[olladecarne]

I used to use Airbnb all the time but a single experience dealing with their customer service and a bad host was enough for me to never use them again. The lows of using Airbnb are 100x lower than the lows of hotels, and the highs are higher but not nearly enough to justify the risk.

[djohnston]

Yep 100%. It took one experience being stuck on the street in London with my bags to never use AirBnb again. The negatives are just not worth the risk.

[addaon]

I’m an AirBNB host, so I get a $100 non-transferable coupon each year; so I stay at an AirBNB once a year, and never without a backup plan. I’d be thrilled to stay at a place like mine, but I don’t understand how to use the tools they provide to be confident in that outcome, so I book hotels with brands that I trust to be accountable instead.

[sebazzz]

I’m pretty happy with them. I’ve booked over 12 trips with my family using AirBnB. Last year we got a bad one though, dirty house, a lamp was stuck in the socket using wires instead of a plug. I reported this to AirBnB and they cancelled the reservation and refunded.

The only disadvantage of the customer service is that although you can do everything in Dutch, once customer service is involved you get called from some weird US phone number, but get an Indian outsourced helpdesk on the other side of the line - who don’t always speak good English.

[dvzk]

The last occasions that I stayed at $200/night hotels, someone triggered the building fire alarms at 2:00 and 4:30 AM. Everyone was forced to evacuate until the fire department arrived (the alarm sirens were agonizingly loud). Still, I agree, the Airbnb roulette experience is often worse.