AirbnbReviews 2,101

We travelled to Tel Aviv with our two young children and have been thoroughly disappointed by the whole experience.The apartment we took in Tel Aviv was nothing like the pictures represented so we found the whole experience utterly misleading. Place was listed as 'designer', fully air conditioned, quiet street etc. Paint was peeling off the walls, wires exposed, unsealed flooring etc. There was no air conditioning in the bedrooms so we all suffered at night. Host offered extra fans but they're useless as they just circulate hot air. Airbnb response - host has dealt with it. We had an infestation of cockroaches and slugs. Host offered to spray with insecticides but with what risk to us and the children? Host said it's safe and will only take a couple of hours but we didn't trust that information. Response from Airbnb - host was willing to deal with it. Major construction was going on outside but the host failed to notify us. Response from Airbnb - it's not going on inside the building so doesn't count. This was supposed to be a fab 2 week holiday but it has been utterly tainted by our accommodation. BEWARE - what you see is not necessarily what you are going to get. Will never use again.

What a pain in the neck! Where to start. First let me say that my experience is that AirBnB takes NO responsibility for their errors. Then there's their claim of 24/7 customer service. It's easier to find president Obama's home number than to navigate through the BS AirBnB puts you through just so you can send them an email. Can't blame them for doing this: the site is complete crap half the time (the other half of the time I'm using different sites now) so they'd probably get tons of complaints and they probably want to avoid that.

The only solution I found was to call their emergency number, where I'm yet to speak with a rep who's fluent in English.

And the glitches with the site. O. M. G.! The pricing for my listing mysteriously lowered itself and of course AirBnB wouldn't take responsibility for that. All they had to do was waive my fee and/or the guests' fee but they couldn't even be apologetic about the situation let alone take responsibility for it. And today a guest who was going to book backed out. I thought it was strange then I saw that the site had put in a special offer to the guest of 5 TIMES my asking price per night!

And their fees. Yeah, you'd think you could get some sort of service because they take in a crapload of fees from guest AND host.

Super disappointed. Hopefully the other sites where I'm registering are less crappy.

HORROR, I would not even start as to where they rate. BASEMENT is a good start.
I have been working on deal for what they call a FLAT, we know it as a apartment. After agreeing to a price that the owner of the flat excepted. But total miss communication that could have been handled with a simple email. I invested 12 day's of my time. As well as someone flying in form a country other than mine. Now I have a plane ticket, as she and no place booked to stay. I arranged for us to stay 2 nights at another location due to the owner asked that I could have the place on the 30th of July. Low and behold. We agreed to RS1,800.00. I booked the deal and then it was rejected, because I emailed the owner and made a statement that he owed me some money, due to the conversion rate of RS1,800 is about $1,100 US. Not $1,284.00. But I was never aware that the site charges you a fee (the person that books the deal). Well I let the owner know that he owed me a refund. And he canceled my reservation over the fees that were added from the site that I had no aware of upfront. SO I lost out my reservation and I lost 12 days that I spent putting this deal together. They send me emails, and I even went on a limp to apologize to the owner and that I was not aware of the added fee's. You would think that the person using the site pay's the fee's. Then I asked him to please, rent the unit to me. He now said that his family is going to be there. But in fact he has his unit still for rent. I blame the site for not disclosing the fee's up front. I have better things than to be sitting here typing this email. Like having a place to STAY. R S

Edited 12/31/14: Since my original post in 2011, I've used AirBnB 5 times easily and successfully in 5 different cities both in the U.S. and abroad. I'd probably use this site before trying to find any hotel. Seems like I just knew how to look for the right places/people.

2011: AirBnB is great in theory - rent from or rent out your apartment to travelers who need a couple days to a couple weeks of housing in a city. The site also looks fantastic, especially as compared to Couchsurfing, which feels like a dirty forum. You find the place you want to book (making sure the host looks like s/he's not going to murder you, selecting the accommodations that are to your liking, etc.) and then you wait for the other person to respond to your request. Your credit card isn't charged until after the fact.

However, what you end up getting is this - the people who are more likely to respond to you are charging up the wazoo for their place. One woman wanted $3400 for the month that I was looking to stay in NYC. Then there are specifications like you have to stay a month or you can't stay longer than 5 days, so it gets tedious dealing with their little conditions. The people that you are interested in won't respond to you at all. Terribly annoying.