AIBU to dislike staying in Airbnbs?

[Whatsnewwithyou]

AIBU to dislike staying in Airbnbs? We've done it a few times and while DH likes them, I prefer hotels. I find Airbnbs to generally not be very clean (although I'm sure there are exceptions). Not that our own home is spotless but all those little hairs from strangers in most Airbnbs all over the bathrooms, couches, etc really disgust me.

DH likes being able to have our own food and more space. I like having breakfast in little cafes, lunch from a bakery, etc.

I don't find Airbnbs to generally be much cheaper than hotels particularly in places like London.

So AIBU to say to DH "no more" or should I keep trying? If you prefer Airbnbs to hotels please can you tell me why?

I do like holiday cottages if we're going to stay somewhere for a week due to food preparation and privacy but they usually seem more professionally managed and usually much cleaner than Airbnbs!

I'm a bit worried about the idea of airbnb if bookings can be cancelled at such short notice. Is there no legislation in place to prevent this?

I love airbnb but I have also stayed in some horrible and dirty ones so you have to be careful when booking. I travel a lot in my job and stay in hotels and eat out for weeks on end so I hate hotels when on holidays and prefer to cook my own food mostly. I even like doing the dishes while on holiday so often book apartments with no dishwasher.

I’ve never had an unclean air bnb , but I’ve had a soulless one that was obviously just sitting on the market waiting to be sold.
Generally I love them, and have had really cheap holidays in Greece, Italy and Scandinavia.
I don’t love ke hotels because I’m quite antisocial, don’t like eating at set times, don’t let me being waited at table, don’t like the whole mass heards across the plane feeling that I get there. Maybe I just can’t afford the calibre of hotels I’d enjoy.
Also I think the staff must be resentful and quietly pee in the sinks to get silent revenge. I may be paranoid .....

With one exception every other airbnb place we have stayed in has been a licenced B&B/apartment/cottage rental that uses the airbnb portal for "traffic". We would never have found so many unusual places to stay and met so many lovely hosts without it.

Most of our stays have been rural and we do read reviews carefully.
Most have offered breakfast for an extra few euros. One place the host was a retired chef (who wasn't up to running a restaurant any more), but enjoyed cooking suppers for guests.

One hostess last week turned up with soup and home made cakes for supper, the other took us on a tour of the area in his speedboat. At the very least it seems to be the norm to be offered a glass/bottle of wine when we arrive.

I enjoy the flexibility of having somewhere to cook and plenty of rooms.

I used to work as a hotel cleaner.

I avoid staying in hotels as much as possible.

People clean Air B n B's to a similar standard to their own homes. Hotels are absolutely not cleaned to anything close to this standard.

There is such a huge range for both Air B and B AND hotels - you can't just say 'which is better'. Are you comparing the entire flat versus one person's spare room or the Holiday Inn versus the luxury boutique hotel?

With Air B and B you have to read the reviews and you have to be clear about your expectations. I do Air B and B and am currently rated 4.3 stars and they have said if I don't get up to 4.7 stars they will remove my listing! I won't cry if they do.

One bad review criticised the cleanliness of my kitchen for e.g. I make it very clear to guests that they can use the kitchen if they want to cook, make coffee etc but it is a family home and a family room so it isn't going to be spotless all the time. If that kind of scenario freaks you out - then don't make the booking!

A big problem however is that sometimes people just don't read what you write and then they complain.

I guess that is the one advantage to hotels - at least there are fewer surprises in that you know you can expect a certain level of comfort/facilities.

I think on the whole Air B and B is brilliant and I have stayed in some great places, but you have to read the description and the reviews carefully.

DP stays in hotels for work a lot and although he likes the convenience, you'd have to book a hotel suite to get anywhere near the space and facilities of an Airbnb where you book the whole place and it would cost a lot more. The best ones are those someone has actually lived in or used themselves as a holiday home rather than the straight holiday rental with just the basics supplied.

We've got one booked for a forthcoming holiday and I like staying where the locals live rather than in a resort. I also like having things like a proper oven if we choose not to eat out, etc and a washing machine so we're not hauling a lot of dirty washing home with us. There are some real gems out there and depending on the location and when you go, it can work out a lot cheaper than a standard holiday rental.

Owners who take Airbnb seriously use laundries and employ cleaners. I would love to have a cleaner come in daily but then you can't slob around the place all day if there is someone coming in every day!

Do you dislike Airbnbs specifically or is it that you would prefer a hotel to self catering accommodation?

You can often self cater way cheaper than Airbnb. I often look on there, read the reviews and then find the owners own site and book directly.

I'm medium on AirBnB. I've had some amazing stays, I've also had some average ones. My main dislikes are:

• Having to organise to meet up with the host (at a certain prearranged time and place, rather than just checking in at the front desk)
• Finding the place (can be difficult as you can't just ask someone "where is the Hilton" for example)
• Stay can be cancelled at short notice.
• Used to be cheaper than hotels but not anymore *Can't always leave your bags on check our day (if your flight is later)

If your DH lives them then YABU to rule them out forever, why not stay in both at different times.

*loves them

No longer stay in Airbnb’s the reviews are edited so that they are all positive - negative reviews are not published. Properties advertised in Booking.com or Tripadvisor have more comprehensive reviews - giving you the good and the bad!

Only publishing postive reviews and 5* ratings makes the whole review process utterly pointless.

That, and the lack of clarity about the exact location of the property and the ability for the host to cancel the booking at short notice makes it unlikely that I'll use them. I've used them once, to book a studio in a bit of a niche location, but if I wanted to go back there, I'd now book direct, or use another site.

On terminology, I think some people (perhaps the young digital natives) use AirBnb as a synomyn for 'self catering holiday place' just like a taxi is now 'an uber' or for the more wider population hoover/vacuum etc.

Wouldn’t want to stay in someone’s home with them either
Just embarrasing

Odd thing to say - I've used airbnb for years and have never stayed in someone's home with them. I haven't yet had a bad experience - but I am very careful to read reviews etc. I'm another germophobe and hotel rooms - beds in particular - make my teeth itch. My main motive for using airbnb is to have more room and to be able to self cater. I'm not aiming to save money particularly, but generally a small hotel room is comparable price wise to an apartment.

On the location of Airbnbs - if you stay in one in Spain, they publish their licence number in the listings. If you then Google the licence number you can find the local council/government list of properties and the full address is listed there. Often you can figure it out looking at more than one booking site and Streetview too.

wowfudge - thanks for the information, but again seems like a lot of work for the booker to have to do just to find out where they would be staying - another reason why I'd go to other booking providers where the full address is published at the time of viewing.

If you prefer Airbnbs to hotels please can you tell me why?

This summer we stayed in a s/c apartment in Brussels (actually booked through booking.com, but also listed on Airbnb), in a central but quiet residential street. We had a decent sized bedroom, kitchen/diner, living room and outside patio area with table and seating. So much more spacious and nicer than basically sleeping in a box-like hotel room with no outside space or kitchen/living room. We ate out twice a day but could use the kitchen to prepare breakfast or lunch which we ate on the patio, which we also used for a last drink outside before bed. We also used the fridge to keep drinks etc cool and prepared lunch to take out with us.

The apartment cost us €80 a night. I understand a mid range hotel room in Brussels is around €130 a night.

I've never stayed in one but might have a look after reading this.
I didn't know you had to clean them before you left, that takes self catering to a whole new level .
type in "pets not allowed" this tip is genius. So often I find what seems to be a lovely hotel and then I spot the " dogs welcome". I don't want to sleep in a doggy room.

You don't have to clean them - we made sure we took our rubbish out and that all the crockery and cutlery we'd used was washed and put away, etc. I asked our host if there was anything she would like us to do before we left and she simply asked us to provide a review, nothing else was necessary.

Also, I only booked our latest one a couple of weeks ago and I did see negative reviews of some places and reviews pointing out the pitfalls of some locations, etc. It's like anything - a single ranty negative review has to be balanced against lots of other good ones. If a negative review is just an unfair one from someone who has some axe to grind then I can see an owner might want it removed.

I’ve never stayed in an air bnb that wasn’t immaculate.

Op you know that other people will also have stated in the room before you don’t you?

In a hotel I mean

Your answer is to rent a cottage or apartment that isn't let through airbnb.

Just go have a google at Airbnb and their reviews, it is a well known policy - it isn’t just the unfair ones from someone with an axe to grind that get deleted.

We are staying in our first Airbnb in October in Spain - have already told DH this is my holiday too so not to expect me to cook!!

I'm actually really looking forward to being able to do things without a mealtime schedule and hoping it will be more relaxing. Plus we have a washing machine and dryer in the apartment so shouldn't have to pack as much!

It's a small amount of work if you are looking for the best accommodation to suits your needs and looking across multiple booking platforms. I always look on Streetview to see what the location of accommodation is like, however I book it.

I've used Booking.com a lot in the past but have become increasingly hacked off with finding the free cancellation deals are often far more expensive than the headline price - even when you filter for free cancellation. That used to be Booking.com's USP but it seems they've changed their business model over time.

The one thing that annoys me about Airbnb is that when you search for specific dates and sort by price low to high, it sorts by the lowest price the accommodation is available for, which isn't necessarily within your dates. Then the overall cost can work out to be considerably more than you first thought.

My main concern is the damage the AirbnB model is doing to cities like Amsterdam, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Lisbon etc. It removes a cap on visitor numbers imposed on by availability of hotel rooms, removes properties from the rental market, pushes up prices for locals, hollows out areas by making them meet more the needs of visitors than local. I know cities are taking steps to mitigate this but I still feel a bit uneasy about the whole thing.
I also find hotels quite a treat, having my bed made up, the whole housekeeping thing.