I need to vent about Air BnB or my head's gonna explode

[easypeasy]

1) Why are the reviews NOT in chronological order??? It's like the evil algorithm monsters from facebook/insta got a hold of Air BnB and thought - "Why be basic and let customers read reviews in an orderly fashion? It'll be fun to mix up the reviews!" 😐 I have to look through pages of reviews and be sure to check dates to calculate the validity of the review (I mean, someone saying "the beds are super comfortable" or "the carpet needs replaced" in 2015 isn't exactly helpful to me now, kwim?)

My favorite was a place with hardwood floors throughout in the pictures. Did a last scan of the reviews and saw that the one that said "the floors are carpeted, not wood" was NEW (and on the next-to-last page of reviews). The other reviews were from 2017. This one was from early 2019. The photos are still hardwood floors. Whut.

Or the listings that will show dozens of photos and then, on a small line of text say "We've switched the furniture out since these photos were taken" and nothing more! TAKE MORE PICTURES! Where we'll be SITTING is a very important matter! Sheesh!

2) The pictures and the lack of captions. And the lack of order to it all. Some hosts will post (with NO captions explaining what the photos are of):

#1 Living Room View 1

#2 Bedroom Two

#3 Closeup of a Flower Vase on a Coffee (or bedside? who knows?) Table

#4 Croissants on a plate on a kitchen counter (are they going to provide freshly made croissants for us upon arrival? If so, I am THERE!)

#5 Bad Angle of Sofa in Living Room

#6 Partial View of a Bathroom

#7 Different Angle of Bedroom Two? Again? Maybe?

#8 Another Bedroom. Wait, no. I recognize that lamp and picture on the wall. It's still the same bedroom, but with a different quilt on the bed. Wth?

#9 Master Bedroom. There it is.

#10 Close up of flatware in a kitchen drawer

#11-#30 PHOTOS OF THE AREA I AM VISITING! I AM ALREADY PLANNING TO VISIT! THIS IS NOT THE CITY'S TOURIST WEBSITE (although the photos were lifted from there... 🙄) STOP IT!!!!

#31 A Partial Kitchen View

#32 Another Bedroom. Waaaait. Nope. It's the Second Bedroom again with a different picture on the wall and the same quilt. View out the window is identical. Why do I need to see this same bedroom again??

#33 A Third Bedroom. Different Window View and two Twin Beds. ✔️

Where are the photos of the fourth bedroom? Where are the photos of the whole kitchen? There are two bathrooms, and we only saw part of one? Is there a dining table? A dining room? Do such wondrous items exist in this house?!?!!

3) The map of the area. I need a place in a specific area. When you zoom in a bit, the available places pop up. When you zoom/shift the map any teensy, tiny bit - whole new bubbles pop up! Another dozen available locations in the EXACT same area. Zoom/shift again? Omg! MORE appear. So I can't just *search* and get ALL of my options listed... nope. I have to keep shifting and zooming in and out. (I do think maybe they are all listed over to the side, but I'm searching the MAP specifically because I want to be in a very specific location! The map should SHOW ME THAT! Argh!)

We are traveling this spring as a family of EIGHT. We need an Air BnB, not a hotel. My brain is going to explode from all this nonsense.

There. Vent completed. I do feel better even though it changed nothing, lol. ✔️

 

Edited November 16, 2019 by easypeasy

[Corraleno]

Have you seen this article about Air BnB? Some of the outdated/incomplete/inaccurate photos may be intentional scams not just general incompetence. 

[Frances]

Personally, I prefer VRBO. We’ve had nothing but good experiences.

[Soror]

We used AirBnB in London, Rome, and Ireland and had great luck but it did take a lot of review reading and looking at pictures. ITA with the randomness of the photos, we didn't stay at any place that we couldn't see exactly what we were getting.

[Soror]

eta- We also used VRBO before and had a good experience there too.

[MamaSprout]

We only stay with super hosts- but also always need a kitchen. Definitely will check out VRBO.

[Guest]

I totally agree with your complaints, except I do actually appreciate some pictures of local activities (walkable or public transit accessible). If it’s a beach house or a ski rental, I appreciate pictures of the beach or skiing we will walk to. 

I have used VRBO successfully many, many times; I have only used AB&B once I think. 

Your complaint about picture order makes me chuckle, because I just loaded photos on Zillow for a rental and I am very particular about the order. It must be logical, as though you are walking in the door and see the living area, then the kitchen, then bedroom, bath, then up the stairs, new bedroom, bath, etc. 

I do think, no matter what, it is fairly tedious to make sure you’re renting the right place. I usually spend several days combing through, and then I will look at my finalists carefully to decide who wins. 

[Innisfree]

3 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Have you seen this article about Air BnB? Some of the outdated/incomplete/inaccurate photos may be intentional scams not just general incompetence. 

The scammers cheated the wrong victim that time. I'm impressed with the postscript about the FBI contacting her the day after her article was published, but disappointed by AirBnB's response.

We have used the platform without problems so far. When we travel, which isn't often, we need more space than hotel rooms offer. At this point hotels just aren't an option. I do spend an lot of time going through reviews, and will probably be even more careful in the future.

In pictures, I want to be able to see how many beds are in each bedroom, and what size they are. My pet peeve is people who advertise a three-bedroom house, but when you hunt through the listing, you find out they have two bedrooms and a sofa bed in the living room.

I do not want pictures of just a vase on a table, or whatever decorative details they have. Spare me the artful shots of pillows at the head of the bed. Just give me good shots that show what is in each room. I agree that I'm not interested in general tourist attraction photos, but I do appreciate seeing exterior views of the neighborhood around the house.

AirBnB has intrigued me as a business opportunity. I think it (and VRBO, etc.) provides a really valuable alternative to hotels, but I am not impressed by some elements of how it is run.

[Carrie12345]

Most people suck at real estate photography.  It makes me want to do real estate photography, but the people who need it most usually don’t see the value in it!

[Guest]

We use VBRO/HomeAway, and even there, there are folks who need help on the photos and information side. And,actually, the same applies to hotel listings on Expedia, where you would expect more professional listings. If I can't get a good idea as to whether a hotel room, apartment, or house will work for us, I go elsewhere. 

And when I give reviews, I try to be very specific for this reason. Not to complain, but to give information (one of my most recent included the information that the historical marker in front of the house is a gym for Pokemon go, which is a plus if you play the game, but if there is a raid event while you are staying there, it may be very congested). 

[alisoncooks]

Yikes.  I just booked our first airbnb for around Christmas. We usually stay in a hotel (the only one there) but it's gotten grungy and the area is sketchy. (This is not a pleasure vacay but a stay to visit my MIL, and the area is awful.)  I'm desperately hoping that the airbnb will be an improvement. 

[Laura Corin]

Husband once booked an Airbnb that turned out to be a scam. There were no reviews, so he checked street view and the address was offices. He called one of the businesses in the building to confirm there was no residence. Airbnb was fine about the refund. The next time we booked a place with no reviews, we asked the owner for proof of address, and she provided it with no problem. Buyer beware.

[gardenmom5]

5 hours ago, soror said:

We used AirBnB in London, Rome, and Ireland and had great luck but it did take a lot of review reading and looking at pictures. ITA with the randomness of the photos, we didn't stay at any place that we couldn't see exactly what we were getting.

we had great luck with ABB in Austria (graz, Innsbruck, and Vienna).   dh did to the booking for that trip.

and yeah - for anything - if you can't see exactly what you're getting, consider it a flag.  doesn't matter what service you're using.

[QueenCat]

Stick to Superhosts and you'll be fine.

[Jean in Newcastle]

We took a trip cross country using air bnb.  With the exception of the "axe murderers cabin" (that's a whole 'nother story!) all of the places were adequate.  But the Superhosts were really nice.  If I were to do it again, I would stick to superhosts if at all possible. 

 

And even on the "axe murderer's cabin", I documented heavily and got half my money back.  (I only asked for half because we did spend the night and weren't actually murdered.) 

[Farrar]

I agree with Superhosts as the easiest bet. We have stayed at a relatively new one a couple of times. One time it was very ick. It was early on in my use of ABnB and I didn't know how to vet them. We were fine. It was cleanish. We lived and the location was what we wanted. The other time, there were a couple of reviews and the photos were obviously not stock. It turned out that the building is still being massively remodeled, so the exterior was very dicey. But the actual apartment was super clean, very lovely, very cheap deal. It was also the ABnB we stayed that had all the strangest surprises - there was a giant old trunk that said "Monkey" and dh was like, wonder what's in there. A huge gorilla mask! It was wild. And ds was like, huh, this fake birdcage has a thing... and the next thing we know, he's flipped a mystery switch and the bird is animatronic and talking to us! There was also a locked steampunk styled hatch (there's really no other way to put this - it was circular and everything!) in the bathroom. No clue what was in there.

[Miss Tick]

I've had good experiences with ABnB in a lot of places dijeron and abroad, but I always feel a sense of risk until we actually get there.

OP I so totally agree about the crazy, useless pictures!!! There are 5 people in our family and I always inspect the pictures closely trying to be sure there will be 5 chairs I can pull up to the dining table. If you are renting out a place that sleeps, say, 8 people, you should have at least 8 forks (or better yet, sporks!) we can share knives, but to get the food from plate to mouth we need something for each of us!

I like to include in my reviews the size of our party and if there is a grocery store nearby or public transit access, since those are things we use and I can rarely find before hand.

[Farrar]

For the one that I rented for my whole family when we were meeting up to scatter my uncle's ashes, I looked through the photos and counted the beds like two dozen times before I was satisfied that I had counted correctly. It's roughest when the number of sleeping places doesn't match the little icons that they have for the beds. Like, okay, if there are four queen beds, but they're all in one room... (we once stayed at a VRBO like that - giant basement "bedroom" area - it was fine and cozy and perfect, but definitely unexpected, ya know?) then that doesn't work. What's the exact configuration.

We may ABnB when the kids go to college. They just passed big rules about them here, but if they're in your own home, the regulations are super easy. We have an English basement (it has its own exterior door). Right now, it's not finished enough, so we'd need to invest probably the whole first year's money from ABnB'ing it. We would put in a kitchenette (sink, apartment sized fridge, microwave, toaster oven, coffee, counters, etc. but no oven or range) and get the bathroom fixed and reconfigure the layout to give us storage and our laundry access (we can't realistically move the laundry upstairs... but again, should be fine - it would just be an adjustment. Right now, the profits people are making from them are enough that it could potentially cover the majority of our mortgage every month, would be obviously good. It's more the investment to make it happen in the first place.

[TravelingChris]

12 hours ago, Frances said:

Personally, I prefer VRBO. We’ve had nothing but good experiences.

Us too. Never used AirBnB but have used VRBO and also local real estate agents in tourist areas too.

Those things would annoy me too

 

[El...]

I prefer booking.com lately, and sometimes a property will be on more than one site so I can see reviews from several sources.  I like that there are generous cancellation options.

We had one really great Airbnb, but I haven't used it since.

[easypeasy]

Ah, thank you for the camaraderie. 🤗 

We will be traveling in Europe and the rooms are the size of postage stamps. I seriously need to SEE each room. 😅 I need to SEE the kitchen! Is the fridge sorta normal sized, or is it the size of a beer cooler?

These are more important than the stupid case photos! 

And yes to the person above who mentioned making sure there are FIVE chairs for your family of five. Or EIGHT forks for your family of 8. EXACTLY! lol 

One place with sleeping space for EIGHT had a TINY loveseat only in the living room and four hardback chairs at a tiny, square table. Ummm....

[Carrie12345]

3 hours ago, Patty Joanna said:

Yup.  I do this kind of work and it is all I can do to keep my mouth shut when people  complain about pricing or when I see the shots they decided to take themselves—and then wonder why they don’t get many showings.   “Ummm...your Gorgeous 3000sf house looks like a double-wide.”

ETA “and I can’t tell where I am in the house.”  Photos should walk you through    

 

Can I just say that the bad videography drives me insane, too? I know this is about AirBnB, but Zillow is full of videos that pass right past doors or, even worse, edit to each room making it no better than their still photography. Zillow added that tool for a REASON!