
Airbnb racks up hundreds of millions of dollars in losses -- WSJ - hkmurakami
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/airbnb-racks-up-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars-in-losses-considers-capital-raise--wsj-2020-03-20
======
hkmurakami
This is a duplicate of this earlier submission of the WSJ article, which got
flagged down from the front page to oblivion by those with a vested interest
in not giving the story the attention it deserves.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22639181](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22639181)

~~~
dang
The opposite is the case: we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or YC
startups are involved.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment)

In this case, though, we downweighted the story the same way we've
downweighted nearly every secondary coronavirus story, for exactly the same
reason: otherwise the front page would have consisted of nothing else for the
last week or more.

More explanation here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22643249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22643249)

~~~
triyambakam
Is there a mod log?

~~~
dang
Not a public one, but we're always happy to answer questions.

(Well, usually happy to and always do.)

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jmpman
First Airbnb use, I booked a week just outside a national park. While driving,
just before I arrived, the host cancelled, leaving me with an option of
cancelling my trip, or a $400/night Best Western. Airbnb should have
compensated me for that one. I’ll never use them.

~~~
rsgalloway
Airbnb is simply a listing service. If you have a problem, blame the host, not
the platform. My advice: book with superhosts or listings with at least 4.5
stars. Maybe you just don't like the idea of vacation rentals in general? If
that's the case, go to a hotel instead, but don't advocate taking away this
option for everyone else.

~~~
jmpman
I’ve used VRBO. Worked exactly as it should have. My first experience with
AirBnB, I ended up spending $1000 more for a single hotel room compared to the
cabin I thought I’d rented. Digging in more, the host had dozens of listings,
and there was likely fraud involved by the host. I blame AirBnB because they
should have detected the fraud and banned the host. Policing their listing
service is their responsibility, and them not doing it, impacted me
financially, and they didn’t compensate me.

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gpu_explorer
Not used Airbnb too often because they had a very bad effect in Europe and
other places. Really I wonder how they might not make money. It seems very
easy to make money in this model. They do not even subsidize like ride share
from anything I ever heard about.

Why would anyone conceal this story if already it is written in the Wall
Street Journal? Is this because it is worse for such a story to appear on
Hacker News?

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redisman
It was certainly better than the pretty crappy experience I've had canceling
with them before. We couldn't stay at our AirBnb because the host had applied
some kind of a sealant in their very small place and it was extremely fumey
and giving us headaches. After talking to their outsourced support for a while
about their absurd requests like "send us a picture of the odor", they decided
to keep over $100 for service fees etc. while me and the host both got
fleeced. This time it was more of a no questions asked full refund.

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henvic
Maybe Airbnb lost in the short term, but maybe it pays off in the long run. I
had to cancel bookings both on Airbnb and on Hotels.com (which I used to be a
gold member; now silver), and the experience on Airbnb was perfect. Meanwhile,
I lost some money and time calling Hotels.com (two hours in total).

I'll definitely consider Airbnb more often from now on after this great
costumer experience.

~~~
chx
> We are now offering Guests full refunds and Hosts no-charge cancellations
> for reservations booked on or before March 14th with a check-in date of
> April 14th or earlier.

Well, that's just swell. First of all, this won't be over by April 14th, for
example [https://www.minneapolis.org/minneapolis-convention-
center/co...](https://www.minneapolis.org/minneapolis-convention-
center/coronavirus/) "Events at the MCC will be restricted through May 10,
2020." second if you have a longer trip which got cancelled because originally
it was scheduled to start before April 14th then all your bookings are toast.

I had zero problems cancelling my hotels.com reservation at Dorval though.

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j-conn
I had to cancel a ~$3,000 booking, and they made it incredibly easy through
the app. The host was also very gracious and understanding in her reply to the
optional message I sent with the cancelation.

Very impressive customer-centric approach. I’m now much more likely to book
with them again in the future.

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outside1234
AirBnB, given the current situation, is going to fail unless they jettison
about 70% of staff.

~~~
e12e
I can't see how Airbnb isn't in a far better position than hotels. They have
no fixed expenses proportional to their untapped capacity (free rooms), no
cleaning staff or receptionists. Airbnb hosts, are a different matter.

~~~
nikkwong
Being an Airbnb host was already becoming borderline unprofitable in my
metropolitan area (Seattle) as they are marketing very heavily here resulting
in a glut in short-term rental housing-supply. This drove the nightly rate I
could command down, and—before this current crisis, the decision between
short-term and long-term tenancy was a matter of debate. Now, without any
guests visiting the area in the near future, the decision is a no brainer—I'm
moving to long-term tenancy and may never be an Airbnb host again. I am
currently a host for rooms in my primary residence as well as for entire
houses and am currently looking to turn them both types into long instead of
short-term rental situations. I'm suspecting many other hosts are in a similar
situation.

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alpha_squared
I tried to cancel and was rejected because I was one day outside the window of
"check-ins between March 14 and April 13" (my check-in was March 13, a
Friday). The kicker is that I canceled on March 12, when the policy stated
"for check-ins on or after March 13 and before April 1". They changed the
policy over the weekend to the new time frame and rejected my request after
the weekend.

Luckily, the host refunded me what they could, but Airbnb kept the service
fees and occupancy taxes. The skeptic in me thinks they changed it to March 14
because they could cut out the people who check into places on Fridays (which
I often do and assume others, too).

~~~
ndiscussion
file a chargeback

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nerfhammer
Isn't the whole point of AirBnB that they don't have the liabilities of
physical hotels?

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lokl
No problem cancelling my Airbnb bookings, but I'm slightly concerned about
receiving service fees as coupons. The last time I used an Airbnb coupon and
then cancelled that reservation, I lost the value of the coupon (even though
the cancellation was within the 100% refund period). An extremely minor
concern given what's going on, of course.

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ProfessorLayton
Curious to know what this means to employees looking forward to a big IPO this
year.

It seems many AirBnB employees' fortunes have very suddenly turned from having
a handsome payoff to either having to wait indefinitely, a substantial haircut
on that payday, _and_ possibly having a hard time during a recession (along
with the rest of us).

Crazy times

~~~
hkmurakami
Airbnb is known to be approaching the 10 year deadline on ISOs, which they
were hoping to clear through a 2020 IPO. Hopefully they come up with a
creative solution with their legal team to ameliorate this.

------
iamleppert
Good bye! Can't stand anything that has to do with this lousy company!

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electriclove
VRBO did not step up in the same way. I will never use them again and will
look to use Airbnb in the future.

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ElCapitanMarkla
We have had fantastic guest and host experiences with Airbnb.

Our friends were hosting in Wellington when an earthquake struck. Airbnb
refunded all bookings and sent them flowers.

We had a booking for a concert in Christchurch the weekend of the mosque
shooting. Concert was canceled and Airbnb issued a refund.

And I’ve just had another refund due to not being able to travel this weekend.

10/10, would use again.

