My final Airbnb nightmare — back to Hotels in 2024+

I’ve been using Airbnb since it’s initial inception essentially. I met a guy in Dumbo Brooklyn at a co-working place that initially told me about the platform. Two to three years after that, all my friends were already adopting it for not only their travels, but also using it to rent rooms monthly in certain cities like NYC and LA. There were always hiccups for the most part, but back then it was much more affordable and just felt like “hopping on a bus” as opposed to “getting on a plane” which would equate to hotels. You are paying less and getting a discount because it was a step above “couch surfing” essentially. For those that don’t know, couch surfing was a website that was also around at the same time and a bit before that offered kind of a social market place where you can create a profile and ask people in certain cities if you could “crash on their couch” as a traveler. I never used couchsurfing, but Airbnb seemed to follow a similar funky travel culture in the beginning. It was all fun, hip, and cheaper, and in the spirit of “travel”, seemingly. It was a neat alternative to Hotels, with kind of a social-media aspect of it, everyone started using it. Over the years things would continue to change.

Airbnb started turning against and taking advantage of their loyal customers, fanbase and “travel culture”. Eventually Airbnb started incorporating a unscrupulous deception model to their pricing and fees. This has been widely talked about. A user does a search and is given the advertised fee, then you click and see another fee, and basically have to get all the way to the check out screen to see your real total, then you have to bust out a calculator and divide how many nights your staying to see the actual nightly price. Hint: It is nowhere near what is advertised when you initially click the listing. Airbnb’s fees began to drastically increase – while customer support got worst to non-existent. Think chat bots, outsourced “support agents” that barely understand, scripted canned responses, each line of support having to route to a different person and “start over” so you essentially can never make progress or get anywhere, list goes on. They want to take big cuts and commission, and provide very little customer support, as well as claim no liability or accountability if issues arise during their “facilitated” bookings. The problem is greed, they want to impose no barrier for anyone to list a rental, no matter the person and no matter the defectiveness of the property. I have hosted once or twice, but primarily have been a user for 10+ years in 30 countries and even more cities, so this account will be more focused on the consumer, guest, customer as opposed to the “host”. I believe the “hosts”, their business partners essentially, are treated much more fairly then the end user. Airbnb’s success is due to it’s aggressive advertising and marketing campaigns, and their extravagant measures at hiding and sweeping their public issues under the rug at any cost; including always updating their Terms and Conditions and insisting on more private arbitration to keep the problems out of the public eye, as well removing unwanted reviews as they wish (they’ll redirect you to their content policy, which says they can remove what they want, hm..), among many other things.

The company is morally and ethically bankrupt. What started as a funky travel site that tapped into a travel enthusiast culture — would become a greedy monopoly of alternative accommodation that takes advantage of their customers, via non-transparent fees, horrific customer service (if any), price gauging, illegal algorithms and more. There have been several reports of Airbnb using illegal algorithms and AI on their end users; basically as they wish. This is not a company to be trusted with travel plans.

“Host” problems. Prices kept going up, and their fees kept going up. Although, you would really have to dig to figure it out. They work very hard to scramble their prices and to be as non-transparent with pricing as possible. Anyway, once the prices of Airbnb begin to match hotels maybe ~2019, the users would rightfully expect a little more.

The platform started fun and funky, much cheaper and with a Traveler culture spirit. Guests were excited to meet local hosts and to stay with them while traveling. “Hosts” celebrating being hosts and wanted to play that role. When Airbnb became purely about money and simply a “hodge podge” albiet expensive vacation rental website — “hosts” no longer wanted to play that host role. They just wanted the sale, the money, the rental fee. After all when the Airbnb platform backs you at all costs, why would they care to meet this role.

Airbnb holds no accountability for anything nor are the “hosts” typically held accountable at all. “5 minutes from the beach”, “large king sized bed”, “right in the heart of town”, “walk to XZY”, “private entrance”, “self check-in”, “sharing with one other guests”, “A/C” — these are all just a few of the false advertising I’ve been a victim to with Airbnb listings over the years. I’ve stayed at places that were filthy, where the “king sized bed” was only a mattress topper, that had cockroaches, excruciatingly loud with construction on the premises non-stop, “5 minute walk to the beach” was actually a 35 minute walk to the beach and the list goes on. Or a place I booked in San Diego once that said “self check-in”, I specially booked this place for self check-in. During communication with this host she essentially asserted that she wanted to check me in, she also insisted to know my exact ETA non-stop, I was getting in late at night and just wanted an easy check-in after long extended travels in Mexico. This was not possible. I left a modest review after of a 3 stars and was essentially harassed by this “host” because of it for weeks. There is no base standard rules of conduct for “hosts”. If you are uncomfortable Airbnb does not care, too bad, if the place is filthy with cockroaches “that is just your opinion” and again, Airbnb does not care. I stayed at another Airbnb in Arizona where the bed was essentially caved in, it was impossible to get any sleep and to add to this, the A/C was barely working. In another Airbnb in Brussels Belgium, I came home one night and my comforter was missing and my bags were moved in my locked room, by the “host” and zero communication about it. Talk about unsettling, I had valuables in my bag and thought I rented a private room with a lock, the rest of the trip in that Airbnb I basically cared my bags with me everywhere, so uncomfortable. None of these places were cheap either. When the prices were much lower back in the day some of these things you would just let slide, but when you are paying the same as a hotel for a “hodge podge make-shift accommodation” you tend to expect just a little more maybe.

Via atrocious, insulting, to basically non-existent customer support — many claims like the above Airbnb will do nothing, absolutely nothing and fight you tooth and nail; you have the illusion of customer support that is designed by Airbnb via chatbots and outsourced foreign support agents that hardly speak your language and start the conversation over with each “sent message”. They do this to take more commission in fees, and for public relations, under the guise that you will get customer support, but you wont.

Despite when Airbnb got bad, and started turning for the worst, we’ll say ~2019. I would still use Airbnb for convenience, for the spirit and culture of travel and perhaps meeting and staying with some locals, and for a chance at some of those great stories with Airbnb stays, although they tended to happen less and less now. You could kind of feel where the arrow was going as the prices got more tricky to figure out, “customer service” offered nothing but wasting your time for weeks, “hosts” were getting worst, etc and so forth.

My last straw — I was already opting to use Airbnb less at this point, especially in my native U.S. But abroad in certain countries I still felt it offered some value, sometimes you could get your own apartment pretty easily, and although you are often paying 4x in some of these countries for the ease and convenience of their booking site, for a stay of a couple days to a month it felt OK. In January of this year, 2024, I decided to take an impromptu trip down to Puerto Vallarta Mexico for some warmer winter weather and to simply “getaway” for a bit. My first couple nights I stayed at a big hotel chain, essentially, and after decided I wanted to stay for a bit longer in a private apartment. I wanted to cook, practice spanish, and enjoy a private balcony with the warmer weather. Perhaps do some writing and basically just decompress and unwind after some personal issues I’ve been dealing with a lot recently. So, I booked a private apartment for 6-nights that seemed to check all the checkboxes. I booked, paid, and it ‘auto-confirmed” for check-in a few days ahead. Well, no word from this host. Crap, I thought to myself. That is not a good sign. No check-in instructions, greeting or anything. Finally, I reach out very friendly “Hola! When is check-in blah blah blah”. Nothing. A day before check-in, I’m concerned, I say “Solo espanol?”, thinking perhaps she didn’t speak english. I get a response real late at night the night before check-in. “Hello, you need to check in tomorrow at 3pm”. Realizing, I can’t figure out exactly where this rental is with the auto-confirmed address. I respond “is it near the bus stop, where is it exactly?” thanks”. Nothing, no answer. Now, I’m really uncomfortable. She randomly writes me day-of saying “I will be waiting”. Why was she so unfriendly? Why would she choose to ignore my question? Why does she respond so slowly, if at all? I’m concerned. I contact Airbnb and essentially say I don’t know where the place is, and I’m having trouble coordinating a check-in with my travels (I had to take a bus up to the next town where this Airbnb was, and since I relied on WiFi I was really trying to figure this out before hand). I’m talking to a brick-wall, Airbnb dances around the issue and speaks in generalities in broken english that I barely can understand then closes the thread only for you to start over. I start reading their guidelines, which state “start the cancellation process to see your eligible refund” (i.e. below). I do this, just for information as I’m pretty uncomfortable at this point. Does this host not want me there? Is there something wrong with the unit? Is it a scam? Is it safe? What is going on, I thought to myself. Welp, I’m on some shoddy WiFi and double click the ‘Cancel’ button and the reservation states fully cancelled, with basically no refund on a 6-night stay. I call Airbnb immediately and try to communicate to the “host” as well. Airbnb acts like they will help, but then gets back to me via chat and does nothing. I tell Airbnb and “host” I was just concerned with the poor communication, lack of check in instructions and no directions, to see what my options were, “with no refund I surely still want to try and stay there” — Airbnb and host did nothing, celebrated it even and I was ended up left in the dust by Airbnb. I lost a lot of money on those 6 nights, and had to pay for a hotel out of pocket many nights before I had to just cut my trip short and head home early. This was also a Birthday trip.

Perhaps, I could have been more persistent with better communication. Perhaps I could have researched this listing and “host” more, after the math I did, and I saw arguments with other previous guests. Guests complaining she had leaks everywhere and things were broken, several people had to seemed “ditch” their reservation early with this host and Airbnb listings due to problems. So, perhaps I spared a bullet. I did not do my research enough on this Airbnb host and listing. I also realized afterwards she had several different “host” accounts. Just all very bad signs.

I got a strange auto-prompt from Airbnb allowing me to “review the cancelled reservation”. I found some solace in this atleast. I left a poor review explaining the check-in, communication, and direction issues, which I should be entitled to do so as a consumer who spent a lot of money and the hosts conduct resulted in my loss and misfortune. Welp, It was up for about a day in some change before I noticed it was removed! Airbnb had removed my review. Again, going through the gauntlet of horrible “customer service”, I am trying to figure out why. They led me to vague review policies which they could interpret as they wish, as I continued to push, they ultimately led me to their “content policy” which essentially said they can remove anything they want. Wow, just wow!

My biggest qualm was just how Airbnb handled the situation. They didn’t at all. Their fees and commission is so high, that you would think they would offer something. I fought the issue for weeks with them when I got home. Nothing, zero.

After research and letting the dust settle; I came to the conclusion that this Airbnb property had lots of issues with it, things breaking, leaks in the sink, no hot water or pressure in the shower etc. I think the host was reluctant to rent it, hence her shoddy poor communication and runarounds with everything. She celebrated the issues and cancellation as they had problems with actually renting it.

So, now I’m loosing large amounts of money and time using Airbnb. The “customer service” is insulting and definitely was huge element to this failed Airbnb reservation. After 10+ years and ~30 countries with the the platform, I requested my data, and sent in a request to delete my account and profile for good. Thats ~50 great reviews I had at so many travel destinations.

Despite their enormous profit, their mobile application and mobile website is EXTREMELY bad, and this has always been the case. Clunky, glitches, hang ups, freezes — and these defects? You got it. Passed onto the consumer, me, you use. This was also a large portion of my issue.

They also just updated their Terms and Service again recently, to be even MORE shady. So, I’m out in the nick of time. I am not the only one, several of my friends had already ditched the app. With some extensive travel plans for 2024, I can confidently say I am going back to Hotels, and also aspire to just book with the hotels directly.