Frankly this is why I am not interested in using Air as a guest. It’s getting way too expensive!
I found a four star hotel in Prague over Christmas week. $51 a night. $16 city tax. There was not an Air or Wimdu that could beat that price.
Here in Los Angeles, Airbnbs are much cheaper than any hotel or motel. I wish the prices were closer to the same. I prefer guests who like Airbnb better than hotels/motels to guests who prefer hotels/motels, but book Airbnbs to save money.
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I suppose it depends on a number of factors:
Cleaning fee,
Tax
Security deposit, etc.
If places in LA require all that and are still cheaper, more power to them!
I found LA crazy expensive in comparison to London listings. Eventually had to go with a hostel style Airbnb …
In both of our locations ABBs are MORE expensive than Hotels. Here is a great article about that topic :slight_smile
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Are those charts comparing private rooms to hotels, whole houses/apartments to hotels, or all listings? The last two is a comparison of clementines to grapefruit. They are both citrus but have completely different profiles.
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Since you didn’t read the article I will paraphrase… The comparison is the average of ALL room types on ABB to average hotel prices in the top cities in EU and US. The chart and the map are the same information, so I don’t understand your confusion.
sorry, I thought the link was to the charts.
So they put in one basket private rooms and separate units and call it statistic? Its a joke…
I rent room for 45$ and house for 200$. How can they even compare the 2?
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I’m surprised to hear that you found Los Angeles to be more expensive than London. Were you looking to stay in Santa Monica? Here is a link to my listing which is not even the least expensive listing in my area.
I was just reading on the airbnb community page about the new cancellation policies, and it looks like they are no longer going to honor the 3 “free to cancel” for IB bookings…
yup. I posted that yesterday. No notice. No nothing. And retroactive.
They’ve made the penalties very harsh. Wimdu also has some pretty harsh penalties for cancellation. I totally get it, and I never take cancelling a guest lightly but sometimes it happens. Right now I am paying a hotel for three guests for three nights of their 2-week stay because I screwed up. It was cheaper (and hopefully less stressful for guest) to pay the hotel than to cancel them and forfeit 50% of the booking.
What I’d like to see Airbnb do rather than impose all of these strict new policies is to deny service for any host that cancels more than three bookings a year.
So I do find myself curious. Are these policies being adopted because cancelations by hosts are so common that it is actually a serious business problem? Are there that many people who are so casual about other people’s travel plans that these penalties are actually justified? Or are these new policies to support some marketing campaigns to increase the number of travelers who choose AirBNB?
We occasionally double book or have some other kind of issue in which we need to shift a guest out of their original booking. When this happens I strive for a mutually beneficial change that leaves the guest happier than with their original option. If they voluntarily choose an alternative option that you make available, then everyone is better off. Ideally, you are able to have a thoughtful conversation about what would be sufficiently attractive to them to change their plans and then they then adopt the revised plan without any need for something more coercive like a threat of cancellation. So, in short, I aim to (1) take responsibility for the problem, (2) make clear that the guest only has to move if it is their preference and (3) offer a good or better alternative (e.g., some combination of another airbnb or hotel booking, cash, free nights on the original booking and so on). That’s worked for us every time though it’s always a little uncertain because it requires a reasonable negotiating partner. But, so far, so good.
Same. I have asked guests to move forward and backwards (to create more 3-day slots); other times ask them to shift entirely to another month, even year, etc etc. Always has worked out.
Mearns…Curious if is this during the inquiry process, or after they have booked flights? I rarely fly so didn’t know if altering plane tickets was something simple to do.
What’s not being accounted for in these charts is that guests save money in other ways than the room rate by using Airbnb. If you stay at a listing with kitchen privileges you save money by not cooking your meals. We permit our guests to use our oils, vinegars, spices, etc. so they don’t incur the cost of buying pantry staples. We permit our guests to do laundry. We provide beer, juice and sodas at no extra cost. We provide parking (in our driveway) at no extra cost. We don’t charge for use of our WiFi which I’ve read that many hotels do. We allow use of our laptops and printers so that guests can print tickets to attractions, boarding passes, etc. We provide breakfast which inexpensive motels usually do not.
After they booked. Keep in mind 99% of my guests have to book 1+ year before they could even arrive, so 50% have not booked flights, even those that have, are willing to change them.
Wow @Ellen, you offer the whole package; you really make it easy for your guests to be comfortable. I follow a similar approach.
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Thanks for the compliment @Mearns. My thinking is that we don’t have anything physical that gives our listing the wow factor like you having a private island with a picnic table on which one can play hide the sausage (wink), kona having breathtaking views complete with stunning sunsets, Sandy who doesn’t post any more having beautiful antiques and exquisite linens. What we have to offer is that we are by nature hospitable people. So far, it’s working for us.
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