I've been meaning to write about the absolutely horrible experience I had using AirBnB in San Francisco recently. It was a nightmare.
The place was filthy (the pictures online were taken on their best day ever), the people were unfriendly, the room was small and dank- with no way to even lock the door. It was really, really bad.
I suppose it would be worth a gamble if you have the means to change plans on a dime and pay for a last minute hotel- whatever the price. That's what I had to do. But then, those aren't the people AirBnB is catering to, right?
Using AirBnB for the first time -- currently staying at a great apartment in Manhattan. My girlfriend and I are both quite happy! Both of us, and the apartment owner, are first-time AirBnB'ers. It _can_ work, I believe, but you've got to vet things carefully.
We had to work around an understandable but (I think) misguided AirBnB restriction that makes it hard to get phone numbers in to messages -- it's so important to be able to talk to someone to understand who you're dealing with!
From what I've seen, with most of them you either get your own bedroom or the entire house/apartment. It's really no different from a typical vacation rental, except the owner is possibly crashing at a friend's house or a motel during your stay.
Definitely an edge case, but I believe it is because of cases like this that AirBnB holds your payment until 24 hours after you've checked in. You were refunded, right?
Yes- the refund policies vary. This place had a liberal refund policy, so I got everything but the first night back. So, to be fair- not a big loss.
It all turned out OK in the end for me, but I can't say I'm a big fan after the experience. I'm sure that there are plenty of great experiences others have had to counter balance my poor one, tho.
We found a place in Budapest for a stag do, via AirBNB, and it was great. Big, clean, well located, cheap, and the landlord was cool. So experiences definitely do vary. I'd certainly go back to AirBNB after this experience.
My gf and I just found an amazing place in SF for only 60 bucks a night, right on golden gate park. It was 10x better than anything we could have gotten for even $200 a night at a hotel. Don't write off the site because of one bad experience.
I've used AirBnB twice, in DC (private room) and Paris (studio flat), with absolutely stellar results.
Any industry that's about to be disrupted has similar "horror-stories" (obviously that's also true for industries that then doesn't go on to be disrupted) and the plural of anecdote isn't data.
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I've been meaning to write about the absolutely horrible experience I had using AirBnB in San Francisco recently. It was a nightmare.
The place was filthy (the pictures online were taken on their best day ever), the people were unfriendly, the room was small and dank- with no way to even lock the door. It was really, really bad.
I suppose it would be worth a gamble if you have the means to change plans on a dime and pay for a last minute hotel- whatever the price. That's what I had to do. But then, those aren't the people AirBnB is catering to, right?
I guess I'm like Fred Wilson who said "Why would anyone want to rent someone's couch" - I'm probably out of touch or just mildly privileged.
But the idea of sleeping on some stranger's couch doesn't appeal at all (plus the unknowns like cleanliness, security, etc)
Using AirBnB for the first time -- currently staying at a great apartment in Manhattan. My girlfriend and I are both quite happy! Both of us, and the apartment owner, are first-time AirBnB'ers. It _can_ work, I believe, but you've got to vet things carefully.
We had to work around an understandable but (I think) misguided AirBnB restriction that makes it hard to get phone numbers in to messages -- it's so important to be able to talk to someone to understand who you're dealing with!
From what I've seen, with most of them you either get your own bedroom or the entire house/apartment. It's really no different from a typical vacation rental, except the owner is possibly crashing at a friend's house or a motel during your stay.
Definitely an edge case, but I believe it is because of cases like this that AirBnB holds your payment until 24 hours after you've checked in. You were refunded, right?
Yes- the refund policies vary. This place had a liberal refund policy, so I got everything but the first night back. So, to be fair- not a big loss.
It all turned out OK in the end for me, but I can't say I'm a big fan after the experience. I'm sure that there are plenty of great experiences others have had to counter balance my poor one, tho.
We found a place in Budapest for a stag do, via AirBNB, and it was great. Big, clean, well located, cheap, and the landlord was cool. So experiences definitely do vary. I'd certainly go back to AirBNB after this experience.
My gf and I just found an amazing place in SF for only 60 bucks a night, right on golden gate park. It was 10x better than anything we could have gotten for even $200 a night at a hotel. Don't write off the site because of one bad experience.
I've used AirBnB twice, in DC (private room) and Paris (studio flat), with absolutely stellar results.
Any industry that's about to be disrupted has similar "horror-stories" (obviously that's also true for industries that then doesn't go on to be disrupted) and the plural of anecdote isn't data.