Air bnb. Is this common?

[princeperch]

So a year ago i booked an air bnb for split in croatia. It was at face value very good value but it didnt jump out at me as being cheap.

Fast forward nearly a year (we travel in 3 weeks) and the air bnb host sends me a request for an additional 650 quid.

Ive declined to pay it and after speaking to Airbnb they said i didnt have to accept it and the reservation will continue. The host told air bnb they didnt update their costings properly a year ago and the adjusted price is the correct price.the host has agreed to withdraw their request for more money and confirmed the reservation is going ahead.

As a gesture of goodwill I'll probably give them an extra £100 or so when we leave assuming all is ok. But this seems like very sharp practice to me and doesn't exactly inspire confidence when travelling abroad. Is this unusual?

[Hugo Stiglitz]

I had a few good experiences with A&B in different countries.

Then in Fontainbleu the host wanted 270euros for excessive use of bath towels and for cleaning a coffee machine (we didn't use it but I imagine we did use more than two bath towels).

I said no.

They waited right up till the feedback deadline (I didn't know that there was one) and left a scathing, hideous review basically calling us filthy and disrespectful (we tidy up in every hotel etc where we've stayed, in apartments loaded up the washing machine!).

Obviously I couldn't reply saying what really happened as there was a feedback cut off period.

So. I'd be mindful of that if you are hung up on your airbnb account feedback.

[soad]

€270 for that?! Washing a few extra towels?! Greedy!

[paulwirral]

Hugo Stiglitz said:

I had a few good experiences with A&B in different countries.

Then in Fontainbleu the host wanted 270euros for excessive use of bath towels and for cleaning a coffee machine (we didn't use it but I imagine we did use more than two bath towels).

I said no.

They waited right up till the feedback deadline (I didn't know that there was one) and left a scathing, hideous review basically calling us filthy and disrespectful (we tidy up in every hotel etc where we've stayed, in apartments loaded up the washing machine!).

Obviously I couldn't reply saying what really happened as there was a feedback cut off period.

So. I'd be mindful of that if you are hung up on your airbnb account feedback.

Everyone who uses this booking service should leave a honest review to save others ending up with a ruined holiday or stay .
We booked a cottage in my home town of Durham for a couple of nights that had excellent reviews , mainly from Eastern European guests ! Turns out the owner was also Eastern European , the “cottage” was a flat with night storage heaters as central heating , owner didn’t turn them on the night before we arrived , single glazed and freezing , no tv not even a radio and a tiny electric hot water tank barely big enough for 2 quick showers mounted behind a shower curtain beside the shower over bath , the whole flat stank of damp from the very narrow staircase and entrance.
We had to stay as it was student induction week in Durham and everywhere was booked solid .
Did what we had to and left at 7 am , even that felt a little late .
Left an honest review and got a scathing snotty email off the owner and to add insult to injury I left the place cleaner than we arrived only to be told they charged £100 cleaning fee !
Seriously , warn others if the place isn’t up to scratch .

[numtumfutunch]

Im done with AirBnB

At the outset they were fantastic - we stayed in some amazing properties at good prices the highlight being a sensational top floor apartment on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris with a number of superb runners up in eclectic locations for very fair prices

Then their prices became less competitive

Then we got charged a fine for leaving the place in a mess
This was a cycling holiday when we essentially slept in the place and had a bowl of cornflakes and a coffee each morning which we washed up and bussed whilst keeping the bikes inside our car in a garage - no idea what we did wrong

Then the final straw was being accused of stealing a hand towel in a US property rented out for a week by a psychopath who lived next door and was in our face all the time. Even if we had robbed the towel - we hadnt - it was a microscopic percentage pof the rental cost so WTF?

Never again - dead to me etc

Cheers

[Sixsixtysix]

princeperch said:

So a year ago i booked an air bnb for split in croatia. It was at face value very good value but it didnt jump out at me as being cheap.

Fast forward nearly a year (we travel in 3 weeks) and the air bnb host sends me a request for an additional 650 quid.

Ive declined to pay it and after speaking to Airbnb they said i didnt have to accept it and the reservation will continue. The host told air bnb they didnt update their costings properly a year ago and the adjusted price is the correct price.the host has agreed to withdraw their request for more money and confirmed the reservation is going ahead.

As a gesture of goodwill I'll probably give them an extra £100 or so when we leave assuming all is ok. But this seems like very sharp practice to me and doesn't exactly inspire confidence when travelling abroad. Is this unusual?

What happens if you arrive and its now "not available"?

[Register1]

I found a small camera in our last Air bnb.
Gran Canaria.
In the corner of a wall, in the lounge.
Dont know if it was a working camera or not.
It only looked into the lounge.
I took pictures, and sent them to Air bnb on our last day.
We got a full refund of about £700

Edited by Register1 on Sunday 14th July 10:46

Edited by Register1 on Sunday 14th July 10:46

[princeperch]

Sixsixtysix said:

What happens if you arrive and its now "not available"?

Id imagine that's a travel insurance job. Air bnb claim they'll help you out but i wouldn't want to rely just on that.

[CHLEMCBC]

I've stayed in 18 different properties in 7 different countries so far. I've only had one major issue when the property was actually someone else's rented flat. Airbnb sorted us somewhere else, near enough so as to make little difference and gave us £50 within an hour. I guess there's good and bad in all things and it sounds like I've been lucky.

[egomeister]

Sixsixtysix said:

princeperch said:

So a year ago i booked an air bnb for split in croatia. It was at face value very good value but it didnt jump out at me as being cheap.

Fast forward nearly a year (we travel in 3 weeks) and the air bnb host sends me a request for an additional 650 quid.

Ive declined to pay it and after speaking to Airbnb they said i didnt have to accept it and the reservation will continue. The host told air bnb they didnt update their costings properly a year ago and the adjusted price is the correct price.the host has agreed to withdraw their request for more money and confirmed the reservation is going ahead.

As a gesture of goodwill I'll probably give them an extra £100 or so when we leave assuming all is ok. But this seems like very sharp practice to me and doesn't exactly inspire confidence when travelling abroad. Is this unusual?

What happens if you arrive and its now "not available"?

I reckon there is a very good chance this is what will happen. Nobody is going to want to give up £650 they were hoping to get.

Is there a hotel that could be booked on a free cancellation basis, so at least if there is a problem you have a backup lined up?

[princeperch]

This is obviously a risk. I think from looking about we would be able to sort alternative accommodation without too much issue. If she was going to cancel id have expected her to do so now. The fine she receives from air bnb doubles if she cancels it at the very last minute.

[romft123]

we have stayed at perhaps 5 or 6 ABNB's over the past few years. I would say that just over a 1/2 were as described accurately, 2 using a bit of exaggeration and one being ....your kidding right.

After a bad episode in Lanzarote 2 years ago, where we were blamed for breaking a cabana style sun lounger, that was broken, ripping the hinge of a futon bed, which was ripped and not cleaning the small converted garage enough, even tho cleaning is in the bill! I now inspect any rental well and take pix and pass them to ABNB str8 away.

For the Lanza prop, I took pix of everything...on arrival and at the end of our stay there. I left an honest review, it wasnt nasty, but honest. It was a converted garage, no opening windows, the kitchen tiny, 2 hobs, a kettle and small under counter fridge that was iced up! And more. Owner lied about the bandwidth etc as we needed decent bandwidth for work and watching netflix etc. Took pix of screenshots of that as well. All passed onto ABNB. Owner left a scathing review of us. Liars, dirty, worst ever people etc etc. I complained to ABNB and asked them to intervene using my pix. They removed the owners comments but let mine remain. Previous reviews by owners on us were very nice....and have been very nice since, so glad that ABNB saw thru the owners BS.

Its a bit sad, but now we dont trust anyone.

[bloomen]

I've used it a few times without incident but much of the time you can find the same place for less listed somewhere else.

Last one was in Norway and the house was £350 less on booking.com.

I'm probably against the spirit of it as there's absolutely no way I'm interested in staying in someone's bedroom, or any flat that looks like the real occupants left a few seconds ago to attend to something.

Unless it looks slick and anonymous then I foresee needless problems.

[NaePasaran]

numtumfutunch said:

Im done with AirBnB

At the outset they were fantastic - we stayed in some amazing properties at good prices the highlight being a sensational top floor apartment on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris with a number of superb runners up in eclectic locations for very fair prices

Then their prices became less competitive

Then we got charged a fine for leaving the place in a mess
This was a cycling holiday when we essentially slept in the place and had a bowl of cornflakes and a coffee each morning which we washed up and bussed whilst keeping the bikes inside our car in a garage - no idea what we did wrong

Then the final straw was being accused of stealing a hand towel in a US property rented out for a week by a psychopath who lived next door and was in our face all the time. Even if we had robbed the towel - we hadnt - it was a microscopic percentage pof the rental cost so WTF?

Never again - dead to me etc

Cheers

I've given up on them too. At first, as you say, they were great. Used them in London, Tenerife, New York, Toronto etc etc and absolutely no problems. Seems as if thing have changed when the investors decided to get in on the action.

The final straw for me was booking one about a year in advance for a gig in London. Then King Charlie decides to get coronated the same weekend. Heard nothing from the host assumed everything was ok. About 10 days to go and get a refund "property unavailable". Trying to find a hotel or Airbnb alternative, with that notice, during coronation weekend and I was about £500 out of pocket.

I'm a stubborn ****er so swore never again. Don't particularly like what they're doing to some local communities anyway so that's another reason incase I get tempted.

[ATG]

I've used air bnb quite a bit over the years as I am a skinflint when it comes to accommodation in that London for work. We've also used it to get accomodation for a few nights here and there when traveling as a family. London stuff for me is "spare room", for holidays it's apartments. Haven't had any real car crashes. If you get a spare room off a bloke, expect bloke-level cleanliness. Read the reviews in the knowledge that people often talk places up to avoid getting a revenge review from the host. Equally a lot of critical reviews are clearly written by people who are massive pains in the arse.

[RammyMP]

We’re in a Airbnb apartment in Spain at the moment, the tenant upstairs has a table football table that makes a hell of a noise, particularly at 5 in the morning when they get home from a night out. I’ve got earplugs that I put in (I don’t leave home without them) but it’s harsh on the owner for me to leave a review about the noisy neighbours.

But alternatively I’d like to be warned before I got here…

[GreatGranny]

Just a view from the other side

We've had an AirBNB in north Norfolk for about 3-4 years and the guests are definitely getting worse

Unrealistic demands, over crowding (we live 2 hours away so can't see every guest), breakages not reported, over staying check out time, staining carpet, bedding etc.. leaving food in fridge, takeaways left half eaten etc...

Most are good and treat the place with respect but it's the bad ones that spoil all that.

Selling up next year, can't be arsed and I'm retiring so would rather have the cash

[RammyMP]

GreatGranny said:

Just a view from the other side

We've had an AirBNB in north Norfolk for about 3-4 years and the guests are definitely getting worse

Unrealistic demands, over crowding (we live 2 hours away so can't see every guest), breakages not reported, over staying check out time, staining carpet, bedding etc.. leaving food in fridge, takeaways left half eaten etc...

Most are good and treat the place with respect but it's the bad ones that spoil all that.

Selling up next year, can't be arsed and I'm retiring so would rather have the cash

What’s the etiquette with leaving food and stuff though? If it’s perishable bin it I presume. We’re checking out in a few days and I’ve got about a dozen cans of beer that I don’t want to bin, I was just going to leave them in the fridge for either the next guest or the cleaner.

[ChocolateFrog]

GreatGranny said:

Just a view from the other side

We've had an AirBNB in north Norfolk for about 3-4 years and the guests are definitely getting worse

Unrealistic demands, over crowding (we live 2 hours away so can't see every guest), breakages not reported, over staying check out time, staining carpet, bedding etc.. leaving food in fridge, takeaways left half eaten etc...

Most are good and treat the place with respect but it's the bad ones that spoil all that.

Selling up next year, can't be arsed and I'm retiring so would rather have the cash

If you're listing half eaten takeaways then that doesn't sound too bad at all.

We don't use AirBnb anymore. Too expensive and at the behest of ever more deranged owners.

Was brilliant in the early days.

[Rob 131 Sport]

I’ve used it twice, once in Bristol and once in Lanzarote with only positive experiences.

However, I take on the point of others that you want the place to be anonymous, fit for purpose and without personal effects.

We’ve booked next February in Tenerife fir 10 nights and one thing I have noted is that it’s far from cheap.