AirBnB advice needed

LPSISCO · December 25, 2016

I'll be in Miami at the end of January for a meeting, then staying the ensuing weekend to visit my daughter at the U. I've stayed at quite a few of the hotels in the area, and can do so again....I have enough Hilton and Marriott points to stay at either for free....but I'm thinking I may try AirBnB for a change. I'd definitely do the "entire residence" option, not interested in just having a room.

The purpose of this post - any tips on using AirBnB from folks who have done so? Tips? Watch outs? I'm somewhat using this trip as a trial for AirBnB usage to see if I'd feel comfortable booking a family vacation this way.

Thanks for any thoughts.

SilverBullets · December 25, 2016

I'll be in Miami at the end of January for a meeting, then staying the ensuing weekend to visit my daughter at the U. I've stayed at quite a few of the hotels in the area, and can do so again....I have enough Hilton and Marriott points to stay at either for free....but I'm thinking I may try AirBnB for a change. I'd definitely do the "entire residence" option, not interested in just having a room.

The purpose of this post - any tips on using AirBnB from folks who have done so? Tips? Watch outs? I'm somewhat using this trip as a trial for AirBnB usage to see if I'd feel comfortable booking a family vacation this way.

Thanks for any thoughts.

I have done it a handful of times and always with great success. It's really a great option. I'm not a huge hotel person. Don't like only having 1 small room and don't care for getting the room cleaned everyday. So Airbnb is a great option for me.

If you're into watching TV, make sure the place has TV. One place we were staying at for a week only had Internet to stream TV. Problem was you had to have your own accounts. Wasn't ideal for us.

Other than that, read the user reviews to make sure they had a great experience. Don't take 1 bad review as truth and don't take 1 good review as truth. Read a bunch of reviews to get a feel for the commonalities.

dcmidnight · December 25, 2016

I've used Homeaway a few times and will only stay in places with a really good number of positive reviews, say 8-10 at a minimum. Just wont stay in new ones.

Also I like to see how responsive the owner or manager is to emails. If it takes them 2-3 days to get back to me, I'm out. Makes me think it will be a similar response time to problems.

jkc-rva · December 26, 2016

I've used VBRO/Homeaway for a golf trip vacation this summer with great success. The property owners all seemed seasoned and knew how to handle everything.

I only have one AirBnB experience and it is where I am posting this message from. Its in a mountain town of Poland where the guy jacked up the price on me after I messaged him initially. Considering the pictures of the place I had no issue paying the premium. However, when we arrived we were met by the owner and some incredibly rude woman. The guy lives in the center of Poland and rents his flat every now and then. Well it had been pretty cold here the past few weeks and it was unoccupied (along with the rest of the building) which left the place freezing cold. We had to go out and buy several extra blankets to make the place reasonably acceptable. I went back and forth with him and I believe he deliberately waited until the 24hr post check in point to reply to my one message (as a renter you have 24hrs to file for a refund) where I stated that the conditions were simply acceptable. Even the porter of the building said the owner should have come weeks in advance to turn up the heat. Luckily by the second night we could actually sleep in the bedrooms. I check out tomorrow and have no check out instructions either. He has yet to reply to my last message about a refund for the first night so I sent him another message asking for check out instructions and reminding him about my last message.

I feel like AirBnB will always be a mixed bag, some professionals and some amateurs and then some idiots. Most of my friends have had mixed experiences as well. My only advice it to check the reviews, make sure they are very recent, and it doesn't hurt if there are more than just a handful. Also always communicate through AirBnB as the communications will always be tied to your stay and can be used if any issues should arise.

Good luck!