
6 Reasons Why I Am Done with AirBnB as a Renter - graniter
https://donewithairbnb.wordpress.com/6-reasons-why-i-am-done-with-airbnb-as-a-renter
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jerry40
Startup idea - "real-airbnb-reviews" where you can post your uncensored
experience.

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niij
Why be afraid to post your true feelings, whether positive or negative? Unless
I plan to stay with the person again (which would mean I had a positive
experience anyway), there should be no reason self-censor a negative review.

There is no way that I am aware of, where anyone can look up a list of your
previous reviews. So it's not like it leaves a black mark on your profile to
post truthful reviews.

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dbecker
The host guarantee on AirBnb isn't as great as most people assume.

We ate $1500 in damages on one of our first visitors, and we're off the
platform now. The whole experience was a real bummer.

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sizzle
Can you give some more details please, curious what the issue was.

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Shorel
I am done with AirBnB in some countries, and will always use it in others.

It is a 'case by case' issue.

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niij
I feel the same way. I had multiple poor experiences in Japan, where I believe
the issue was a cultural misunderstanding of what was expected of both renter
and host.

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Shorel
Can you elaborate?

It seems interesting to know about the cultural misunderstanding.

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micael_dias
Funny that it's a website and not a blog post.

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Mz
They have Big Feels about this, so big that it requires an entire website.

I will think it is funny if this is the only post and that's it. (I have seen
that on other topics: Create an entire website devoted to the topic with a
topic-specific domain, post one and only one entry. Done.)

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secabeen
AirBNB has a number and it's not hard to find. From the AirBNB site, click
Help -> Visit the Help Center -> Contact Us. The number is +1-415-800-5959 or
+1-855-424-7262 (Toll-free).

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londons_explore
Called that and was left waiting in the queue for 3 hours (about a house I had
booked which didn't exist) before I gave up and had to sleep in the car.

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scandox
How did the money side of that work out? (I'm quite ignorant of the AirBnB
payment process).

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londons_explore
I never managed to contact a human about it.

The airbnb dispute process allows you to request money from the host, but
doesn't let you get a full refund - only ~80%. In my view, the house not
existing warrants at a minimum a full refund.

Instead I took it to my credit card company and got a full refund from them.

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ng12
Ok, hotels are still a thing. If you want the luxury of a concierge go ahead
and pay for it. You're not "uncool" for doing so and after a year of using the
service you should know what you're in for.

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ndh2
It's not about luxury or having a concierge. It's a basic trust issue. You
can't trust AirBnB reviews.

We had an issue with a place where we wanted to stay for a week in Italy.
There was a very noticeable smell of paint/dust, and we couldn't sleep. What
do you do then? The host offered to "fix the problem", but how would you fix
that? There's also the issue of proof: You can't take a photo of smell.
Anyways, we got a percentage of the money back, but of course that meant that
AirBnB wouldn't let us post a review. Basically, they pay you for your
silence.

And that's why I wouldn't use AirBnB anymore either. You can't trust the
reviews.

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throwawaybbq1
I had a huge hurdle using Uber - after trying it once with someone else, I am
now am a power user. I just cannot make the jump to AirBnB. I have friends who
use it a lot. I found the rates paid by myself and friends are very similar ..
when asked why not just use a hotel, my friends point at quaint/unique
experiences, etc. I realized that this is not my thing (I don't "get" blue
apron either FWIW).

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b_t_s
This so much. Uber/Lyft were shockingly better than taxis. I tried AirBnB
expecting the same and wow was that not the case. Went to a beach and was
hoping to have a destination ready _with_ cooking facilities(hard requirement
traveling with an allergic child). Arived ther & spent 45 minutes wandering up
and down the beach showing the listing/owner photo to everyone in sight.
Nobody's ever heard of them. Later that day the owner who lives hundreds of
miles away airbnb messages us to say that the name of the beach resort and the
contact info aren't what's actually shown in the listing. Of course we don't
have internet then & have already given up and chosen another hotel. By the
time we got back to civilization/internet we've already missed the window to
leave feedback/dispute. First time in my life I've ever done a credit card
chargeback. What a colossal PITA. I figure I wasted 2 to 4 hours fighting with
their website between signup(reproducible bugs), trying to dispute/leave
feedback/contact them(gave up eventually), and the chargeback. Totally not
worth it for 30 something bucks but darn they need some sort of feedback,
because I really _want_ to like them. They _should_ be uber/lyft for
apartments because that would be awesome, but my experience was a million
times worse than agoda/travelcity/whatever.

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VeejayRampay
So basically you're done with AirBnB for a reason that has nothing to do with
AirBnB (the fact that some people are awful).

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parent5446
These have everything to do with AirBnB. The problems he lists are inherent to
the platform, i.e., a website where random people rent out their property to
other random people. The competition (the hotel "platform") does not have this
problem. AirBnB could attempt to fix things by being stricter with hosts,
providing better guarantees to renters, etc. But they don't.

