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)

Yes in London and it's a room in a houseshare but maybe it's more like 800£ all included than 900.

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!