Air BnB has been straight up bad value for such a long time. Hotels have competed on price and give much better deals.... With 24 hour front desks, helpful staff, swimming pool, en suite bathroom, etc. I gave up Air BnB years ago and never looked back.
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One connection I haven’t seen people make yet is that Amex Platinum (one of the most high end “perks” cards) announced a partnership with AirBnB at pretty much the same time. In fact they changed some of their benefits structures to focus on AirBnB credits, replacing/augmenting existing hotel credits.
I would not doubt that they had a hand in this change as they did not want their users mad at the experience they would get going through AirBnB.
Amex demands a lot from their partners. I worked at a mortgage mill for a bit and they had a dedicated team of Amex only people, and they had slightly different guidelines and KPIs.
Sidenote, hearing "KPI" wheb job searching is now an automatic "No" from me.
Hah was just having this conversation the other day. No way it's a coincidence,
Here hotels with breakfast are pretty much always cheaper than AirBnBs or similar. And if you just use sites like Booking-com to check local options and then contact the hotel directly, it's even more cheaper.
Recently I had to organise one AirBnB stay, bigger family celebration and I was the only one that had the patience to do it. The page was absolute crap. Log in, "use our app", security codes not arriving, log in again, "use our app", send a pic of your ID, "use our app!!!", more security codes, weird lag, page autojumping up and down, here write a new security code, "why don't you use our app", log in to see a message from the host, security codes, "download-the-app-PLEASE" and it just went on and on.. Just so crap. I will never ever use it again. (And if you can't make the website work, why would I ever download the fucking app??)
Hotel in town where I live for £24/night with breakfast included. Mostly that cheap because who the fuck is coming here in October, its much more when various festivals are in the area.
The web site doesnt work because they want you to install the app so they can monetize you.
I'm aware of this. But it's still my logic, if the site don't work, then the app is gonna be just as garbage and there is no point in downloading it to even try.
I've seen too many instances of either:
- hospitality companies making an extra buck at the expense of everyone else
- people with "I am gonna make money with no expenses, watch meh"
people with “I am gonna make money with no expenses, watch meh”
as an example:
"Consumables," are the perishable supplies. So that alone will put a damper on that mind-set.
If you make a product that requires you needing to handle said product with nitrile gloves, you're going to need to allocate some of your potential earnings back into the company and buy more nirile gloves until that specific consumable eventually pays for itself OR you charge a little extra to keep the consumables in stock.
It's a business that they're running, so if they're not able to use those fees to actually do what they say they're going to, then they need to accept the fact that people are no longer willing to pay for the services.
Like the person wearing the nitrile gloves isn't making the nitrile gloves but they're required to make the product.
So if you're paying a cleaning fee and they're making you clean, they're not using the money where it's supposed to be going OR they're not hiring a cleaning crew that can do what they need.
I've also seen some videos where some of the air b'n'b owners going, "if i need to do this by this time," well maybe they shouldn't be allowing guests so soon and booking on top of each other. As much as it is a business, if they're not running the business properly and only looking at the end profit gain...... then they shouldn't be doing what they're doing and look into doing something else.
I like renting apartments when I travel, but not through airbnb. And definitely not after they started offering apartments in the occupied territories.
Places like agoda also offer apartments, and AFAIK they're not involved in this kinds of invading crap.
Vacation apartments have been a thing for a lot longer than Airbnb. There are entire chains of vacation apartments, like https://visionapartments.com/en and https://www.limehome.com/en/ (I have stayed in both, but never used Airbnb at all).
I never know where to look for such stuff outside of Airbnb so I'll save this comment and keep in my back pocket for such a time in the future, thanks!
no, they're in both. They may be in the hospitality industry, but they are also leeches extracting profit via the ownership of property.
That's not "real estate" that's rent seeking. You would still have a real estate industry even if you banned all forms of rent seeking.
If you are still an AirBnB host, in October 2026...
There are a whole lot of things such a person has yet to realize.
We can start with wait, I'm not the main character of reality itself?
Followed by, wait, housing prices can go down? and interest rates can go up?
Then they'll be learning all about how foreclosure works.
Bought my house a few years ago, would love to see prices drop. Ideally gradually rather than a sudden crash though. Like if they just stagnate in absolute value and inflation eats away at the labour required to pay for them, that would be great.
Higher minimum wage, static house prices. I see a lot of the middle class crying about minimum wage going up here, I say fuck em. Bring on a living wage for all!
Quick edit - currently rumoured to be that minimum wage will be rising £13.20 (17.50USD).
I know a bunch of folks have had problems but AirBnB has never been a problem for me
I do have a problem with them.
We don't travel that often, but same, no issues. I hate hotels because of the added on fees and treating everyone like cattle. They remind me of Planet Fitness trying to get people to just sleep there and then get the hell out. From the stories, it sounds like the airbnb types are just getting as bad in different ways, but I haven't seen it yet.
Like most things, people only talk about the downsides or the horrible experiences. I've only had one issue with them and it wasn't the company, it was the idiot ass owner who got reported hard.
For the most part that is true, but the biggest difference I have seen in the last 15 years is a drop in bed quality. You are almost guaranteed the cheapest bed imaginable at this point.
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