthly stays also get around most short term stay restrictions created specifically in reaction to AirBnB, which makes it much more comfortable for someone that booked to not have to worry about who we talk to in the building or nearby
I love being a situation to travel this way. Its pretty amazing to see that its currently become a crucial portion of their revenues.
Very much not my experience in Europe. I’d happily live in Airbnbs full time if the price was +~20% long term lease but in my experience the price is >100% even for 1 month stays.
The problem, at least in Europe, is that so many Airbnbs are now being operated as “rent to rent” where a company (or individual) rents property long term specifically so they can then in turn rent it out on Airbnb (often through an intermediary that manages the property for them). The margins they need for confident profitability (considering voids etc) are ~100% over the long term rental cost.
I’m astonished you’ve found that the prices are so similar: which location(s) is this in?
I just moved out of an Airbnb I stayed in for a month where my average nightly cost was, quite literally, 200% over the amount that I would pay if I leased the property myself — and that’s not in peak season, and after negotiating.
5 years ago the cost was pretty similar but not now that Airbnb has become an industry and people have worked out how to squeeze every drop of profit out of it.
I am actually doing it right now, I pay about 1.2k for something that should be around 900 all included. Yes it's more but it's not double or triple as you suggest.
Where in the UK? I won’t go as far as to say it’s impossible that this is true, but I haven’t come across anywhere like that in the last year. Are you renting a full home or a room? A desirable location (a major city) or the middle of nowhere? I can’t imagine any UK city where you could find an apartment on Airbnb for £1200/month — at best you’d get a room for that price. If you’re willing to rent a room then sure, you’ll be able to benefit from people who don’t care about the economics, but for actual apartments, the economics don’t make sense.
(And if you’re willing to rent a room, you can pay less than the long term local price with some savvy)
Yeah — house shares are a totally different prospect. For clarity, I’m talking about whole homes, as an alternative to renting — I thought that was the context of the discussion, sorry if that wasn’t clear!
Airbnb I can make my own meals. Even if I don’t ordering delivery is much easier than at a hotel. Also easier to wash my own clothes. Usually no Wi-Fi problems. Also easier to go exactly where I need / want to be.
One of Brian Chesky's tweets in the linked thread mentions "On May 11, we’ll introduce the biggest change to Airbnb in a decade". I wonder if it's something catering to the digital nomad/work-from-anywhere crowd rather than the current focus (vacationers).
As far as I can think, there are two possibilities:
- They are getting into the rental market, basically longer term rentals with short-term leases or something like that.
- They are getting into property management under their own brand, where they will manage Airbnb branded properties (small Hotels and homes). Something similar to what Oyo rooms (https://www.oyorooms.com/us/) does.
Checkin can be a hassle. It seems to depend on the city what the Airbnb checkin culture is. Sometimes you are given a security code (convenient), sometimes it’s inconvenient, having to meet the host at a predetermined time. In Vancouver, three times in a row I was given a security code and given instructions to go to a convenience store with a special locker, 4-5 blocks away from the unit, and do the reverse at checkout. Major hassle.
And it’s usually not cheaper than a hotel anymore. Now I only use it for large groups for places like cabins.
My wife and I are planning to become “digital nomads” for a few years[1] and my initial thought was AirBnbs. We decided to rent an AirBnb in another city as a test run. This was months ago. We haven’t stayed there yet.
During the intervening time, as I thought about it and did more research on prices, we landed on we would be better off looking for Homewood Suites[2] and skip Airbnb. This isn’t a marketing pitch for Hilton, I am just most familiar with the brand. The other chains may be just as good.
1. We always know what we are getting. I can just go to the Hilton app and pick a hotel. I know I’m going to have a two room suite, kitchen, a work area, a small gym downstairs, probably a pool. It’s going to be hopefully well cleaned and if not, at least we know we have someone on staff.
2. We save 15%-20% overall between the highest end Amex cobranded card when booking stays via points and accumulating points any other time we spend by charging it.
3. I also travel for work and stay in Hilton hotels. I get reimbursed and get to earn points.
4. We never have to worry about cancellations.
[1] there is no way we are selling our house and trying to buy later on with the crazy market. We are renting it out.
[2] This is not an ad or endorsement. I just happen to always book an Embassy Suites for business trips and we prefer staying there for vacations. Homewood Suites is a cheaper brand. But still better than their lowest brand Home2Suites.
I also like having backing of a reputable chain. I’ll look into homewood suites.
If i need a hotel, usually I first try Marriot as that’s the one I collect points on. I like their cheaper brand Aloft, each hotel has a free thing usually attached to the bar, such as billiards or in one case a retro arcade. If nothing on there works for me, or if I need an apartment/kitchen, I use booking.com as a search engine. Then I book directly, unless booking.com is more flexible.
Booking directly means you can usually call the front desk quickly and change your checkin/checkout dates and often can get early checkin and late checkout. Last month I was traveling for work and booked directly. Not only could I check in at 10am and take a nap, when plans changed I spent 5 minutes on the phone to extend one stay and shorten the next stay. My colleague used a travel agency and when he called them he got put on hold while they called booking.com! Ultimately he (well our company) paid for 2 hotel rooms that night. It’s even more important to book flights directly for the same reason.
These days, Covid can easily change your plans. I’ve not gotten Covid yet, but I’ve had flights cancelled due to it, and once had to change my flights because my pre-travel Covid test was in the wrong format to return home.
I’d say the main downside is location. I don’t think Airbnb would be cheaper than a homewood suites, and I’d probably sleep better at a hotel than the average Airbnb mattress. But the typical inexpensive chain hotel locations are concrete islands on the city periphery. Often old inexpensive independent motels have better locations (and cheaper rates), but I wouldn’t count on Wi-Fi working.
If I’m taking a vacation, I’m going to stay in a slightly more upscale Embassy Suites mostly for the better breakfast and the free happy hour. I still get the two room suite. I’m also going to stay closer to the city center when our plans are to do something everyday and we would be using Uber to get around. The same applies to business trips.
But, in our case when we are planning to live there and I’m working and we will have a car, comfortable sleeping arrangements, a separate workspace, decent WiFi [1], and a kitchen are far more important. We can drive to the city on the weekend and in the evenings.
[1] my backup plan for bad WiFi is using my phone and my iPad as hotspots. T-mobile has unlimited hot spot with 50Gb high speed hot spot for each device.
I can spin up a large Windows Workspace VM or Cloud 9 Linux environment on AWS to conserve data coming to my computer if needed.
With the pandemic/post-pandemic, lots of folks can now afford to work remotely for extended periods.
AirBnB's strength has always been in cities, but the cities are cracking down hard on STRs. E.g. NYC passed a law making rentals for < 30 days in the city illegal.
I do wonder there is a regulatory risk that cities will push out the min time to, say, 60 days if they feel that they haven't solved their "AirBnB problem" with a 30 day min stay.
AirBnB is killing normal rental markets in quite a few cities here in slovenia, and the locals hate it, so there are huge pushes towards regulation and outright bans by basically everyone except people who actually profit on airbnb.
Basically noone wants daily-changing "neighbors", half of them partying half the nights in their (multi-apartment) buildings, while finding an apartment for rent is getting harder and harder (and much more expensive).
If airbnb was the thing it was marketed as in the beginning (you go on a vacation, rent the apartment out for that week or two), then sure... but people buy apartments (at currently overinflated prices) just to rent it out on airbnb full time.
Perhaps I'm just getting old, but 2016 was when New York State passed the law banning advertising whole homes on AirBnB for < 30 days, and I consider that relatively recent.
That’s a good point. I was thinking of NYC, which has had specific laws about short terms rentals (preventing ‘flophouses’ etc.) for as long as I can remember.
That's one of the reasons why I picked AirBnB. Let me stay in a foreign city for work for a few weeks for a very low cost. Wouldn't have been able to do that without them.
Lots of new regulations in major cities bans sub 30 day rentals so Airbnb no these sorts of airbnb use are longer an option unless the user is trying to break the rules.
