[BrenBarn]

> If I were going to disrupt AirBNB, I'd offer hosts a better percentage with the requirement that the experience is standardized and high-quality.

I've noticed more and more apartment rentals appearing on booking.com. I haven't used any of them but I wonder what the tradeoffs are. My impression is overall booking.com is more guest-friendly as their userbase has grown from people staying at hotels, who expect stuff like being able to cancel and complain about cleanliness.

[makingstuffs]

From my experience booking.com is the most guest hostile platform I’ve experienced to the point I try to actively avoid it. I travel A LOT and can book anything from 20 - 40 stays per jaunt. Whenever I have encountered a problem on booking it has always been met with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ tough shit energy.

I remember one specific incident when a hotel had purposefully put me in a noisy room (I saw a sheet on the reception desk labelling it as ‘ruidosas’ which means noisy in Spanish). I took a video of it against the receptionists will and ensured I got the logo of the hotel in as well. When I reported to booking they essentially told me to jog on.

On the contrary, anytime I’ve had an issue with Airbnb they have sided with me and provided a refund/assisted me with finding better accommodation.

This isn’t a ‘you book more with us thing’, either. I have substantially more bookings on booking due to the prevalence in Asia but they literally could not care less

[clove]

I'm Booking.com's Genius Level 3, so perhaps this only applies to frequent users, but I've been refunded in full for a booking after the date of the booking without even giving the reason for the refund request.

I've shifted 100% away from AirBnb and to Booking and am still able to book whole apartments/houses. It used to be AirBnb=houses/apts, Booking=hotels. Now Booking covers both, is usually cheaper (especially considering the cleaning fees AirBnb listings usually charge), and has good customer support (in my experience).

[chrisandchris]

I think of booking as a tool for finding a hotel. I then always happily book with the hotel directly.