AirbnbReviews 2,101

Would give less had some guest came on property screaming, cursing threading had to call police and we had called Air BnB 3 times and he calls in after he left before cops came to arrest and air BnB tried to trick me into cancell the reservation. THAT WOULD GIVE HIM EVERY BUCK BACK! Sorry would not fall for it, thanks for looking out for the host. Also they froze the payment as they said there was a personality disagreement so they would release my money. Use flip key, vrbo and homeaway but stay away from this place they are the worst.

This hospitality outsourcing business is becoming a cult for those inside the tent. The endless striving for Superhost status, the needy requests for other hosts to give feedback on their listing, the 1000s of agonizing posts regarding the virtue or necessity of leaving soap v tea bags, to iron sheets or not, to supply shampoo or not, the cogitating about whether soap scum or drain hair, fridge access or feng shui was the real cause of that last poor review... Not to mention the thousands of horror stories and near misses that appear on the site's Group Host Anecdotes.

These wanna be Martha Stewarts have created their own well furnished and tastefully decorated prisons. Hosts are hostage to guest reviews, and are developing coded review strategies to alert each other but not provoke the dreaded negative review, or worse, apparently, no review. The supposed emphasis on security results in a "pant down bend over" protocol for hosts to "verify", but a loose protocol for guests who reportedly game the system.

The site has inaccurate Google tags if you are searching for properties by location, a so called security device: but gives out real addresses to unverified guests whose emails are faked, whose phone numbers are no longer in service, who turn up with extra bodies, and who have trashed, burgled, and robbed hosts.

And a hosting service who thinks it is appropriate to use videos of sleeping women, (no sleeping men mind you) to advertise their site is just out of touch. These videos look real, and show women waking from sleep, apparently unaware they are being filmed. Airbnb say they are actors, but either way, it looks creepy.

The site is hard work, glitchy, under resourced, slow to respond to issues, and lacking support for hosts. Forums do the work of site administrators, and newbies are thrown to the wolves. Guests have the whip hand, and hosts are just collateral damage. You would do as well to do what they used to in the old days, put up a sign: room for rent, apply within.

Airbnb is a wonderful company with great ideas. However, sometimes people can become frustrated especially when dealing with people across various time zones. Travel is a messy business. That being said, most of the problems come from the hosts, and not Airbnb itself. For example, my first experience with the company involved my host canceling just days before my arrival, based on the status on my age (Airbnb standards state you have to be 18+, however she wanted 21+)... Obviously I was frustrated. She had my money and wouldn't let me stay in her home. Airbnb quickly cleared the air, refunded me my money, and gave me 20% off plus an additional $100 for reparations and funds for my next booking. Often times its easy to blame the whole, when really it is simply the disorganization and miscommunication between host and guest. I encourage everyone to use Airbnb and support locals!

Watch Airbnb in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS1BsUi0MKA

Airbnb is a scam, they don't protect the homeowner, they charge fees for taxes that are mandatory. They don't know the laws, and they take fees if the reservation is cancelled in a few minutes. Stay at hotel, or use a vacation property!

We were cancelled by the owner for double booking. I emailed the owner to make sure his place was available and for the price during the holiday before booking online. Almost a month passes after booking then we receive the cancellation. Very unreliable and unprofessional!

DO NOT USE AIRBNB. THEY HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THE OWNERS WHO POST ON THE SITE. In August 2014, I booked a home in Parkland, Florida for 14 members of my family to stay for 4 nights over Thanksgiving weekend. My family was flying in from all over the U, S. This was my first experience with Airbnb. I paid $3392 to Airbnb in August, the full price of the rental of a 7 bedroom, 5 bath home. Last week, I received an e-mail that the owner of the house, Gary, has CANCELLED MY RESERVATION. Airbnb was very sorry. No reason was given for the cancellation. If I had cancelled at anytime, I would have lost 50% of my money. Gary, the owner, was able to walk away. The house is no longer posted on Airbnb, although it is on VRBO.

As a result of the cancellation, Airbnb gave me three links to other homes as possible replacements. Two were in Miami which were geographically undesirable. The third was a "mansion" listed at a price $1,000 per night. When I wrote to the owner to see if the home was available over Thanksgiving, "Richard" said that it was but that the price was now $8,000 for the 4 days. Because someone else showed interest in the house, he was reducing the price to over $6,000 since that was what he had quoted them. ($2,000 more than what was listed). Supervisor, Elena G., offered me money from her "discretionary " account to make up the difference, thus encouraging hosts to gouge their prices.

Airbnb has no control over hosts who can cancel at any time. Additionally, hosts can freely charge what they want regardless of what is posted in the listing, Airbnb allows this to happen. I was not able to find a house for 14 people in time for Thanksgiving. We are all staying at hotels and have not figured out where to have our Thanksgiving dinner at this time. A supervisor at Airbnb did give me a voucher for $500 for my troubles after I asked for some compensation. I was also promised my refund of the $3392 which Airbnb had since early Sept.

I just love this site. I travel now almost exclusively with Airbnb since I rather stay in apartments than in hotels. I also have my own apartment spare room in Airbnb. However this is not for people looking for the safety of a hotel. Using this site, you are going to people's houses. You need to check first your host to see that he/she is reliable and then book. The same applies to hosts. Take a look at the reviews of a person before accepting them to your house. It's common sense. Only negative is their high cost. They charge 15% on top of each reservation for their service. It could be 10%.

My issue with airbnb started with being unable to use their service to begin with. I do not send images of my license or my passport to anyone but government officials. The "confirm a few details only you would know" choice let me to a never-ending loop. I replied to their email telling me that my reservation request had not been sent because I was not "verified" and that I could send a video. A video? Of What? To where? They refused to answer any more questions and simply kept sending the same email about my request not being sent. I contacted the host directly, but she did not understand what they wanted either and could not help me. They have my credit card number, my name, my address and my social security card number. How much "verification" can you possibly need? I feel sorry for hosts and am amazed that anyone goes through all this for a deal. It has been five hours of B. S. I am going to bed.

DO not put your listing on AIRBNB. They delay your payments and its been almost 3 months since the last person checked out of my place and i still have not receive my money.

The customer service sucks and they pretty much use standard templates to answer you

First (and will be the last) experience attempting to book with this service was not good. I see that hosts like the idea that the service is "free", but they make their money on excessive fees and lack of flexibility. Too much for the customer to read before booking, hosts are not allowed to modify anything. We are vacation rental hosts, and use HomeAway/VRBO which has a yearly fee, but charges no percentages or fees for bookings or cancellations, we are in complete control of that, offering our customers the very best service. BUYER BEWARE AND READ THE FINE PRINT BEFORE BOOKING IF YOU HAVE TIME FOR THAT CRAP!

I found a cabin I wanted to rent near Yosemite. When I spoke to the owner for booking, they told be to go to airbnb.com…… That was the beginning of the end. First of all I have never had to give out so much personal information just to book a reservation and I felt very uncomfortable doing so but I wanted the cabin so I pushed forward. When I got to what I thought was the end? Well NOTHING! I got no confirmation that they had my information or that I had a reservation. Just nothing. So I went to FAQ which didn't help at all. I contacted the owner who said they had not received confirmation of payment and to maybe try tech support. I looked for Tech support but guess what? Nothing! I clicked on "Contact" but that took me back to the bottom of the page. To make a long, annoying story short, I kept going around in circles to no avail. I checked what I assumed was my status and it had "Verify me" still there as if I had not just provided my life's history and information so I clicked it again and yup, you guessed it…. Nothing. This went on for about 45 or so minuets while I tried to contact someone. I finally gave up and tried to call the owner back but no one answered the phone so I hit the big cancel button and moved on to another cabin that does not use this system. After I was all booked into another cabin with another company I decided to stroll back through the airbnb site. I was concerned about all my personal information floating around without knowing what happened to it. Then I notice in the upper top corner a little telephone icon with the work "Urgent" next to it. I decided to click on it and low and behold, it began to ring. A live person answered the phone. I started telling this person my woes with navigating their site and the man (Very condescendingly) said he was sorry I had problems with their site but he assured me my information was safe. I told him to please delete all the information and delete me from their files. I complained that there was no means in which to solve my problems, no person to talk to, no tech support etc. He asked me if I was using google chrome. I said no, I have a MAC and I use safari. Oh he said, sometimes that is a problem. I said well maybe you should say something at the beginning of your site about only chrome users need apply. He also informed me that the phone icon was for people with "Real emergencies". I also informed him, that their site directly cost his client a four day reservation and that I would not book with any company in the future that uses them. It was obvious he couldn't care less. Bottom line……An annoying site, a waste of time and a lot of personal information given out for no real reason! UGH Horrible to navigate, horrible customer service!

Stay away is right. Although we did book with a host from airbnb, the host forgot to mention that machinery and noise in the surrounding area of the Waikiki townhouse is constant and one is unable to get away from it for a moment. We had the possibility of a hurricane coming our way so were advised to leave three days ahead but our host simply said, "tough luck!"... I would NEVER do that again. Uncomfortably hot during the day as well. No view at all... whereas it was listed as having a view.

I can't even begin to describe what I think of the entire air bnb concept. It is very unsafe and I would highly advise against booking with them. We had booked through them a couple of times and its never really been that great but it was acceptable and we understood the risks when booking. However, this time it was just not acceptable. We booked early in September our two weeks trip to Tasmania. The last stop would be 4 nights in Hobart over New Years Eve. We booked a lovely cottage and rested in the knowledge that we did well as we booked early on and the trip was all sorted. Late October the Host cancelled our booking for some personal reason. Now we still have't found any alternative accommodation as its all booked out now over the busy period and airbnb has done nothing but apologised and given us our money back. There is no security in this system and I will never ever use this company again!
We have used websites like stayz a lot and this has never happened before.

I am zero for two on Airbnb. The host for the first place in New York didn't realize the date and time I was to arrive didn't answer his phone and showed up two hours late (around midnight) after I had booked a hotel room thinking he wasn't going to show up at all. Then, the toilet didn't work for the week and he never came around to fix it. The second place in Jerusalem was very run down and dirty. Both locations had fairly good reviews which I will never understand. I will never use Airbnb again!

AIRBnB DOESNT SERVICE THEIR RENTALS WELL

In September 2014, we rented a condo from Airbnb for 6 nights. It was represented to us as a luxury condo with a view of... The price was $2,500

Here is a list of the problems we encountered during our brief stay.

1. The toilet in the guest bathroom was running constantly. It never stopped the whole time we were there. On the second day, the toilet bowl would not refill unless I took the top off and moved a few parts around. Had to be done every time the toiled was flushed. Maintenance came up and got it to refill but not stop running about every 45 seconds. They said the whole inside needing replacing. This never happened and toilet was running when we left. The whole 6 days!

2. The light over the vanity in the same bathroom was out. This was fixed 2 days later.

3. A table light in the living room had a short in it. I didn't fix it but got it to work.

4. On day 4, we went to use the Washer only to find it full of dirty, stinky water that would not drain out. When we entered the condo on the first day, we found 3 bags of dirty laundry on the floor of utility room. It was removed and we didn't pay any more attention to it. After we tried to use the Washer and found it full of the stale water, we figured out why the dirty laundry was on the floor. Someone knew the Washer was broken when we moved in but did nothing about it. We were told it would be fixed but along with everything else, it was not. We were able to use the small washer in a unit 9 floors up and at the other end of the hall from ours. Had to make 4/5 trips to complete the wash.

5. Last but not least, The view out the bedroom window was of the roof level of the parking garage and the view out of the living room area was a continuation of the parking garage roof full of cigarette butts and garbage. Looked like it had not been cleaned in years.

I sent this to Airbnb, but needless to say, I never heard a word from them

If you want to protect your identity DO NOT book with Airbnb. Their policy (that airbnb does not have the courtesy to disclose upfront but only when you pay after spending hours researching your vacation accommodation options) of requiring offline AND online identification is crazy. For offline verification, US clients must give last 4 of SSN and birth date or passport or drivers license uploaded to airbnb's site PLUS they also want online verification - a link to your twitter, linkedin or facebook! And if you can't supply that then a uploaded video of yourself to airbnb's site! I do not give this info to the IRS or my bank AND they do not request it either. Airbnb certainly is not my personal friend and they now have access to nearly ALL my life both financial and social! In this day and age of ID theft, crazy! Bye-bye Airbnb. I'll be back if you revise your new policy.

The first time I used AirBnB it was fine - we arranged a room at short notice and it all went smoothly. Since then I've tried multiple times and I've always been rejected by the hosts - despite having a positive rating. Hosts don't usually even provide a reason. I was hoping to use AirBnB instead of a hotel or hostel but that really doesn't work if it's unreliable.

Tried to book a room in San Francisco. Reservation was never processed by Airbnb, however my $1000 payment was ABSOLUTELY processed.

It was VERY difficult to reach a human being to try to resolve the problem. When I did--finally--they were no help whatsoever (even spoke to a supervisor--no joy).

In short, I DO NOT recommend you do business with Airbnb. If your experience is anything like mine, you will absolutely regret it if you do.

Booked accommodation through airbnb. Airbnb client took my money, no accommodation provided. Airbnb refused to take responsibility and refused to refund me. EBAY and Amazon would assume responsibility and protect the integrity of their markets. Not Airbnb. Their market has no integrity and is doomed. BEWARE! DO NOT USE AIRBNB!