Would you put your spare room on air bnb?

[EachandEveryone]

We are twenty minutes from Central London. My friend and I are sick of looking for flatmates and would quite like a break from living with other people! What do you think to letting out the spare bedroom?

So I've taken a bit of a risk...advertised my room on gumtree and spare room as short lets only and a few people replied so I sent them all the Airbnb link. I had a reservation request yesterday which I turned down but I have just accepted a 2 week booking with a polish couple. The risk is that they are not Airbnb users and may not know the process but I do need bookings. Wish me luck!

Very canny! Never hurts to have fingers in lots of different pies. TripAdvisor have now started running an AirBnB-esque rent out a room in your home scheme. I might have a look at it but I'll need to work out how it fits with using Instant Book on AirBnB which I don't really want to deactivate.

Trip adviser is probably a good bet to try as they are well established. Let us know how that goes! I'd just worry that trip adviser reviewers seem a bit thick sometimes and you might get some wacky reviews!! Hopefully not. Maybe you could keep instant book on Airbnb and you'd have to be extremely vigilant about blocking the dates immediately if someone booked through trip adviser.

Is this Flipkey or something else? Interesting that they're operating in NYC, an area that Airbnb can't really touch.

Might be a good idea to compare ratings between Tripadvisor and Airbnb for a specific listing to see if reviews worse on Tripadvisor.

No, it wasn't Flipkey, it just looks like normal TripAdvisor. I got halfway through and got distracted. I might go for it, just need more time to get it sorted. Would be better if there was an app for hosting as I do most of my AirBnB'ing from my phone. This is the link my friend sent although it doesn't tell you much, just takes you through the registration
process.rentals.tripadvisor.com/en_GB/register?m=32739

Actually it does seem to suggest that you manage your listing 'on the go' so there must be an app. I will look into it and report back...

The link took me to a site with the Flipkey logo on it.

I had a quick look at Flipkey listings in my area and there's a lot, but all but one are for entire properties

Oh yeah I see that now. And something called HolidayLettings (which is the legal entity referred to in the contract agreement they provide) and something which looks like Niumba? I'd never heard of Flipkey before.

According to various things on the web, Flipkey touted as tripadvisor's rival to Airbnb

I'm not sure if I'm going to regret this polish couple...they appear to be nice and completely agreeable with the rules but the poor woman doesn't work so she's going to be left in the house all day while he gets picked up and goes to work. I already made it clear the living room is just for meals before they told me this so I'm not too worried, if she wants to be in her room all day, but it's not even like it's an easy walk anywhere other than fields! They also asked if they can extend the stay (no, I have guests for 2 weekends after their stay)

We've had that before but I'm not willing to give my living room up for anything so I'd leave them to it

Oh no! I'll be friendly to her but I am not having her camping out in my living room!

Well the polish guests left today having found a longer term rental. So that experiment was a success and now the place is booked out for another 10 days without guests :)

Oh now that's a win! :)

I don't normally suggest anyone look at The Mail online, but today there is an article about the joys and pitfalls of being an AirBnB host which is quite interesting.

However, there is also the most terrible video included in the article of an American AirBnB host's home that has literally been trashed by their guests! It makes me glad that we only let rooms and not the whole house. Awful.

That weird man left a terrible review. The guy who put is own place up the day after we gave him his money back. Two stars for everything I'm gutted. We'd emailed airbnb at the time telling them about him and his behaviour. It's not fair how guests can say what they want about your home and yet you can't do anything. I've never found a proper phone number so that I can actually speak to someone.

Hi Each, you can leave a public response to him which will show up on his AirBnB page which will not look good if he is just starting out as a host himself.

AirBnB have two UK call centres: Reading 08435047257 and London 0203318111

Sorry Each, I left a number off the London AirBnB call centre.
02033181111

Oh Each. Definitely leave a response. Keep it factual and polite and non-emotional but clear on the facts and you will come away with the upper hand. Did you review him in the end?

Now off to read the Daily Fail (against my better judgement....)

What gets me is that the person staying now has asked if she can rebook for another two weeks but, you still don't know how they are going to rate you. We bought her a heater for the room because she said she felt cold!

If she's asking to extend her booking she must be happy enough! Don't worry too much about that guy, I have some low star reviews from my early ghosting days when I didn't really understand what people expected. You just need to iron out the cracks like getting a heater for eg (although I'd be wary about that due to fire risk or massive electricity use if they leave it on all night or something)

I'm wondering about the day of rest when she books will they ask her to review then? That would be handy.

It's like the Malaysian sisters who fave us two stars for communication I was so upset. They stayed for a month and only one of them could speak some English but we muddled through fine. In fact she left me a beautiful letter I can't believe she marked us down so low I'm not sure why she did that.

Were they new to Airbnb? That's one of the risks of hosting people who are new to it, although I found myself that feedback could go either way.

I've never looked to see how individual guests rated me - it would've put me off hosting for life!

I couldn't help myself I was so annoyed tonight I replied to the weird mans comment on our page. Told him we refunded him without question, our description clearly states that our flat is old but has all mod cons and is cleaned professionally once a week and that it is on a busy road in London. I never mentioned that we have never had anyone looking under our rugs or in the kettle before or that we let him in three hours before his check in time even though I was out meeting friends at the time I came home. It's like bloody four in a bed. £24 a night for London and he expects the Ritz. Anyway I'll know to go with my gut next time.