[Our husky, Laska, talking]
What's up guys! I'm Jordan, I'm Maddie, and we're Tangerine Travels. We sold
everything we owned, moved from the u.s. to Mexico, and have been traveling
throughout Mexico. In that time, and also before that, we've stayed in a ton of AirBnbs!
It's our go-to thing for rentals. And so over time we've picked up
some tips and some tricks, and stuff to watch out for. Red flags to avoid crummy,
terrible, nightmarish situations! Yeah, so by the end of this video you're
going to get a bunch of ways that you can save money, book a better Airbnb, and
avoid disasters!
So the first thing is gonna seem a little bit obvious but it is very
important. Use Airbnb filters to your advantage! Think of anything that's
important to you, whether that's WIFI, pet-friendly, or anything like that.
Check those filters to make sure that the listing has that, because you can
avoid tons of disasters right off the bat by just making sure that you're
filtering out exactly what you need. For example, if you're traveling with a dog
like us, and you get to your new city, and you didn't check the "pets allowed" filter.
Well, you might not have a place to stay that night.
So this is one that we've
found to be true time and time again, and it's a pretty big red flag. And that is
notice whether in the reviews people are just talking about the host. "The host was
really nice." "The host was very accommodating." "The host gave me lots of
recommendations." If they're just talking about the host, it's probably because
that person is super nice, but they (the renters) didn't have anything good to say about
the property. And we've stayed in what, like three or four places like that?
Where it was like - Oh you really don't want to leave a bad review for this
person, but it's just not a good rental! And it's not a bad thing for reviews to
say the host is nice, as long as the reviews are also saying "hey this thing
was good, this thing was great, this thing was awesome!" On this note, also, we felt
like "Should we leave a review being honest about the place?" Like the bed was
uncomfortable, the shower was dirty, stuff like that? And at the end of the day, if
you're thinking like "You know, the person was so nice, I can't leave them a bad
review." All you're doing is basically screwing other people over into like a
really bad experience. So it's kind of a tricky situation but that's sort of our
view on it.
This one ties in right with the last one - people tend to leave nicer reviews and
be generous with how many stars they give a place. 4.5 stars on
Airbnb is not the same as four and a half stars on Google, or on Yelp, or
TripAdvisor. On those sites, yeah 4.5
stars is great! On Airbnb four and a half stars sucks. I have to cut into myself
it's not that a four and a half star place is going to suck.
It's just that about half of the 4.5-star Airbnbs that we've
booked, just didn't end up being the greatest place.
So we know that if it's
five stars all around, we're going to be very happy with it!
We also think this is due to how Airbnb sets its reviews up. "Comfort"
is not a category that you can rate them low in. So there have been rentals where
we're like it was so uncomfortable, it almost basically ruined
whatever trip, whatever city we were in. Ruined that experience, was damaging to
our health or something. But we were hard pressed to leave them a bad review
because for Airbnb standards, it was like four or five stars all around. Because
they have six different categories that you rate in and comfort is not one of
those. So if you have a really uncomfortable bed, well then, there's no
place really to mark them down. You really want to find one that's five
stars in every single category. Because every time we've done that, we were very
very happy with our stay!
So this next one is something that we would never have ever thought to look at.
Except for we had such a bad experience! We were like "How did we pick a five-star
place that was awful?!?" Yeah, how's this five-star place such a dump?!? So we went
back and looked at the reviews cuz we were like "How did, what, what did we miss?
What did we do wrong?" And one thing we noticed was that there were two reviews
from the same person. And this person happened to live in the city that this
rental was in. So it's not unusual that there would be two reviews from the
same person. But the fact that that person lived there is sort of like...
This wasn't like a staycation kind of place. Yeah, look for fake reviews. If
you're really really wanting to get in there, and make sure that it's a good
experience for you. You might want to go through the extra time of checking out
that detail. You might be starting to think that "Oh my gosh! I have to do so much to book
a decent Airbnb!" And yes there are a lot of things you CAN do, but you don't have
to do all these things. If you just want to do something simple, go back to the
filters and click the "superhost" only option. This will only show you the homes
by a qualified superhost, and that means they have a lot of great reviews, and
they don't cancel reservations. You're going to have a good experience if you
book one of those. After booking tons of Airbnb's, there's another little
nuanced thing that we realized after a while. Look at the host's other
listings to see if there are other people staying in that house. Because it
will say "private room in a house," but you really don't know - Is it the only room
that they're renting out? Or do they have nine other rooms that they're renting?
Because if so, you're gonna be sharing a bathroom with a ton of other random
people! We feel like it's a whole lot less secure, and generally not as great
of an experience as a private place or just a single room. So if that's
important to you, or something that you think might ruin the experience, then
Look for that! Some of our worst experiences were in those homes where
they're renting out a ton of rooms!
Another thing to look at is [Laughter] to see if your host has other properties. This
really helped us out this past weekend when we were staying in Guadalajara.
Because this listing we were looking at was brand new, no reviews whatsoever. But
the host had other properties that got good reviews. So this new listing was at
a discount because it's a new listing. And we were comfortable or confident. Pretty confident.
Yeah, we were confident that the host knew what he was doing because he had
lots of great reviews on other properties. So we got a great deal on a
nice place because of that. A 5-star place, as it turns out!
That is just one of the ways you can save money and
get a better place. But stick around to the end, and we're going to give you
about four more ways you can do that as well.
One thing we forgot to mention on the superhost
Side of things is a great benefit to superhost, picking one of those
versus another listing, is that they cannot cancel your booking at any time.
So that's a very real possibility of something that could put you in a pickle.
Is that a host cancels at the last minute. Maybe they have it listed on
another website and they got a better deal. Or people are paying them more or
something like that. Pick superhosts when you can because
it'll avoid the trouble. So thankfully, we've never had a booking cancelled at
the last minute. But it does happen and it can really screw you over if it does!
Yeah, cuz a lot of times if they're canceling on you at the last minute,
you're gonna be left with the most expensive bookings. Or maybe ones that
don't have all the things you need, like being pet friendly or something. So
that's a big reason why it's good to choose superhosts whenever they're available.
So even if you follow every Airbnb tip, trick, hack, and helpful thing in the
world. There are still going to be times when you end up in like a kind of crappy
situation, or not ideal situation. Whatever you do, do not wait until the
end of your stay. Contact Airbnb as soon as possible,
even if you think it's gonna be an awkward situation.
Airbnb is pretty good about helping you. This might mean that you're gonna have
to find something at the last minute to get yourself into a better situation. But
a lot of times Airbnb will give you some type of a discount, or help you out in
some way because the listing wasn't accurate or something else went wrong.
That was out of your control.
Now we're on to the point where we're gonna tell you how you can get the best
bang for your buck on Airbnb! The most rental for your money! The most house for
your dinero. Okay, we get it! [Laughter]
We mentioned earlier, booking a place without any reviews
whatsoever. That's kind of scary, and for good reason,
But new listings are often
20% cheaper. They'll have a 20% discount for the first three people to book, and
they'll also have a lower price because they can't compete on reviews, or
anything. So they have to compete on price!
But booking a new listing is risky
So use your best judgment.
Another money saving tip is that you can look for places that have a weekly or
monthly discount. What we have done in the past, a lot of times, is booked for a
shorter amount of time, just to make sure that it's going to be a good situation
for us. A good rental, fast internet, whatever it is that we need. And then
We'll extend the listing, or we'll extend our booking for a longer period of time.
Because you could save 20-30 percent, sometimes more that way. This is another
money saving tip - Book as far in advance as possible!
There's a lot more availability open,
and more homes to choose from.
And a lot of times the price can go up as it gets
closer to the time that you're trying to book, because whether it's a holiday, an
event is going on at that time, or something like that. I mean this is
typical of hotels, tickets, and concerts, and things like that. It's true with
Airbnb as well.
The one thing that can make an otherwise reasonably-priced listing way more
expensive is the cleaning fee. Some places have them as low as like $3 or $1, or
something like that. But then others are pretty high like $15. And that's not a
huge deal if you're staying there for a few weeks or a month. But if it's two
days, adding 15 dollars can kind of be a huge deal. So if you want to avoid that,
just look for the cleaning fee when you're - before you're booking it. And you
can notice whether it's high or low or what it is. A lot of times there's none.
Some of them don't even have one. [Laughing]
Another way we've saved a lot of money on Airbnb
is by looking on eBay for Airbnb gift cards at a discount. A lot of times they're
available from this account called "PayPal Digital Gifts" where you'll buy it
at a 10% discount, and you'll have it in your email like an hour later, and it's a
super easy way to save 10%!
And our last big money saving tip, which is actually a pretty big one! For you
Airbnb newbies, is to use our discount code. You'll get $40 USD off (or the equivalent in your currency) your first
qualifying stay. And then we get a little bit too. Which helps us continue our
travels throughout Mexico! Show you more places here, and have some fun along the
way. And you can find that link down below in the description! Description go
click it, get money! [Laughter]
Hope you guys enjoyed our how to avoid Airbnb disasters video!
And some helpful tips and tricks. Curious to know if you figured out anything
along the way? Stuff to look out for on Airbnb? Great experiences that you've had?
There's a spider on me.
[Laughter] If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up and
subscribe to our channel to see more of our travels through Mexico!
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