- Group get-aways where the point is being together at the place, not seeing the sights of whatever area you’re in.
- Families traveling, especially when not staying in a city core
- Trial runs at living in a place
- Areas poorly served by decent hotels
They’re bad for lots of other scenarios.
[edit] oh and the less time you’re staying the worse they tend to be—stuff like cleaning fees and having to tidy up before leaving really suck if you only stayed for a night or two, but aren’t a big deal if you’re there for a week.
The stress of staying with a group at an Airbnb is not
Worth it anymore. One of our friends didn’t PERFECTLY follow the instructions of what to do with the sheets and just piled them all together in a corner for easy cleanup.
The cleaners used this as an excuse to scam the owner who lived 8hs away and saw the property every 6 months to tell them we had trashed the place and that they had to work 6hs. They took up close pictures of trash… (that was outside in the trash can btw) and claimed we just left it everywhere.
Took an up close picture of a crumb on the floor. Am
I supposed to vacuum the whole place?
If you’re a couple it’s easy to track everything and have a strong case.
With friends you have to start questioning your friends to see if any of these claims are true. I don’t go in their rooms to check, so I have to take their word for it.
Very much not worth it. Not to mention the quasi legal battle with Airbnb that is a pandora box and for 6 weeks or more you are unsure of what’s going on, the host trashes yours and all your friends profiles, and they expect you to “pay for damages”.
All this because they estimate the minimum possible time for their cleaners and if they go over the 15min they booked (at a rate that is only matched by HP ink) they pass the charges to you.
Screw that. Never again.
We’ve been staying at hotels with much better amenities for the money and actually REST. Checkout is at 10? I just leave. I don’t have to wake up at 7 to do dishes and bed sheets and trash and sweep and look for crumbs and take pictures to cover my ass later.
I've often felt a bunch of the "love" for AirBNB comes from people who didn't realize that you could do short-term rentals of entire properties before it hit the market (and where you'd go for those).
Vacation style rentals are generally crappy properties, whether on Airbnb or otherwise.
I think Airbnb has become worse as these types of properties have become common on the platform. The best experiences on Airbnb are, and have always been, people's personally owned homes.
The ones I've stayed in usually have dozens to low hundreds of reviews. They often have picky hosts that don't do instant bookings, and they're the type of properties that wouldn't be physically suitable for parties. And often the owners are in the same property or close by, meet you in person, and they'd know if something fishy was going on.
It was easy enough in normal "vacation" areas. Like the NC beaches. Or ski resort areas. But, those were largely location-specific listing services - Airbnb have us one site for the world. There's no longer a need to call a travel agent if you're visiting a new area.
Yeah, they’re not the only option and certainly weren’t the first. The sort of thing they do can be a really nice option, though, and they’ve definitely expanded the set of properties available.
You'd look it up in a guide book, or contact the tourist information office for the place you're visiting. Later, some of this was online, and even later there were websites for the bookings.
Earlier, you might have to write letters. I remember my mum describing doing this when she travelled to the Eastern Bloc — she had to write letters to the tourist office, then follow up by letter to make the booking. It might have been necessary to write in German or Russian.
That was the problem - there wasn't a unified listing for the whole world. (Exactly the same as Uber, whose (to me) primary value is a world-wide working taxi hailing app.)
Popular tourist destinations? Travel agents or some snooping around could find them. Ranch rentals? Ski resorts would know where they were, or others.
But nothing for something similar in Bakersfield (where nobody goes willingly).
I have had all good experiences as an individual using them. It seems almost all abnb disaster stories stem from families or groups staying in a place. Even couples.
By biggest complaint though is that the cleaning fee is priced for groups and families. I'm paying $60 for someone to come and arrange the pillows at worst.
> Group get-aways where the point is being together at the place
And how are the neighbours going to feel about your house party in their residential area? You can't call this model "amazing" for all concerned. Don't say that this doesn't happen, it really does. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39669347
- Group get-aways where the point is being together at the place, not seeing the sights of whatever area you’re in.
- Families traveling, especially when not staying in a city core
- Trial runs at living in a place
- Areas poorly served by decent hotels
They’re bad for lots of other scenarios.
[edit] oh and the less time you’re staying the worse they tend to be—stuff like cleaning fees and having to tidy up before leaving really suck if you only stayed for a night or two, but aren’t a big deal if you’re there for a week.