Airbnb Reviews 11

*** Airbnb is charging me almost 300 EUROs service fee for NOTHING! ***

Yesterday, I was trying to book an accommodation for my summer vacation in about 3 weeks. I reserved 3 places as I haven't determined where to stay. When I made the decision today and about to canceled the 2, then I found I need to pay 300 EURO service fee!!! The explanation is that I had overlapping booking so the service fee is not refundable ---- HOWEVER, they do not send alert or warning when I tried to do the overlapping booking. How people will know this rule without first time being trapped into this type of stupid payment?????? STAY AWAY if you dont want to get into any service fee traps !!

DO NOT USE THIS SITE EVER! Their customer service is worse than any other company I have ever used! It is just as bad whether you are a guest or a host. Use VRBO instead!

This Company is so bad. As an owner you have very few information on the guests, no copy of ID, no postal address once somebody want to book your property. Most of time there is no review as guests when they have a bad review register otherwise... they don't follow the identity of the guests ...they can register again and again... even if they are really bad!!!
You don't know who is coming in your property, you don't even have all the names of all the guests... so Airbnb just ask you to say "YES" to your guests without any informations. Once the booking is accepted, most of the time guests are reluctant to give more information , even just a copy of ID or the postal address. Also you don't have any contract signed by the guests, if you have pb with him, it's complicated to call Airbnb. By experience I called them one time when a guest did not come for check out and did not give back my keys... the answer of the call center was "I have to close this phone call because you don't give me the right 4 last digit of your bank account number" which BTW was right... I had my bank statement in front of me with the credit transaction AIRBNB...
Anyway no help at all from Airbnb , when you have a pb, don't count on them... no help at all... and they have the deposit ... so if you need to be reimburse of damages by the deposit ... just nothing, no contract, no deposit, no help from Airbnb. Very bad experience and so bad service from the inexistant "call center".I was obliged to change 2 lockers at my charge... 100$...
I must say also that the most of time Airbnb provides bad people who wants travel discreetly without giving their ID and basic information about them. I had several guests visited by several prostitutes ( you always learn that later...). This never happened before with other websites... Airbnb does not care, they manage the payment and the deposit and you just have to shut your mouth...
If you don't want have pb, or you care your home, believe me avoid them...

Strict cancellation returns half of your full payment regardless of cause and even when cancellation is months before rental and time is during a national event.

Ok i get it , Airbnb - the new way for buyers and sellers to connect over short term rental blah blah .... but why are the apartments so much more expensive than exactly the same properties on b....kings.com and others .I suspect its the fees that are charged to the owners , but it makes me question the integrity of the whole operation. All a little shady

I had a recent stay in Barcelona whith no problems. I returned home and tried to leave a review and view my invoice. This is where the problerms started. I was unable to do eiher until I had my account verified.
I have supplied my Facebook profile and scanned my driving licence but still I can’t verify my profile. They requesteted a video of myself. I find the fact I have to supply a video of myself to verify my profile unbelievable.
I am planning to tour Florida in October and was intending to use then to view and book some accommodation but I am afraid I would no longer consider this as an option. I have also told friends not to use this site and explained the fact I could not view or print my invoice or leave feedback for a stay I paid £550 for. In my opinion the fact I cant view or print my invoice for payment is illegal.
If they persist with this Video requirement for people to verify profiles then I don't think I will be the only person taking this action.

Review integrity is unique @Airbnb. All pay per booking Airbnb competitors are scam operations or inadequate. Airbnb protects guests well.

This review applies to Airbnb US and HQ. However since many international guests use Airbnb when they travel in the US, this applies to them as well and the platform is the same around the world anyway.

Review integrity is unique at Airbnb, not only in its industry but also among all internet companies. This is a huge win for guests as any intelligent person who is risk averse will select a host with many good reviews and be fairly sure that they will get a good experience. This is because on average Airbnb reviews are very accurate. Possibly only Ebay can compare with Airbnb as far as Review integriy. Many other internet companies like Yelp and Tripadvisor cannot compare with Airbnb and pose severe risks to users and guests. From my experience Yelp and Tripadvisor are corrupt and unreliable and their reviews are junk on average and/or do not have the right people and right systems to handle what they try to sell to the public.

Airbnb invests massive resources and very smart and nice people to ensure the integrity and accuracy of reviews. They keep improving although there is still room for improvement. I would like to see Airbnb add star reviews for guests too not just hosts; similarly to what Ebay does where both buyers and sellers are star rated (not just description rated). This would ensure that each Airbnb transaction is smooth for both guests and hosts and that Airbnb would succeed even more.

Airbnb has no competition; all its competitors do not have the resources, ethics, integrity, people and systems that Airbnb has. In fact some of Airbnb competitors, including well recognized names such as Tripadvisor, are essentially scam operations. I am not familiar with VBRO and other non pay per booking operations so I cannot rate them but if VBRO and other were smart they would switch to a pay per booking model so that hosts do not have to pay a huge fee upfront.

In essence many of the recent reviews of angry guests about Airbnb are either fake or the guests did not take the appropriate precautions such as choosing a host with many positive reviews so they get what they ask for.

Another area of improvement for Airbnb would be adding the ability for hosts to include special amenities such as indoor pool vs outdoor pool, private garage etc because many guests do actively look for special amenities but the current Airbnb menu does not allow for that search while many of Airbnb competitors do allow more options in search.

Airbnb has made huge improvements recently. I had an old Truspilot review of Airbnb with 2 stars