I've rented a fake room (lied about size, noise, etc. and had three honest-looking reviews) and I was talking to a rep in the US, in english. Meanwhile the host was talking to a service rep in the country i was in, in french.
In the end, the US rep promised me a credit and help. But then the France rep flagged my account. Now i could not book anything until i reactivated a credit card. Even the US rep now couldn't help me until I did that. It was a Saturday. I needed until Tuesday to validate any credit card via their statement methods. Twelve international calls later, and there was nothing they could do. at all. And I was a several-year long customer with 5star reviews all around.
Ended up on the street, with three bags, hunting last minute hotels and paying counter price. Never used airbnb ever again. The savings is not worth the risk.
Luckily I have not experienced any international issues.
I have experienced one issue where the host cancelled hours before arriving while we were already en route, but Airbnb upgraded us to a much better place as everything comparable was sold out (New Year's Eve in NYC).
(I work in the corporate travel industry, not for Airbnb)
It's definitely not a big thing in business travel yet, but at least part of that is because business travel is a slow market to change (partly because of expense integrations, private rate deals, duty of care, etc.) That said, Airbnb is actively trying to build out their business travel group and in theory are signing up customers. It wasn't clear to me how much of that was marketing vapor.
My general feeling is that they'll eventually be able to capture a small chunk of that market, although not as high a percentage as they will in leisure. Mostly because I don't think they can get the amount of reliable inventory that a large portion of business travelers will want. I've done more than my share of working from AirBnb/guest house/hotel, but if I actually have critical business travel, I'm taking the 1000 room Hilton over any AirBnb.
I've rented a fake room (lied about size, noise, etc. and had three honest-looking reviews) and I was talking to a rep in the US, in english. Meanwhile the host was talking to a service rep in the country i was in, in french.
In the end, the US rep promised me a credit and help. But then the France rep flagged my account. Now i could not book anything until i reactivated a credit card. Even the US rep now couldn't help me until I did that. It was a Saturday. I needed until Tuesday to validate any credit card via their statement methods. Twelve international calls later, and there was nothing they could do. at all. And I was a several-year long customer with 5star reviews all around.
Ended up on the street, with three bags, hunting last minute hotels and paying counter price. Never used airbnb ever again. The savings is not worth the risk.