To think that “because of covid” is now taking the piss?

[Ndujauser]

24 hours before we are leaving for a stay in a holiday cottage, and this message has just popped up - “ because of the current situation with covid we are no longer providing bedding. Please bring your own pillows, duvets, linen and towels”.
This feels like a massive cop out now, and I’m really hacked off at having to sort it out at the last minute. I get that there are still plenty of covid cases around, but surely we’re done with this kind of measure?

This is true. But it ought to be made clear at booking.

That's ridiculous. We only have a king duvet so we'd need that, a single and 6 pillows in our Suzuki Swift!

Yes its a frequent cop out, banks insurance companies, shops etc. Everyone is experiencing high call volumes while we keep our staff safe, meanwhile opening times and hours have reduced.

We use airbnb all the time and generally find them ok, but the removal of soft furnishings during covid was an utter joke, for an air borne respiratory virus!!! Not to mention that they dont supply visitors books or comment books anymore because 'covid'

I would be furious OP and I would tell them that I was travelling by public transport and so are not able to carry all this stuff.

I dont even book any where that doesnt supply towels

What are you supposed to do if you you are travelling by public transport. With multiple beds to make. Utterly ridiculous! I’d be furious too op. As for the “reason”…it’s clearly to save money / effort for the air BnB owner.

We’re going to stay in a Premier Inn in a few days time and I am absolutely going to be requesting housekeeping every day - that’s why I stay in a hotel! To have someone else straighten up after me for a couple of days, not to take my own dirty mugs down to reception to swap for clean ones! I hate the dishonesty of the Covid excuse as well because it pretends to be for our sake, not theirs - just own the fact that you want to make more money for providing less of a service!

Utterly ridiculous to think “just pack bedding” is no big deal when you could be flying, travelling by train, with a large family etc.
The last thing I want is to bring a bloody duvet on holiday.

Say you expect a discount.

That's outrageous not to tell you ahead of time. The 'current Covid situation' is hardly coming out of nowhere.

You are saving them hours of work by bringing your own linen, you expect that to be built into the price

They still supply duvets and pillows though!! Perhaps you think guests should bring a mattress too? 😅

What about a sofa, shall I bring that?

Nope, but if you could bring a bed that would be great. Due to Covid we are no longer providing a bed, but we have 24 different types of coffee and 6 types of spoons.

I hope it's an old alert Op. If not, definitely ask for a discount & leave an honest review to at least warn the next people!

I agree OP - too many places using Covid as an excuse for shoddy service and cutting back on what should be normal operating policy.

If you were going camping - then yes, expect to pack your own bedding, but in an Air bnb cottage all you should need to take is personal items such as toiletries.

Please do report back with the outcome.

My gripe with 'because of covid' is that our dentist a) still refuses to give me a scale and polish and b)they have locked the toilet ?

I'd be livid too.

Not only on the basis of 24 hours notice - the pandemic started over 3 years ago and finished a year ago - so they've had plenty of time to decide and implement policy.

But also because they've assumed you are travelling by car and can provide those things for yourself.

I own a holiday let. It’s absolutely not about Covid, that’s about the cost of the linen, I reckon.

Hired Linen for my two bed property costs about £75. They are taking the piss to save money.

As an aside, my housekeeper charges £85 to clean, and rubbish removal is £4.50 per bag. Added to the cost of linen, it’s therefore £164.50 in ‘changeover’ costs without even thinking about use of gas, electricity and water. This is why a lot of holiday lets have a ‘minimum’ nights stay - we get lots of requests for two nights, or people saying that their budget is very low - I don’t think people realise the changeover costs.

But covid is no excuse!

Spoons!?! Are you mad?!? So dangerous 😳

Ridiculous.

We have hired several self-catering properties since the pandemic hit, first in October 2020. We were asked to have a later check in and earlier check out for "extra cleaning", and were asked to strip beds and place bedding/towels in a laundry bag provided in some cases, but have never been asked to PROVIDE our own bedding! That's nuts.

People love to kick Airbnb but they are really just a marketplace like EBay to allow owners to sell to customers. This is not an Airbnb policy, it's an unhinged owner policy. Owner clearly wants to save money on laundry. Not acceptable.

Hopefully a mistake!

I'm just back from an AirBnB which was the total opposite. 'We appreciate you are on holiday so don't worry about taking the rubbish out when you leave'.

It was immaculate. The only thing they asked was to put used towels in the bath. We obviously wiped down surfaces and put the dishwasher on but it was very refreshing to be treated like a paying guest!

I agree, 100%. It's become an excuse to cut corners and cost on services everywhere.

If they were being honest they should probably say "because of Brexit" vbecause I imagine all these reductions in services are due to the scantity of cheap european labour.

Totally agree with you! Some of the things seem completely batshit as well - my health visitor told me she’s no longer allowed to take a laptop into people’s houses “because of covid” so has to write everything in a notepad and type it all up later! What’s the risk from a laptop when she’s not even wearing a mask in my house?!

Having thought about this I think there's more to it.

I think the guests who left 24hrs before you have trashed the duvets and pillows and instead of buying more she's made up a fake policy to get you to bring your own.

A lot of places think it's a brilliant excuse for shitty service.

PS in the place we stayed check in was at 2pm and check out was 11am. Which is extremely generous.

Do you sleep with 3 pillows? Genuinely curious.

It's a massive piss take now. I think the only establishment that can get away with it is the NHS due to having such a huge backlog and being poorly ran by the Tories.
Everybody else needs to get a grip.

Have you checked trustpilot or any of the reviews for the Air B&B to see if it's been mentioned before? It would be interesting to see if others have had such a late warning.
After a very upsetting ordeal with a second hand car garage in St Helens I check every review now. It's bloody exhausting but it stops me from being duped again!

Also curious