AirBNB?

I have never used AirBNB and I was going to try it but then I saw it has a terrible rating of 1.4 out of 5 on Trustpilot, and 1 out of 5 on BBB.org. I thought a lot of people used AirBNB. Has it gone to shit? Is there a better alternative?

Thought this was spam, but you have legit posts.  You get what you pay for with Airbnb just like a hotel.

Not spam.  The bad reviews are for the company not the abodes.  There are things like "Doublebooked house and no refund" which simply should not be. Are these negative reviews fake or is there a serious problem with AirBNB itself?

Not that long ago, Airbnb was a great way to stay somewhere at the same price or cheaper than a hotel. It came with a kitchen and was generally more comfortable too.

Now, Airbnb is typically double to triple the price of a hotel. Most advertising is bait and switch too, seems like a good price, check that $120 cleaning fee.

It’s been named frequently as part of the housing crisis we’re in. Those rental houses would sure make a lot of good inventory for first time buyers and small family homes.

All that is probably why the business has such low ratings. You can read the rating of each individual place you want to stay for a more accurate picture.

Webfootwrote:

Not spam.  The bad reviews are for the company not the abodes.  There are things like "Doublebooked house and no refund" which simply should not be. Are these negative reviews fake or is there a serious problem with AirBNB itself?

I suspect those reviews are genuine. The thing is, no one is going to the BBB website to leave a positive review, as it’s often an end user lashing out in frustration after all other avenues have been exhausted following a bad experience. So those reviews are heavily biased towards the negative.

AirBnB is one of those services that I still use out of necessity/convenience, but it somewhat kills me inside, like Amazon. 

I have had several great experiences with AirBnB and VRBO.  Generally nicer and always more unique than a hotel.  Definitely read reviews on individual residences vs. AIRBnB itself...

I use airbnb several times a year. I always use a host that has the “superhost” rating, and obviously look at the total price including taxes and cleaning fees and cancellation policies before booking.  It can easily be more expensive than a hotel in an area but I like having a full kitchen, so that is why I typically do it. I have never had a bad experience. 

I only had one bad experience. A host with a great rate threatened to cancel the booking if I didn’t pay additional money 2 days before the trip. I paid and then complained. AirBnb did nothing, said I should have just canceled my entire trip instead of paying. If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t true. 

Caveat emptor no?

Used it once in Vegas and it gave me pause for the following reasons.

The "owner" actually was leasing an apartment that did not allow subleases. We learned this upon arrival and were told to keep a low profile etc. Never met the owner and could only communicate through the app. 

The apartment was not well maintained or furnished. It had wiring issues that presented a safety hazard. We expressed these concerns without resolution.

I left an honest and somewhat negative review which I learned would only become public if and when the owner reviewed me. I don't think either happened. As such a lack of negative reviews may mean nothing.

I looked through the owner profile and found out they operated about a dozen properties in the area but seemingly with little care.

Try to research the property independently of the airbnb website.

ddriverwrote:

Caveat emptor no?

Used it once in Vegas 

Lol, something shady happened in Vegas?!

Probably not the best proxy for the rest of them.

Any comparisons to vrbo?

I have used Airbnb at excellent and also at not great locations. I have a property in El Chorro Spain listed on them and also vrbo but most of my customers come from booking.com

you can look at the property evaluations and see which ones gets praise and who doesn't. Mine has a 9.3 rating and 9.9 on staff. If you stick with highly rated properties where customers have written strong praise, you will likely be fine, IMO

Can’t speak to Airbnb, but Better Business Bureau is a scam. It has no official affiliation and is basically a means to extort businesses. They ask companies to pay to remove bad reviews by becoming BBB affiliates.

 https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/business-bureau-best-ratings-money-buy/story?id=12123843 

Airbnb can come up short for both guests and hosts. We're hosts and we don't feel that safe if we get bad guests, but Airbnb is preferable to VRBO. As far as only booking with Superhosts, we've normally been awarded that but it really is BS, and we just recently lost Superhost status because we did not rent the place out 10 times in 4 months. We are not trying to crank out rentals, we mostly have it booked out and just want a couple guests a month, so our place is less like a hotel and more like a home. I assume there's other hosts out there like us. All our reviews (approx. 45) are legit. 

I agree that all the short term rentals are screwing up the real estate market and a major cause of affordable housing shortage.

I've been a routine user of Airbnb for many years and have had nothing but good experiences with all my rentals.

From the host's perspective, Airbnb is vastly better than VRBO, which basically cedes all power to the renter.  It is impossible to get an unfair review scrubbed.  If you've every worked retail, you know how shitty many consumers are out there.  Now imagine one of them writes a bullshit negative review riddled with lies after staying at your rental home, then tries to extort you for a refund to take down the review (this happened to me).  With VRBO you basically have to suck it up (in my case even after sharing an email chain that clearly shows the renter's malintent).  Airbnb takes a more balanced approach.  I know this wasn't the OP's question, but I never miss a chance to kick VRBO in the crotch.

I have had nothing but good experiences with renting through Airbnb. 

Heyzeuswrote:

As far as only booking with Superhosts, we've normally been awarded that but it really is BS, and we just recently lost Superhost status because we did not rent the place out 10 times in 4 months.

Thanks for that info.  For some reason I thought that was a designation that they somehow derived from users comments about how helpful the host was. your explanation makes more sense.

phylp phylpwrote:

Thanks for that info.  For some reason I thought that was a designation that they somehow derived from users comments about how helpful the host was. your explanation makes more sense.

I just re-checked the Superhost criteria (even though they continually send encouraging emails, "you're almost there!" etc., LOL ). They review that stats every 3 months and we need 10 stays or 100 nights, 4.8+ average in reviews, less than 1% host cancelations (that's effectively zero), and 90% response rate within 24hours to messages.

If you ever want a place in Josh, I'll give you a climber discount! You seem like good people, I believe you were on Supertopo, no?

Heyzeuswrote:

If you ever want a place in Josh, I'll give you a climber discount! You seem like good people, I believe you were on Supertopo, no?

What a really nice thing to say. thank you!

Yes, I had the same name on Supertopo, kept for continuity.  Regards, Phyl P.

ubuwrote:

I've been a routine user of Airbnb for many years and have had nothing but good experiences with all my rentals.

From the host's perspective, Airbnb is vastly better than VRBO, which basically cedes all power to the renter.  It is impossible to get an unfair review scrubbed.  If you've every worked retail, you know how shitty many consumers are out there.  Now imagine one of them writes a bullshit negative review riddled with lies after staying at your rental home, then tries to extort you for a refund to take down the review (this happened to me).  With VRBO you basically have to suck it up (in my case even after sharing an email chain that clearly shows the renter's malintent).  Airbnb takes a more balanced approach.  I know this wasn't the OP's question, but I never miss a chance to kick VRBO in the crotch.

I've used air bnb and VRBO many times over the years with great success. I've only had one bad experience and VRBO did nothing to help resolve it and prevented me from leaving a review. 

It's crazy how popular these sites have become. Boulder is trying to incentivize ADU's (accessory dwelling units) while preventing them all from becoming air bnb's. I love having a place with a kitchen and multiple bedrooms for the family/friends trips I usually take. Especially since COVID when I don't really want to go out for every meal. But the impact on affordable rental housing is significant. I used manage a couple of long-term rentals here, but between the increasing demands from the City and one set of terrible tenants I got out of that business.

David Housewrote:

Boulder is trying to incentivize ADU's (accessory dwelling units) while preventing them all from becoming air bnb's.

Weird, that sounds like one step forward, two steps back. If ADUs can't be used for Airbnbs, then doesn't that shift the demand to regular (non-ADU) homes?