Recently, I’ve been trying to book a place on Airbnb.
I thought it would be nice to take my family away for a few days over Easter, but boy,
has it been difficult.
If you don’t already know, Airbnb allows owners to rent out their place for short-term
lodging.
It sounds fairly reasonable and the prices are usually much cheaper than traditional
hotels.
However, over the last weeks or so, I’ve found out it’s not everything it’s cracked
up to be.
First of all, there’s this ridiculous pricing system.
Owners are able to set the nightly price seemingly to whatever they like.
Here’s a picture of a nice apartment in the middle of Brisbane city.
Only $77 per night!
What a deal, hey?
But then you go to put in your dates and then the true price is revealed – $236 a night!
Sure, the base fee is still only $77 per night, but there’s a whopping $130 cleaning fee,
and a $29 service fee!
This allows owners to falsely manipulate the search results and allow their units to show
up as cheap accommodation.
It’s a rort!
Airbnb could easily fix this.
Just don’t allow “cleaning” fees and “service” fees, or any other fees for
that matter.
The price should be all inclusive.
By allowing owners to charge cleaning fees that are more expensive than the base accommodation
price, this just leads to pissed off customers who have to spend hours weeding through misleading
listings.
You don’t actually know the full price until you try to book it.
Dodgy!
Secondly, you end up finding a nice place that meets all you requirements like this
one pictured here on the Sunshine Coast.
But then you go down and read the rules and it states “Not safe or suitable for children
(0 to 12 years)”.
After having booked a number of these places, this is basically code for “We don’t allow
children”.
It has nothing to do with safety, but instead it’s a way for owners to discriminate against
families with small children.
If I were to go to a hotel and make a booking, but they refused because I had small children,
I’m sure I could make a complaint and they’d get in trouble.
But on Airbnb, anything goes!
I get it – owners don’t want kids messing up their apartment.
Greasy hands all over the DVDs, fingerprints on the walls, etc.
But surely if we make a big mess and damage some of their property, then that’s on us.
We’d have to foot the bill.
That’s what would happen in a hotel.
But instead, we’re just constantly refused accommodation for “safety” reasons.
As if the owners are so compassionate about the health of my children that they decide
it’s not in our best interest to travel near the seaside because it could be “dangerous”
for my kids to be near water.
Anyway, we ended up finding a nice place as shown in this picture, made a booking for
a good price – $161 for two nights, but then we had to wait up to 24 hours before
the owner decided to take us or not.
This particular place didn’t have the “no children” rule, so I was quite hopeful.
But then a day later, what did I get?
I got a message from Airbnb “Adam is unable to host your stay, but we’re here to help”.
Adam’s response was “Sorry Andrew the house is unavailable those dates.
Cheers, Adam”.
For one, the house was available those dates, at least on the Airbnb system.
So I’m guessing his message is code for, “Sorry Andrew, I waited 24 hours to see
if someone else wanted the place, and I chose them because they didn’t have children”.
Anyway, just to test him, I went back on Airbnb the next day and saw that his place was available
one day after my initial booking.
I could see that it was free for three consecutive days.
So I booked again.
This time, 24 hours later, I just got a message from Airbnb stating “Adam hasn’t responded
to your request, but we’re here to help”.
So basically he decided to just ignore us and hope that we would go away.
Fair enough I guess.
There’s no use me getting angry.
I mean, it is his private residence after all.
Anyway, I’ve tried to booked other places, but I’ve basically given up.
Either they don’t accept me, or just ignore me like Yvonne did here.
If I was happy to pay much higher fees, then yes, I could get a place.
But then why would I use Airbnb?
I could just book a normal hotel and guarantee myself a place to stay with certainly no discrimination
against young families.
And that’s my rant for today.
I’ve heard in America that discrimination is quite common on Airbnb, especially against
black families.
Have you had any similar experiences with Airbnb?
If so, leave a message in the comments section below.
Cheers.