They were making guests wash dishes? That would've been a real problem.
My maid service will not wash dishes. They need me to clear the sink every time before they arrive. It's often a point of contention, because I leave dirty dishes quite often, and I simply forget what needs to be done. I don't have a problem with doing it for them, I just forget.
But I believe that the reason they will not wash my dishes is because of food safety. In a commercial kitchen, even the dishwasher needs to hold a Food Handler's card or certificate. The sanitizing of dishes and utensils is serious business. If they're not clean enough to eat from, you could be passing foodborne illness.
I would never want to stay at a place that didn't professionally wash its dishes. I've never stayed with AirBNB and I plan to keep it that way. Thankfully, the hotel industry is still a quite viable business, and hotels have staff, insurance, and regulation on their side, even now. I recently had a "staycation" in a 98-year-old classic hotel, and it was so wonderful, worry-free, and pleasant, and cost-effective. I am thankful that they are still operating like that.
When I rent a shore house for a week on the east coast (direct from owner rental, not Airbnb), it’s been customary for at least 30 years to clean the house and wash the dishes you use for the next people. We would usually wash them anyway when we arrived because I’m crazy.
When we had little kids we used disposable plates because we didn’t want to break the plates in the house. I don’t do Airbnb but disposable plates might be one way if you needed to stay in a short term rental.
Oh yeah. I toss the sheets in the washer the moment I get up on the day I'm leaving, and transfer them to the dryer (or clothesline) on my way out the door. So there's no chance of the cleaning crew "cleaning" the bed by just making it. As a favor to the next renter.
I think that AirBnB just feels much more annoying because of the fee structures. Yes, renting private homes at a lake cabin, shore house, timeshare or ski lodge have their own customs. AirBnB feels much worse (to me) because you select $200 a night, and end up paying $400 after all of the fees. So it used to make it difficult to search for places in your price range because of all the absurd fees piled on top most of which is cleaning. Then you have to clean yourself via a list of chores they give you, then you could be fined by them. All the while a massive corporation makes a ton of money simply matchmaking. It is much different when you are paying it forward in a small community. I didn't articulate it well, but for me the feeling is entirely different. Less that you participate in a community and culture and more that you are disposable labor for what is increasingly a luxury experience typically provided by a rich landlord.
AirBnb is camping. I have been travel camping with and without people for 50 years. The longer you camp the better the experience. Almost all of the first 25 years involved a tent (or bivy sack), and maybe a camp kitchen. Then you surface again, happy minded, into a world where people travel but they expect everyone touching their utensils or even maybe food(?) have a "Food Handler's card or certificate". Whatever that is. Back into the bush.
A maid service does not require a Food Handler's card to wash dishes. They won't do it by default because they can charge more if they offer it as an addon.
They literally will not do it at all. They refuse, and they will make me pick up the dishes and move them out of the sink.
Yes, if it were an add-on service, they would ask me for permission and then go ahead and charge me for the service. That is something they do with cleaning the oven and such other things. They simply will not wash dishes at all, period, full stop.
It's got to the point now, where if I forgot and left dishes in the sink, I will take them out and hide them somewhere, like the fridge, before the team arrives at my door. And then, hopefully I do not forget to retrieve them and properly clean them immediately.
Not only that, a cleaning crew that I'm explicitly paying for via the cleaning fee. It was ridiculous, and I'm sure it drove a lot of people to choose hotels over an equivalent Airbnb.
Same. I have consistently left feedback that even the idea of such policies makes me choose airbnb less. Haven’t used them in several years now due to the possibility.
Thing is, the cleaning fee is "just" a fixed fee that goes down, as a proportion of your total bill, the longer you stay. Not really a bad deal.
People would have accepted this principle just fine if they just put it in the damn total price shown, so you could do a fair comparison between your lodging options.
They could have structured their reservations system the same as say, Hilton does - when you book 5 nights, and the nights vary in price due to demand, say it's $100, $100, $200, $100, $100, they just show "$120 per night (avg)".
Instead AirBNB thought they could get cute and pretend that this fixed part of the charge is not part of the price at all, it's this one separate purpose. Well, of course people are going to expect that if they're literally paying $200 for a cleaning crew (a cleaning that will take maybe 90 minutes max and cost the owner far less than $200), why the F can't they take the trash out? They did this to themselves.
I've been an Airbnb host for the last 3 years. We've never expected guests to do any cleaning or washing of dishes (although it's always appreciated when they do!) We charge a small cleaning fee to cover the costs of cleaning our studio which only takes an hour. We also have maintained a really high rating over the last few years (currently at 4.96). I would hope that other rentals that have ridiculous rules and high cleaning fees would suffer from average ratings?
Out of curiosity, why is the cleaning fee not included into the rental rate? Is it required to be listed separately or does that simplify accounting somehow?
Maybe to encourage longer stays? The cleaning fee is paid once per stay, not once per night. I get why it is a separate charge, since they aren't cleaning the place daily (like a hotel), only at the end of your stay.
For us, we charge the same cleaning fee whether you stay for 1 night or 7 nights. So I don't know how we can incorporate that into the nightly fee without either over-charging or under-charging for cleaning. Having it listed separately keeps it consistent and clear to guests.
That was entirely on Airbnb for presenting it that way. Hosts would enter in their per-reservation cleaning cost so it could be integrated into the price paid by guests, but Airbnb stubbornly itemized it on the checkout page for years. I believe they finally did away with it (in favor of building into the nightly rate) about a year ago.
The market is more complicated than that, unfortunately. Some properties can sustain high ratings on their other strengths (e.g. location, decor, view, heritage) regardless of the host rules and the clientele that's interested in them. There's also a problem with the rental market getting very thin for some locations and property types (e.g. 3+ bedrooms), so ratings effectively stop mattering.
As a personal example, I once stayed at a place that charged a $150 cleaning fee, but also required dishes + taking the trash out and down the street, which wasn't known until we opened the door. And of course there was a threat that failure to do so would incur a fee. Also a bit of ceiling plaster fell on my wife during the night. Still had a fantastic rating because it was a castle and I'd stay there again if someone else paid.
Oddly this will probably let prices be raised, even though there's a cleaner usually there right after..
Most guests of AirBNB like clean homes, and usually tidy up pretty well themselves. Maybe there's a way to incentivize those who choose to, or want to and offer a discount if they want it.
Contrarian view here but honestly I can't imagine not cleaning up after yourself by default. Of course I am not saying that I do a deep clean at every place I stay but if I'm staying in an AirBNB the very least I do is to leave the place in a civilised way. For example, if I use kitchen utensils I either clean them or put in the dishwasher when available. I seriously never understood people that just leave completely dirty things behind, especially when they are travelling with their kids.
You can still do that. The host just can't require you to do that - especially after charging a mandatory cleaning fee.
I mostly stopped using AirBnB due to the impact of their existence and lobbying on cities and affordable housing, but after my final few stays I was ready to quit over the huge fees, the fact those fees were hidden when searching, and the absurd rules BS.
I can see both sides of the issue, that is, hosts protecting themselves (to an extent) from dirty guests. I've seen once the huge pile of dishes in a shared stay, and it wasn't nice.
I think it's not a big issue for people who clean up after themselves daily, but on the other hand, sparing those last 10 minutes on the checkout morning... ;)
I would never be expected to clean my dishes after ordering room service in a hotel. The price of an AirBNB would have to be much cheaper than a hotel in order for me to do my own cleaning. And in my city at least, it never was.
but you are paying extra for the room service. the price pf washing is included in that. when i bring my own food then i totally expect to clean the dishes i use from the host myself.
There's a difference between putting dishes in the dishwasher and doing the dishes. I'm glad to put trash in the trash can. I'm not willing to take the trash down two flights of stairs and find the right dumpster. I'm willing to put my sheets in the washing machine. I'm not willing to do the laundry.
It's interesting how Airbnb has diverged from its original vibe of "staying at somebody's house." When I "stay at somebody's house" I wash the dishes, take out the trash, etc. Essentially, leave it as I found it, if not a bit better. I also expect "somebody's house" to be cleaner than a hotel.
Granted, Airbnb has taken on the hotel industry, and so I'm not surprised that their rules have evolved.
These things are banned because they became the Amazon equivalent of low balling rates and tacking on shipping fees.
The relationship to homliness really has nothing to do with this. Your friends never charged you to stay then charge 4x that because you left some trash.
I agree about how one should conduct themselves in someone else's home, but is it really that interesting how they progressed as a technology company? To me it seems like the tried and true formula of enshittification. It's the startup playbook.
You do those things when you’re staying at a friend or family member’s place. But your friends and family aren’t charging you hundreds of dollars a night, plus a $250 cleaning fee.
It’s not just Airbnb the company that moved away from it, it’s the Airbnb hosts that moved away from it as soon as opportunists started becoming mega landlords renting out ikea-furnished party houses. It hasn’t been the original “person with a spare room for a weekend” Airbnb in a long, long time.
Staying with my family and friends and helping with common household chores, the same as I would be doing at my own home, is a completely different thing than paying $150-350 a night to some rando.
I recently used airbnb quite a bit in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and found quite a bit of that old vibe, ranging from a spare room in a young brother & sister's house, to more suite-style accomodation. I was very happy with all my stays, specifically the hosts who balanced privacy with friendly helpfulness.
These are all self-inflicted wounds by AirBnB. I have used AirBnB a few times in the past, but these days opt for a hotel instead if I can.
They could take user feedback seriously, but chose not to. Case in point: we booked a place in Hawaii. We (2 people) arrived the day of, tired as heck from the beach activities. Place looked fine, except for the crumbs of food in the nooks and crannies of the kitchen. No big deal. We crashed almost right away, too tired to do anything else. An hour later, my wife jumped up, claiming some insect was walking on her legs. I turned on the lights sleepily, and lo and behold, there were cockroaches on the ceiling, scurrying about (and one had fallen and landed on my wife's legs). In the middle of the night, I contacted AirBnB help. They wanted proof. So I took a video and sent it, along with photos. Finally around 2AM they agreed that we should get out of there. We packed up and left for the beach, to wait things out.
My first reaction was: I should leave a review telling people about the roaches. But guess what? AirBnB cancelled our reservation, so there was no way to rate the place or leave a review! They did refund me, but we wasted a day trying to catch up on the lost sleep.
After that experience, I stopped booking AirBnBs if I could help it. They (and VRBO) are a last resort for me (no pun intended).
There seems to be the same by symmetrical issue going on as well. where guests who lie without proof can leave a retaliatory review when not getting a refund. For problems that never existed of course.
It happens to host with hundreds of spectacular reviews.
Toward the tail end of the pandemic, well after vaccines and the average person even remotely cared about it, I stayed in a small studio apartment.
The cleaning fee was $200.
The host gave me a list of at least 30 things I needed to do, including vacuum the floors & washing all the dishes and returning them to their exact initial positions - along with photos of where everything should go, exactly, along with a list of fines as high as $100 PER ITEM for each infraction the cleaning crew could find.
I have never stayed in an AirBNB since outside of hosting a large group, and I never will again.
They've banned this now.
What about all the hosts using AI to pretend guests trashed their place?
No thanks.
Hotels are just fine. I hope all these get-rich-quick scumbag AirBNB speculators get wiped out by high interest rates and lose every penny they have so that people who actually need housing can afford it, and people who actually know how to run a hospitality business can keep doing that correctly.
I tend to agree, nothing of value would be lost if AirBNB disappeared tomorrow. Vacation rentals have always existed anyway, and the cheesy operations that do nothing but rent out each of the bedrooms in a random house in Daly City are just converting normal rental homes to mediocre hotel rooms, a service literally no one was asking for. Enough normal hotel rooms already exist.
You really take your chances with AirBnb. I have so many stories where I got burned by Airbnb. As a customer they are pretty lousy about handling snafus. From Airbnb’s perspective they are a marketplace so their users and both the buyers and sellers. These two groups interests naturally conflict. They need to balance this tension and they don’t want to burn the renter who make the platform work. That said they do a lousy job of building trust. You can never be sure a listing will have what you think it will and Airbnb does very little to investigate what a property offers. Having a kitchen and decent WiFi is nice, but hotels win in terms of reliability and service and often price.
You hit the nail on the head with the problem. It’s not actually that interesting of a problem, it’s classic incentive misalignment. Airbnb is going to continue to not give a fuck as long as it makes them money. And why wouldn’t they? It’s the American way
Airbnb has the incentive to not tank their marketplace and they seem to be slowly responding to the increasingly negative sentiment to their brand. I somewhat suspect that their leadership lives in a bubble that insulates them from how lousy their brand is these days. I’m sure they have thought of lots of things but these would all cost money and require them to admit that their product is basically seen as a sketchy black market with a lot of sleazy behavior.
Yeah it’s not really an interesting problem, it’s basically how America works these days. Will it affect shareholder bottom line? If so, then we care. If not, we don’t. Pretty simple. America creates stuff that encourages this behavior and then acts all surprised pikachu when all of the beautiful incentives that were set up play out exactly as expected. The beatings will continue until morale improves
I'd argue that it is that interesting of a problem because it gives outsiders (us) insight into AirBnB's marketplace dynamics.
It has long been obvious that many scammy hosts exist on the platform, and it ought to be easy to detect such hosts if they bother to try. Yet, that never happened until now.
So what changed? I would bet that until now they have always worried about having enough inventory to sell, and that now they are noticing they have too much inventory. That changes the dynamics from "be extra nice to those who bring the inventory, and even tolerate a little fraud from them" to "be extra nice to those bringing the dollars".
I do wonder if this is an early sign of a coming recession.
We stayed in one last week in Seoul, only because hotels are prohibitively expensive. (We book last minute.)
On leaving, the host offered us a discount on future bookings if we left a 5-star review. This 'beg for a 5-star' practice is common in every Asian business. We got it from a Hilton in Vietnam. (It's probably global. Our recent experience happens to be in Asia.)
In fairness, hotel ratings are the same. My SOP now is to ignore all 5-star ratings. Simply don't read them. Instead, sort by lowest and that gives you the true measure of a place.
I got this once when visiting an airport lounge in Asia. Like beyond begging, the person asked for a review and wanted to stand there until I finished it.
They really are. Across every platform. Ratings are 90% cheating of one kind or another. There's just no way to have people leave honest feedback that isn't subject to begging by the parties whose KPIs those ratings are, or prone to lying/exaggeration/sabotage by people with an axe to grind :(
My experience in Japan is quite the opposite. A good place gets 3 stars because it's up to expectations, while any perceived slight from staff can easily get that down to 2 stars. Reviews of 4 stars or more from locals tend to correspond to some special experience.
Japan is unique in the world for the stringency of its service standards, in my experience. However, if you use western review services instead of their domestic versions, all bets are off. Google Maps, Yelp, etc., are packed with stuff tourists love, which no local would touch. Things that locals find unbelievably rude get 5 stars on Yelp.
Tourists think that this stuff is still higher quality than what is found outside of Japan (which it usually is), but things have definitely begun to degrade with the tourist boom.
I rated a place 3-star overall after a subpar experience. The review stood for some time, but has since been edited to a 5-star, presumably at the request of a host. Totally broken indeed.
Prices for higher-end lake homes/cabins/vacation homes etc., for AirBnB and VRBO are roughly equivalent where I live. This is pretty much the only kind of AirBNB I'll consider, and it is usually more about the the location of the home (on a lake, near skiing, etc) and it being large enough to split amongst others. Also many are managed by property management companies and list across multiple platforms. If I can track down the company I'll directly contact to see if there are cheaper rates.
IMO this is basically the only category of AirBnb that's worth considering and it doesn't seem like a big growth area.
The property management companies are great - you can even haggle with them. I love how clearly they identify themselves on both AirBNB and VRBO. You just have to be willing to give up the (false) security of booking through AirBNB.
I've had a similar experience. Everything looked okay until I found rat droppings, and not just a few either. Customer support was insisting on minimizing it, though I got a refund too. I know it doesn't happen all the time, but when it does it sours everything and reminds you that you are taking a gamble.
While AirBnB might be bad, my mom booked a place using Agoda. It was a NIGHTMARE. Admittedly this was in Egypt, but the unit was filthy and seemed to be owned by a company in the UAE.
If it was just the filth, it could be like any other terrible experience, but this mid-rise was standing next to the rubble of a razed building beside it and there was literally an open gas pipe hanging upright two floors down with people smoking above. The doorman who showed us the unit seemed unconcerned and it was nearly impossible to get our money back until we literally threatened to sue Agoda. We had sent them all our evidence (we took pictures) and even had the doorman talk to them on the phone and it was still like pulling teeth to get them to refund us.
To add insult to injury the place was more expensive than nearby hotels and I just checked and the place is still listed (we went a year ago)!
I've never been a host but I can't see why this would be a problem that AirBnB should make a call on. I've travelled to places where they have different social norms and visitors should adapt to local culture.
They’re a two-sided marketplace where the parties are incentivized to be adversarial. Every renter want to pay less / get money back, every landlord wants to minimize cost and stick renters with extra costs.
There’s a reason municipalities have landlord/tenant laws, and Airbnb’s whole thing was offering hotel-like services at sub-hotel pricing, without hitting landlord/tenant.
They’ve arbitraged themselves out of existence (but not before making a nice profit for Airbnb shareholders).
Maybe it's a regional issue. I have over 150 stays in my account (digital nomad for the last 10 years), and I've not once had any unreasonable charge or conflict with a host.
"Airbnb" is a label that represents a massive range of situations. Different guests, different properties, different expectations.
I'm a host, I've had hundreds of stays over several years, and I have stellar reviews. It's a large house so there's a $250 cleaning fee. I ask guests to start the dishwasher and take their trash to the dumpster at the end of the street.
I'd say I have two types of guests. The first type is the 99% - they are friendly, grateful, and make the whole thing worthwhile. People who ask for recommendations on the area, leave a nice note in our guest book, and are grateful and respectful of our home. They never complain about taking care of a few things before they leave, and often ask what else they can do. It's honestly a source of positivity for everyone involved to have them stay in our home.
I can count on a single hand the number of times I've had the second type of guest. Exploitative people who have it out for us the second they check in and won't be satisfied until they've extracted money and apologies. As a host, I have literally zero recourse against these people. The system is set up to let them behave this way, and they make me more cautious and my home more expensive for everyone else.
Getting to my point - everyone comes to conversations about Airbnb with an enraged, polarized point of view. It's still a thriving platform with absolutely everything in a single place. The homes range from bare bones crash pads and neglected side projects to true luxury experiences. The guests range from people you are happy to have met to true predators.
Unfortunately, Airbnb and Vrbo have created an absolute race to the bottom. As a host I have next to zero ability to screen who stays with us, and I'm basically at the mercy of bad actors. They extract huge fees and are unhelpful to me and barely helpful to my guests. They introduce ham-fisted rules like this every few months and are revenue optimizing themselves off a cliff.
This is a market that could benefit from more choice.
The AirBnb model just fell apart with bad customer experiences. Customers want something closer to a hotel experience. The moment Airbnb started letting hosts treat guests like children doing chores they lost a huge chunk of the market.
It’s ultimately an issue of consistency. If I book with a name brand hotel I have some comfort knowing they have corporate standards that tend to be enforced consistently across properties. If a Hilton, Marriott etc hotel has issues it tends to get dealt with quickly because those brands know consistency is their brand. In extreme cases they will kick hotels out of their brand. That randomly named hotel that used to be a brand name was likely kicked out of the portfolio for compliance issues.
With an AirBnb it’s a total crapshoot. Sometimes it’s totally fine, other times you’d end up in the dirty lair of a psychopath.
As a host, I feel like this issue is mostly just ragebait for TikTok. Same for the cleaning fee complaints (which has been gone for over a year but you still see ppl talking about it). There are absolutely bad hosts out there (I've dealt with it as a guest myself), but most hosts are totally fine and the guest review system absolutely works to filter out egregious behavior.
There's also quite a big perception bias towards guests when it comes to discourse about Airbnbs. As a host I have to deal with so many unbelievably disgusting and disrespectful people renting my places on a regular basis, but nobody is ever talking about that. Social media would have you believe all guests are victimized angels and hosts are greedy and evil. I would love to see some of these people host and find out what it's really like. If you've worked in retail or hospitality you know.
Airbnb has actually gotten extremely sensitive about this perception the last couple years. They've changed a lot of policies to bend over backwards for guests to avoid the PR. Anyone guest you see complaining online about a recent experience should be taken with a _large_ grain of salt because Airbnb very rarely sides with hosts anymore and it likely means the guest did something very egregious to get penalized.
I travel for work a lot and was forced to use airbnb by my former company.
Nothing about this is ragebait. Clean after yourself was the norm, cleaning fees often a full days cost or more, and I had bookings that I never checked into make claims about stains or damage!
Most hosts were bad by hotel standards. I will never use one on my own volition.
You realize the cleaning fee is entirely psychological right? If it were always part of the nightly rate (it has been for over a year) nobody would be talking about it. This is getting at my point about rage bait - you’re complaining about stuff that isn’t even around anymore.
That use case is absolutely better suited to hotels btw. I’ve stayed in many cheap Airbnbs while traveling myself and didn’t have that experience myself.
I find it so odd to claim that explaining my prior experience is "ragebait". It's what I experienced over 100s of stays, consistently.
That's only _part_ of what I experienced though. I stopped using the service by my own volition. They have changed some rules since, but those fees and rules were not the tipping point. The decline in service, misadvertising of spaces, poor customer service and general decline in value stop me from continuing to use AirBnB.
I've been forced into an AirBnB recently, and it was the same nonsense. I could not pull into the driveway because the curb was incorrectly built. Host argued with me that it was fine, drove over and couldn't get their OWN car into it. Then they claimed they hadn't been to the property "in months" and "since the work was done"????? They told me I could park at a nearby grocery store and walk over, but they wouldn't be refunding me. AirBnB sided with them. I logged everything with photos (including the hosts car unable to get into the driveway), screenshots and had my company file a chargeback.
Doesn't even make it into my top 50 worst experiences. Total joke.
I'm talking about the cleaning fee specifically being part of ragebait. You are paying for the cleaning service and whatever operating costs an Airbnb or hotel has otherwise they wouldn't be in business. Whether they put "CLEANING FEE" on the checkout page or not is arbitrary and a total psychological effect, that's it. And it's no longer there on Airbnb. Hotels were doing the same thing with "Resort Fees" or whatever else they have. It's a ploy to get you to the checkout screen and shrug past the additional fees.
I don't know where you are using Airbnb, but seems weird to me that you're saying 100s of stays have been miserable for you. If it were that bad for everyone nobody would be using it and yet Airbnb is growing YoY. Pretty much everyone I know (including myself) has maybe 1-2 bad experiences over dozens of stays. And sure some stays are "fine" and not amazing. But hotels are not necessary much more reliable these days - I've had to leave more hotels in the last 2 years over broken/missing amenities, smells, dilapated rooms, etc than I ever have Airbnbs. Many don't do daily room cleaning any more. It doesn't really line up with the rosy view of hotels that proliferates on here and they have far fewer excuses with dedicated staff, extra rooms, etc.
How is asking the cleaning company to run the dishwasher and take out the garbage “bending over backwards?” I’ve paid the fee to do the minimum amount of cleaning necessary.
I wonder if the bloom is coming off the Airbnb rose (probably not, because these kinds of things are always made a big deal of in tech forums but the company in question usually sees their revenue go up and up).
For me personally I only ever use Airbnb's now for big trips with at least 3-4 bedrooms needed. These types of Airbnbs usually have more professional management in any case. But otherwise I think Airbnb just offers a poor value:
1. For a long time Airbnbs skirted hotel taxes and other fees. Those days are long gone, so I often find Airbnbs to be just as expensive or more than hotels when you factor in cleaning and other fees.
2. Like this article points out, quality control and rules can be all over the map, and people are sick of it. With a hotel you usually know what you're getting, with an Airbnb it's always a crapshoot.
3. A huge benefit with a hotel is that if something goes wrong you can almost always be moved to another room, sometimes a different hotel. With Airbnb, while they may help you rebook it's much more fraught and you don't know what the next place will be.
So for me I use hotels for most stays now, though I am curious about house swapping for longer overseas trips. I have friends that have raved about it so it just seems like a better option.
Enshitification at its best. I've used Airbnb almost since inception, but the degradation of offering quality has been so noticeable that I totally quit using this two years ago. Last time the host did not only ask me to do all house chores, and still charge a cleaning fee, but wasn't going to provide bed sheets without an extra fee (W(ho)TF thinks I'm renting and possibly coming with my own sheets), but didn't have the room officially ready until 5pm, and had me out at 10am. F*k this "industry"
I had two hosts cancel on me (last minute, both times around Christmas) and haven't dared to use Airbnb since (it was very inconvenient to find alternate accommodation last minute, to say the least.)
I understand that there can be exceptional circumstances. However, I've stayed in more hotels by a factor of at least 25, and this has never happened once. In fact, any minor inconvenience at a hotel is usually remedied promptly, and user reviews generally feel accurate.
Airbnb wouldn't share any information about why the host was allowed to cancel (I understand there may be privacy concerns, but I'm left wondering if they simply found a better paying private offer, given it was for the holiday season and booked well in advance). In one case I found an alternative in the same building, so there was no widespread issue.
Those two are enough to put me off Airbnb forever. I just don't want the additional stress of wondering whether I'll receive a last minute cancellation, even if they're exceedingly rare.
Yeah, the ability for hosts to cancel on a whim and the couple of cases where racist hosts canceled in the middle of the night kinda put me off trying them. I know exactly what I'm getting in a hotel.
This has also happened to me twice. In both cases, it was when we got a good price booking well in advance for a known-busy season, and the cancellation was last minute and left us totally screwed because there were no alternative accommodations available within our budget.
In both cases, Airbnb would only offer us a refund plus maybe like 10%. They would not make any effort to rebook us at an equivalent property.
My theory is that because Airbnb does not sufficiently penalize hosts for these sort of late cancellations, hosts are incentivized to cancel cheap bookings to get a more expensive booking on another platform if prices meaningfully increase.
I've only had two instances where a hotel was unable to accommodate my reservation. The first time, they booked me in an room at the nearest hotel with space, which happened to be a competitor and an upgraded room. The second time, the hotel booked me into the largest room they had available, which happened to be their Presidential suite. (I booked through my credit card's "The Edit" program.)
I've had several AirBnb hosts cancel. Airbnb provided an alternative option the first time but the second time did not. Luckily my credit card's travel insurance treated it like a hotel booking and was able to secure a reservation at a nearby hotel. And that was the last time I used AirBnB.
My extended family rents a beach cottage for one week (saturday-saturday or sunday-sunday) every summer at a family oriented beach in North Carolina. We have done this at the same beach since the early 90s. There are local vacation rental agencies that have offered one week rentals with various packages of linens under similar terms and seasonal pricing for decades. Over the last few years, fewer and fewer houses are available directly from these rental companies and more and more are only listed on Airbnb or VRBO, with nightly pricing that is much higher than the weekly pricing from the local rental agencies.
The vacation rental companies offer very consistent cleaning services and local contacts for any issues with the house, and were relatively cheap because they were typically able to fill these houses with weeklong rentals all summer.
With Airbnb and VRBO, sometimes they are just a marketplace for the exact same rental companies that already existed, under the same terms and conditions, but a higher nightly price, and sometimes they are far less professional operations, and it's not easy to tell which is which when you are initially paying.
Last summer we rented a house directly through a vacation rental company that was also listed on VRBO for a third of the nightly price it was listed on VRBO for. We're dreading the day when the only option left is VRBO.
I found some hair in my Mariott bed sheets. I didn't think it was a big deal but decided to see if I could get fresh sheets. The hotel changed it at 9pm within 10 minutes. Offered me points. Apologized profusely.
What do you think would have been my experience at Airbnb?
Hopefully "no hair in an unclean bed" but I guess everyone's expectations are just at rock bottom these days to the point that we think this is an example to compare things with?
I've used Airbnbs for group trips only. The past few years, I have been leaning towards hotels for trips. But the newer hotels with the "open concept" bathrooms are not great for sharing a room with a friend. As a consumer, these changes puts Airbnb back in favor for me.
If I had places that would ask for a copy of my ID before giving me access codes to enter the place but wasn't mentioned on the listing. Also listed there was a kitchen but there weren't any plates or glasses... They charged $10 for bed linen etc. Also wasn't mentioned in the listing. AirBnB can be really annoying. Often they aren't cheaper than apart-hotels.
i wish they would ban additional “rules” in the check in/out instructions. all rules should be up front before booking or after booking with free 24 cancellation or something.
Potentially unpopular opinion: The renting of short term residential property should be taxed at 15% of revenue. Digital advertising should be taxed at 20% of revenue.
It's sad in a way because this is Airbnb finally abandoning its original "make money by renting out your couch" premise. The handful of remaining small-time hosts offering their actual residence are probably going to leave after these changes, and professionally managed short-term rental properties are going to complete their takeover.
I don’t seem to have had all of the negative experiences that others here are reporting. Most of the recent places I have stayed have been clean and recently renovated. Usually the same or maybe slightly cheaper than a hotel room.
Airbnb drives up the rents of residential neighborhoods to benefit rich travelers. YC needs to stop investing in these morally questionable businesses.
I once had to corner a guy trying to cut himself with a broken piece of mirror before he jumped off a second story balcony into the pool at a multi airbnb complex in Mexico. He'd taken some drugs and had a bad reaction and lost his mind. Cops picked him up running down the street.
I welcome this move to ban host rules that detract from the experience.
I'm certain that I've stayed in an AirBnB or two that had a rule book and chores, but I never read them. I'm a fairly tidy person and generally clean as I go, but I don't go out of my way to clean dishes or take out the trash unless it really needs it. I also don't leave reviews of places I stay, nor do I read the reviews left for me.
gnabgib | 3 hours ago
ButlerianJihad | 3 hours ago
My maid service will not wash dishes. They need me to clear the sink every time before they arrive. It's often a point of contention, because I leave dirty dishes quite often, and I simply forget what needs to be done. I don't have a problem with doing it for them, I just forget.
But I believe that the reason they will not wash my dishes is because of food safety. In a commercial kitchen, even the dishwasher needs to hold a Food Handler's card or certificate. The sanitizing of dishes and utensils is serious business. If they're not clean enough to eat from, you could be passing foodborne illness.
I would never want to stay at a place that didn't professionally wash its dishes. I've never stayed with AirBNB and I plan to keep it that way. Thankfully, the hotel industry is still a quite viable business, and hotels have staff, insurance, and regulation on their side, even now. I recently had a "staycation" in a 98-year-old classic hotel, and it was so wonderful, worry-free, and pleasant, and cost-effective. I am thankful that they are still operating like that.
quietsegfault | 3 hours ago
When we had little kids we used disposable plates because we didn’t want to break the plates in the house. I don’t do Airbnb but disposable plates might be one way if you needed to stay in a short term rental.
dymk | 3 hours ago
mlmonkey | 2 hours ago
selcuka | 3 hours ago
We wash the dishes (and sheets, if there is a dryer) when we arrive, and descale the electric kettle and the coffee machine. I guess I'm crazy too.
myself248 | 2 hours ago
wand3r | 2 hours ago
downut | 3 hours ago
itishappy | 2 hours ago
ButlerianJihad | 2 hours ago
Yes, if it were an add-on service, they would ask me for permission and then go ahead and charge me for the service. That is something they do with cleaning the oven and such other things. They simply will not wash dishes at all, period, full stop.
It's got to the point now, where if I forgot and left dishes in the sink, I will take them out and hide them somewhere, like the fridge, before the team arrives at my door. And then, hopefully I do not forget to retrieve them and properly clean them immediately.
itishappy | 2 hours ago
dpkirchner | 2 hours ago
willio58 | 3 hours ago
Call me lazy but I’ve always wondered why I need to take out the trash when a cleaning crew was coming in 10 minutes after I checked out.
gottorf | 3 hours ago
mathgeek | 2 hours ago
xp84 | an hour ago
People would have accepted this principle just fine if they just put it in the damn total price shown, so you could do a fair comparison between your lodging options.
They could have structured their reservations system the same as say, Hilton does - when you book 5 nights, and the nights vary in price due to demand, say it's $100, $100, $200, $100, $100, they just show "$120 per night (avg)".
Instead AirBNB thought they could get cute and pretend that this fixed part of the charge is not part of the price at all, it's this one separate purpose. Well, of course people are going to expect that if they're literally paying $200 for a cleaning crew (a cleaning that will take maybe 90 minutes max and cost the owner far less than $200), why the F can't they take the trash out? They did this to themselves.
bad_haircut72 | 3 hours ago
mrj | 2 hours ago
amanzi | 2 hours ago
drivingmenuts | 2 hours ago
LastTrain | 2 hours ago
[edit] I checked and they changed this in April of 2025, as of then the fee is rolled up in the advertised rate.
Arainach | 2 hours ago
amanzi | 2 hours ago
Arainach | an hour ago
seanmcdirmid | 2 hours ago
amanzi | 2 hours ago
Rebelgecko | 2 hours ago
facet1ous | 2 hours ago
AlotOfReading | 2 hours ago
As a personal example, I once stayed at a place that charged a $150 cleaning fee, but also required dishes + taking the trash out and down the street, which wasn't known until we opened the door. And of course there was a threat that failure to do so would incur a fee. Also a bit of ceiling plaster fell on my wife during the night. Still had a fantastic rating because it was a castle and I'd stay there again if someone else paid.
sltkr | 2 hours ago
j45 | 2 hours ago
Most guests of AirBNB like clean homes, and usually tidy up pretty well themselves. Maybe there's a way to incentivize those who choose to, or want to and offer a discount if they want it.
dkga | 2 hours ago
Arainach | 2 hours ago
I mostly stopped using AirBnB due to the impact of their existence and lobbying on cities and affordable housing, but after my final few stays I was ready to quit over the huge fees, the fact those fees were hidden when searching, and the absurd rules BS.
pizza234 | 2 hours ago
I think it's not a big issue for people who clean up after themselves daily, but on the other hand, sparing those last 10 minutes on the checkout morning... ;)
gdulli | 2 hours ago
em-bee | an hour ago
epcoa | an hour ago
nonethewiser | 50 minutes ago
[OP] babelfish | 21 minutes ago
Vaslo | an hour ago
tayo42 | an hour ago
I think if homes were presented as a home, not a residential hotel, along with lower prices, cleaning would be perceived differently.
bastawhiz | an hour ago
analog31 | 2 hours ago
Granted, Airbnb has taken on the hotel industry, and so I'm not surprised that their rules have evolved.
cyanydeez | 2 hours ago
The relationship to homliness really has nothing to do with this. Your friends never charged you to stay then charge 4x that because you left some trash.
brailsafe | 2 hours ago
cobolcomesback | 2 hours ago
It’s not just Airbnb the company that moved away from it, it’s the Airbnb hosts that moved away from it as soon as opportunists started becoming mega landlords renting out ikea-furnished party houses. It hasn’t been the original “person with a spare room for a weekend” Airbnb in a long, long time.
add-sub-mul-div | 2 hours ago
Esophagus4 | 2 hours ago
add-sub-mul-div | an hour ago
skeeter2020 | an hour ago
walrus01 | an hour ago
skeeter2020 | an hour ago
mlmonkey | 2 hours ago
They could take user feedback seriously, but chose not to. Case in point: we booked a place in Hawaii. We (2 people) arrived the day of, tired as heck from the beach activities. Place looked fine, except for the crumbs of food in the nooks and crannies of the kitchen. No big deal. We crashed almost right away, too tired to do anything else. An hour later, my wife jumped up, claiming some insect was walking on her legs. I turned on the lights sleepily, and lo and behold, there were cockroaches on the ceiling, scurrying about (and one had fallen and landed on my wife's legs). In the middle of the night, I contacted AirBnB help. They wanted proof. So I took a video and sent it, along with photos. Finally around 2AM they agreed that we should get out of there. We packed up and left for the beach, to wait things out.
My first reaction was: I should leave a review telling people about the roaches. But guess what? AirBnB cancelled our reservation, so there was no way to rate the place or leave a review! They did refund me, but we wasted a day trying to catch up on the lost sleep.
After that experience, I stopped booking AirBnBs if I could help it. They (and VRBO) are a last resort for me (no pun intended).
hirako2000 | 2 hours ago
It happens to host with hundreds of spectacular reviews.
That's why Airbnb likes to get proofs.
onlyrealcuzzo | 2 hours ago
Toward the tail end of the pandemic, well after vaccines and the average person even remotely cared about it, I stayed in a small studio apartment.
The cleaning fee was $200.
The host gave me a list of at least 30 things I needed to do, including vacuum the floors & washing all the dishes and returning them to their exact initial positions - along with photos of where everything should go, exactly, along with a list of fines as high as $100 PER ITEM for each infraction the cleaning crew could find.
I have never stayed in an AirBNB since outside of hosting a large group, and I never will again.
They've banned this now.
What about all the hosts using AI to pretend guests trashed their place?
No thanks.
Hotels are just fine. I hope all these get-rich-quick scumbag AirBNB speculators get wiped out by high interest rates and lose every penny they have so that people who actually need housing can afford it, and people who actually know how to run a hospitality business can keep doing that correctly.
xp84 | an hour ago
blululu | 2 hours ago
SOLAR_FIELDS | an hour ago
blululu | an hour ago
SOLAR_FIELDS | an hour ago
labcomputer | 55 minutes ago
It has long been obvious that many scammy hosts exist on the platform, and it ought to be easy to detect such hosts if they bother to try. Yet, that never happened until now.
So what changed? I would bet that until now they have always worried about having enough inventory to sell, and that now they are noticing they have too much inventory. That changes the dynamics from "be extra nice to those who bring the inventory, and even tolerate a little fraud from them" to "be extra nice to those bringing the dollars".
I do wonder if this is an early sign of a coming recession.
jen729w | an hour ago
On leaving, the host offered us a discount on future bookings if we left a 5-star review. This 'beg for a 5-star' practice is common in every Asian business. We got it from a Hilton in Vietnam. (It's probably global. Our recent experience happens to be in Asia.)
In fairness, hotel ratings are the same. My SOP now is to ignore all 5-star ratings. Simply don't read them. Instead, sort by lowest and that gives you the true measure of a place.
Ratings are totally broken.
ecspike | an hour ago
xp84 | an hour ago
RestartKernel | an hour ago
jen729w | 51 minutes ago
Which, of course it is. There's a reason we're going back there, again, next week.
timr | 36 minutes ago
Tourists think that this stuff is still higher quality than what is found outside of Japan (which it usually is), but things have definitely begun to degrade with the tourist boom.
sda2 | 47 minutes ago
0x1F8B | an hour ago
IMO this is basically the only category of AirBnb that's worth considering and it doesn't seem like a big growth area.
exhilaration | 32 minutes ago
aj2048 | an hour ago
noahbp | 31 minutes ago
nsagent | 28 minutes ago
If it was just the filth, it could be like any other terrible experience, but this mid-rise was standing next to the rubble of a razed building beside it and there was literally an open gas pipe hanging upright two floors down with people smoking above. The doorman who showed us the unit seemed unconcerned and it was nearly impossible to get our money back until we literally threatened to sue Agoda. We had sent them all our evidence (we took pictures) and even had the doorman talk to them on the phone and it was still like pulling teeth to get them to refund us.
To add insult to injury the place was more expensive than nearby hotels and I just checked and the place is still listed (we went a year ago)!
nsonha | 2 hours ago
syntaxing | 2 hours ago
brookst | 2 hours ago
There’s a reason municipalities have landlord/tenant laws, and Airbnb’s whole thing was offering hotel-like services at sub-hotel pricing, without hitting landlord/tenant.
They’ve arbitraged themselves out of existence (but not before making a nice profit for Airbnb shareholders).
Eueudhsbsj32 | an hour ago
kbos87 | 2 hours ago
I'm a host, I've had hundreds of stays over several years, and I have stellar reviews. It's a large house so there's a $250 cleaning fee. I ask guests to start the dishwasher and take their trash to the dumpster at the end of the street.
I'd say I have two types of guests. The first type is the 99% - they are friendly, grateful, and make the whole thing worthwhile. People who ask for recommendations on the area, leave a nice note in our guest book, and are grateful and respectful of our home. They never complain about taking care of a few things before they leave, and often ask what else they can do. It's honestly a source of positivity for everyone involved to have them stay in our home.
I can count on a single hand the number of times I've had the second type of guest. Exploitative people who have it out for us the second they check in and won't be satisfied until they've extracted money and apologies. As a host, I have literally zero recourse against these people. The system is set up to let them behave this way, and they make me more cautious and my home more expensive for everyone else.
Getting to my point - everyone comes to conversations about Airbnb with an enraged, polarized point of view. It's still a thriving platform with absolutely everything in a single place. The homes range from bare bones crash pads and neglected side projects to true luxury experiences. The guests range from people you are happy to have met to true predators.
Unfortunately, Airbnb and Vrbo have created an absolute race to the bottom. As a host I have next to zero ability to screen who stays with us, and I'm basically at the mercy of bad actors. They extract huge fees and are unhelpful to me and barely helpful to my guests. They introduce ham-fisted rules like this every few months and are revenue optimizing themselves off a cliff.
This is a market that could benefit from more choice.
YokoZar | an hour ago
Vaslo | an hour ago
cmiles8 | an hour ago
It’s ultimately an issue of consistency. If I book with a name brand hotel I have some comfort knowing they have corporate standards that tend to be enforced consistently across properties. If a Hilton, Marriott etc hotel has issues it tends to get dealt with quickly because those brands know consistency is their brand. In extreme cases they will kick hotels out of their brand. That randomly named hotel that used to be a brand name was likely kicked out of the portfolio for compliance issues.
With an AirBnb it’s a total crapshoot. Sometimes it’s totally fine, other times you’d end up in the dirty lair of a psychopath.
labcomputer | 37 minutes ago
The problem is a lot of AirBnB hosts want to offer the hostel experience for hotel prices.
facet1ous | an hour ago
There's also quite a big perception bias towards guests when it comes to discourse about Airbnbs. As a host I have to deal with so many unbelievably disgusting and disrespectful people renting my places on a regular basis, but nobody is ever talking about that. Social media would have you believe all guests are victimized angels and hosts are greedy and evil. I would love to see some of these people host and find out what it's really like. If you've worked in retail or hospitality you know.
Airbnb has actually gotten extremely sensitive about this perception the last couple years. They've changed a lot of policies to bend over backwards for guests to avoid the PR. Anyone guest you see complaining online about a recent experience should be taken with a _large_ grain of salt because Airbnb very rarely sides with hosts anymore and it likely means the guest did something very egregious to get penalized.
everyone | an hour ago
facet1ous | an hour ago
baubino | an hour ago
casion | an hour ago
Nothing about this is ragebait. Clean after yourself was the norm, cleaning fees often a full days cost or more, and I had bookings that I never checked into make claims about stains or damage!
Most hosts were bad by hotel standards. I will never use one on my own volition.
facet1ous | an hour ago
That use case is absolutely better suited to hotels btw. I’ve stayed in many cheap Airbnbs while traveling myself and didn’t have that experience myself.
casion | an hour ago
That's only _part_ of what I experienced though. I stopped using the service by my own volition. They have changed some rules since, but those fees and rules were not the tipping point. The decline in service, misadvertising of spaces, poor customer service and general decline in value stop me from continuing to use AirBnB.
I've been forced into an AirBnB recently, and it was the same nonsense. I could not pull into the driveway because the curb was incorrectly built. Host argued with me that it was fine, drove over and couldn't get their OWN car into it. Then they claimed they hadn't been to the property "in months" and "since the work was done"????? They told me I could park at a nearby grocery store and walk over, but they wouldn't be refunding me. AirBnB sided with them. I logged everything with photos (including the hosts car unable to get into the driveway), screenshots and had my company file a chargeback.
Doesn't even make it into my top 50 worst experiences. Total joke.
facet1ous | 22 minutes ago
I don't know where you are using Airbnb, but seems weird to me that you're saying 100s of stays have been miserable for you. If it were that bad for everyone nobody would be using it and yet Airbnb is growing YoY. Pretty much everyone I know (including myself) has maybe 1-2 bad experiences over dozens of stays. And sure some stays are "fine" and not amazing. But hotels are not necessary much more reliable these days - I've had to leave more hotels in the last 2 years over broken/missing amenities, smells, dilapated rooms, etc than I ever have Airbnbs. Many don't do daily room cleaning any more. It doesn't really line up with the rosy view of hotels that proliferates on here and they have far fewer excuses with dedicated staff, extra rooms, etc.
Vaslo | an hour ago
hn_throwaway_99 | an hour ago
For me personally I only ever use Airbnb's now for big trips with at least 3-4 bedrooms needed. These types of Airbnbs usually have more professional management in any case. But otherwise I think Airbnb just offers a poor value:
1. For a long time Airbnbs skirted hotel taxes and other fees. Those days are long gone, so I often find Airbnbs to be just as expensive or more than hotels when you factor in cleaning and other fees.
2. Like this article points out, quality control and rules can be all over the map, and people are sick of it. With a hotel you usually know what you're getting, with an Airbnb it's always a crapshoot.
3. A huge benefit with a hotel is that if something goes wrong you can almost always be moved to another room, sometimes a different hotel. With Airbnb, while they may help you rebook it's much more fraught and you don't know what the next place will be.
So for me I use hotels for most stays now, though I am curious about house swapping for longer overseas trips. I have friends that have raved about it so it just seems like a better option.
cactusplant7374 | an hour ago
Turn it off and come back to a sauna that will take 3 hours to cool down. I'm not doing that.
netfortius | an hour ago
at1as | an hour ago
I understand that there can be exceptional circumstances. However, I've stayed in more hotels by a factor of at least 25, and this has never happened once. In fact, any minor inconvenience at a hotel is usually remedied promptly, and user reviews generally feel accurate.
Airbnb wouldn't share any information about why the host was allowed to cancel (I understand there may be privacy concerns, but I'm left wondering if they simply found a better paying private offer, given it was for the holiday season and booked well in advance). In one case I found an alternative in the same building, so there was no widespread issue.
Those two are enough to put me off Airbnb forever. I just don't want the additional stress of wondering whether I'll receive a last minute cancellation, even if they're exceedingly rare.
ecspike | an hour ago
Vaslo | an hour ago
dml2135 | an hour ago
In both cases, Airbnb would only offer us a refund plus maybe like 10%. They would not make any effort to rebook us at an equivalent property.
My theory is that because Airbnb does not sufficiently penalize hosts for these sort of late cancellations, hosts are incentivized to cancel cheap bookings to get a more expensive booking on another platform if prices meaningfully increase.
gamblor956 | 46 minutes ago
I've had several AirBnb hosts cancel. Airbnb provided an alternative option the first time but the second time did not. Luckily my credit card's travel insurance treated it like a hotel booking and was able to secure a reservation at a nearby hotel. And that was the last time I used AirBnB.
annzabelle | an hour ago
The vacation rental companies offer very consistent cleaning services and local contacts for any issues with the house, and were relatively cheap because they were typically able to fill these houses with weeklong rentals all summer.
With Airbnb and VRBO, sometimes they are just a marketplace for the exact same rental companies that already existed, under the same terms and conditions, but a higher nightly price, and sometimes they are far less professional operations, and it's not easy to tell which is which when you are initially paying.
Last summer we rented a house directly through a vacation rental company that was also listed on VRBO for a third of the nightly price it was listed on VRBO for. We're dreading the day when the only option left is VRBO.
sailfast | an hour ago
Would be so much better if every region just started their own again and you just looked up property managers in the yellow pages haha
TNWin | an hour ago
What do you think would have been my experience at Airbnb?
zamadatix | an hour ago
wewewedxfgdf | an hour ago
nisanthan | an hour ago
wdb | an hour ago
laweijfmvo | 50 minutes ago
wand3r | an hour ago
efavdb | an hour ago
paxy | 58 minutes ago
jadar | 53 minutes ago
7e | 50 minutes ago
aunty_helen | 44 minutes ago
I welcome this move to ban host rules that detract from the experience.
hintymad | 35 minutes ago
juiceland | 20 minutes ago