[thinkbohemian]

This program offers interesting features to a business but not s much for the traveler. Anyone who is spending 25+ nights a year in a hotel is going to be sure to be getting points for those stays. Points == status and status == more convenience when traveling. Beyond earning free nights, there's expedited check-in, private lounges with free food, gift baskets when you check in, etc. The caveat is that to get status most (or all) of your points need to be with the same company. This means most hardcore business travelers are very loyal to <program x>. This travel program doesn't have any kind of loyalty rewards which is a non-starter.

Other downsides of airbnb: booking isn't instantaneous as with a hotel (wait hours or days for confirmation from owner), checkin has to be pre-arranged and requires you get in touch with the owner (i.e. no 3am red-eye check-ins), each place you stay is slightly different amenities versus hotel chains which all have the same brand of pre-wrapped toothbrush when you forget yours. These might seem trivial but when you travel a bunch it's the little things that hurt the most.

Story: I once had to wait for 2 hours to check into an airbnb in SF since the owner was in Africa and his mother forgot to leave his key where he said it would be.

[ghaff]

I'm not actually too much of a brand loyalist when it comes to hotels--in spite of having something over 100 days on the road last year. My itineraries are too varied for one or two chains to really work for me most of the time. Furthermore, prices tend to vary a lot with hotels on any given day so I tend to shop around a bit. So I have frequent stay programs and accumulate meaningful points on a couple of them but don't go crazy.

>booking isn't instantaneous as with a hotel (wait hours or days for confirmation from owner), checkin has to be pre-arranged and requires you get in touch with the owner (i.e. no 3am red-eye check-ins),

As for these points though, I agree that I mostly don't want to deal with this sort of thing when I'm traveling on business. I want a 24 hour desk that I can just roll up to a 2 in the morning if need be and I need to be able to cancel on short notice. On vacation, I'm often willing to deal with something more interesting/less cookie cutter but for business I mostly want "just works."

[rokhayakebe]

Curious: How much time do you spend shopping vs how much do you save on average?

[ghaff]

Not sure how to answer that, but we're talking about maybe bouncing around Expedia, another portal, making a few queries on Trip Adviser, and checking the hotel website. Maybe 15-20 minutes tops? (I'm not talking about any deep bargain hunting.)

In some locations, I know where the deals probably are, whether because of company-negotiated rates or just past experience. But $50-$100 (or more)/night cheaper is not at all unusual compared to just choosing my default chain in a large city. (Though sometimes the price of the large chain is fine.)

And just last night I happened to get an email from a hotel I've stayed at previously in SF about a special. Turns out it was about $150/night cheaper than a rate I had locked in at another hotel just to make sure I had somewhere to stay for an event in late August. So I cancelled and switched. Took 5 minutes to save about $600.

My basic point is that, especially in expensive cities, there's a big difference between even doing just a quick search and just staying at the usual.

[rokhayakebe]

Thanks for the reply, Ghaff. It was more of a research and your response was very helpful. Cheerio!

[DaveWalk]

I completely agree. But to play devil's advocate: is there a percentage of business travelers that would prefer an AirBnB experience over the lure of elite status and hotel points?

Time will tell if this is a smart move or just AirBnB smashing together something that it already has anyway. But I'm curious if anyone has an insight.

[7Figures2Commas]

> But to play devil's advocate: is there a percentage of business travelers that would prefer an AirBnB experience over the lure of elite status and hotel points?

Looking at the photos of the "business-ready homes" on https://www.airbnb.com/business/signup, I can assure you that there is nothing that would make me prefer the "AirBnB experience" over, say, a stay at the Mandarin Oriental or St. Regis. Hotels generally might get a bad wrap, but the quality of the accommodations and conveniences offered at the higher end of the market are very hard to compete with, elite status and hotel points not even taken into consideration.

[S4M]

I used to go to four stars hotels in London at my previous job for business trips, costing like 100-200 pounds a night, and really I didn't like it so much. The rooms had a TV with some light on it that was disturbing my sleep, sometimes I could hear the ventilation noise, etc. Many small details that were making it, IMO, a not too good experience, and many times I was happy I was not paying for this expensive accommodation with my own money.

[Erwin]

London hotels are very expensive compared to what you get. Having stayed there many times I was always jaded about the more expensive hotels, but visiting luxury hotels in Berlin or Vienna is a much nicer experience, Hyatt or Sofitel (and sure, Mandarin Oriental if you can afford it). E.g. you can go to Berlin and stay at the 5-star Sofitel which has a top 20 (out of 800) hotel rating at Tripadvisor and pay 110€/night for a 4om² room. I've paid the same at a hotel without a window in London once.

Lisabon is another city good for cheap luxury hotels. Trivago is a great hotel aggregator.

[S4M]

Good point about the quality and price of hotels varying according to the city. Guess Airbnb business will be more successful in places like London than Berlin or Lisabon (Lisboa?).

[jedrek]

At the higher end of the market (let's call it SPG and up), I'm also paying for a certain conformity of experience and comfort-related services. I'm paying for a concierge who'll let me use the 4 hours of free time I have effectively. I'm paying for a bar and lobby.

When I travel privately, I'm willing to pay to avoid all that crap.

[eitally]

I would generally prefer it, except for three big things: 1) guaranteed accessibility of management/owner if something goes wrong, 2) nearness to my destination (I stay at a lot of airport hotels, and in a lot of places that's because our offices are near the airport, too), and 3) I often travel with colleagues, and sharing a home with them would just be a little weird. Not necessarily bad, but not something a lot of my coworkers are culturally prepare to accept.

[joshvm]

Yes. I work for a small company and recently had to spend a few nights in a foreign city. Airbnb let us have an apartment in the centre of the city (we were 100m from the central square) for a fraction of the cost of an equivalent hotel. We didn't care about food because we were eating on expenses for each meal and the local restaurants were probably better than hotel fare. All in all it was a very pleasant stay.

I don't care about getting a gift basket or gym membership or being recognised personally at check-in. Perhaps if I travelled significantly more it would make sense. WiFi and a power socket next to the bed is enough.

The downside was mostly that we couldn't instabook, there's still some required interaction with the host. It means you need to be there on time and so does your host. If something goes wrong, you're at the mercy of a random person to fix it whereas in a hotel there's normally some chain of command.

For instance, our outbound flight was 6 hours delayed (different city) and we arrived at 3am. We were thankfully booked into a hostel for the first two nights with 24 hour reception. If we'd gone for Airbnb, we would likely have been sleeping on the street.

We had a great stay because Airbnb worked. If something had gone wrong, it would have been hell.

[nugget]

I'm surprised they didn't roll out some kind of loyalty program to go along with this. I spend $30k/year with SPG (employer covers it) and using the SPG Amex and other bonuses I estimate about 20% of that amount comes back into my pocket. It's hard to pass up a $6k/year tax free bonus.

[ngoel36]

I stayed 250 nights in a hotel for work last calendar year. ~220 in SPG, ~25 in Hyatt (enough to earn Diamond status), ~5 in a Marriott because there were no other options.

Although I was at full liberty to do so (and expense it), I never chose to stay in an AirBnb. To make this feasible for me, I think AirBnb would need several things:

* Some sort of loyalty program with PERSONAL benefits to me - this would best manifest itself as a credit in my personal account

* Status - SPG Platinum greatly enhanced my traveling experience with perks such as recognition on check-in, upgrades, gift baskets, etc. I didn't care about most of this, but AirBnb could certainly implement aspects such as "upgrades" to nicer/bigger properties which are vacant within an x-block radius, gift baskets (delivered by the likes of Postmates, UberEATS, etc.), local events, etc.

* Instant booking - this is HUGE. I very very often would book hotels past 6pm on the night of, or move/cancel stays based on work, airline schedules, etc. I don't want to wait to interact with a host - I just want a key.

* Amenities - Fast WiFi is a must, outlets by the bed are nice, and very important - gym access. No reason why AirBnb couldn't come up with an arrangement with e.g. 24 Hour Fitness to provide access passes to guests

* Room service - Partnership with Postmates/Caviar/DoorDash/etc. to bill directly to room, along with a preview of what's available

* Personal concierge - ala SPG Ambassador

* Perhaps most crucial to this list, is a concern for the employer, not me - the reason Amex/Concur have a duopoly over the enterprise travel market is not because of their partnerships or UI - it's because they offer integration with HR systems for things like emergency alerts (e.g there's been a terrorist attack in NYC - I need to know which of my employees are staying in a hotel near xxx). AirBnb should already be in talks with Workday/Zenefits/ZenPayroll and the likes to figure this out for tech startups - most likely to be early adopters.

AirBnb has a potenitally superior product as compared to SPG,Hyatt,etc. and a better interface than Amex/Hipmunk/Concur/Orbitz for Business. But corp travel is complicated, and customers are extremely finicky. Huge potential to get this right, huge opportunity if they do.

[7Figures2Commas]

You have listed numerous reasons why AirBnB doesn't have a potentially superior product.

AirBnB has limited control over the guest experience. For instance, delivering instant booking would be difficult, and it can't guarantee consistently fast WiFi. It could conceivably incentivize hosts to offer certain amenities, but not all hosts will offer them, they won't be implemented the same way and in many cases this could negatively impact price. Where a host doesn't live up to AirBnB's standards, AirBnB would often have a limited ability to rectify the situation promptly.

Cobbling together features like gym access through partnerships is not very appealing. Depending on the location of an AirBnB rental, it could in many cases be incredibly inconvenient to have to travel to a gym, and folks used to staying at higher-end hotels are not going to be thrilled with access to 24 Hour Fitness. Gyms like Equinox have no incentive to partner with AirBnB so that somebody renting a room for a few nights can use a facility that members pay a premium to keep somewhat sheltered from the riff raff.

[ngoel36]

Apologies, I should have worded better - AirBnb has the potential to create a superior product.

You'd be surprised at the quality of both WiFi and gyms at high-end hotels.

Standard Xfinity 25 Mbps would have easily beat the outdated WiFi at most luxury hotels (many of these were early adopters of enterprise internet service, thus signed up for long contracts at now outdated speeds)

I would have killed to have access to a 24-Hour Fitness over the gyms at 99% of hotels I stayed at. Most were the size of a small room with 3-5 treadmills, a couple of cycles, and if I was lucky, some outdated weight equipment and a water cooler. I bought national access to any location, so I'd often opt to take a 5-minute Uber (another partnership opportunity) to a remote location rather than using the hotel gym.

I think there is huge potential for them to cobble together an experience with already-existing partners that meets and surpasses a luxury hotel experience. Loyalty programs are already heading here across the Travel industry (SPG+Uber, Delta+Emirates+SPG, United+Uber, etc.). AirBnb should be crushing these given their superior engineering talent and Bay Area location.

If they don't get to it quickly, then somebody else in SF will - Uber, Workday, Zenefits, Hipmunk...

[15thandwhatever]

Seconded.

It's exciting at first, and but repeated business travel becomes tedious over time. Points are your personal reward for that necessary evil in the time you spend away from your home, family, and friends in cars, shuttles, trains, airports.

And that's not even counting the cancelled flights, train delays, terrorism scares, lost baggage, crying kids, and other traveling issues.

I've had hotels cancel my reservation because my flight got in after 12am, and they assumed I wasn't coming. In a major city, that Airbnb host probably isn't around, let alone, going to wait for you to arrive 4-6 hours after your reservation start time.

I've used points to fly my wife and I to Hawaii, rent a car, and stay in an ocean front room for a week with no money out of pocket aside from $10 in award processing fees by United.

I used points to fly my brother to an interview for his first job, which he aced and has been at for the last 3 years. And I still have points left for one more big international trip. It doesn't erase the original issues, but I feel like I got something in return for the trouble.

[foobarqux]

AirBnB can start a loyalty program with appropriate partnerships. The problem with typical loyalty programs is that you don't get points if you book through a discount travel agency like Travelocity, so you are essentially paying dollars for points. AirBnB doesn't have that problem (at least assuming that property owners aren't also listing outside of AirBnB). AirBnB also theoretically has a greater selection, which makes a loyalty program more compelling.

The other objections regarding amenities aren't too worrying, because 40% of AirBnB stays are through commercial operators that presumably are able to offer hotel-comparable amenities.

[Eridrus]

I spend around 25 days a year in a hotel, and I much prefer staying at AirBnB places than hotels, some of the hosts have been a lot of fun, but sometimes I just don't have time to jump through all the hoops of finding a place and making sure I can stay there and getting keys.

They really need a concierge service where our admin assistant can call someone and tell them "we need a bedroom for these days, with easy subway access to our NYC office" and have them sort out the rest.

[nulltype]

So I'm a little confused about "points". Those are owned by the employee, not the employer, right? Even though the employer pays for the expenses?

[pbreit]

My experience is they've always accrued to the visitor/employee.

[mbreese]

Traditionally, yes, but only if the employee initially pays out of pocket for the expense (and is then later reimbursed). However, some employers are starting to migrate those points over to their own accounts, or forcing you to use a company card for travel so that the company accumulates points, not the employee.

[scurvy]

What card you use doesn't matter for loyalty/elite points, only for your credit card points.

Always put down your own loyalty/elite number when booking the reservation. Always charge everything (meals, sundries, drinks, etc) to the room to maximize loyalty points.

[burger_moon]

My employer always paid for everything then I would hand them my loyalty card at the desk and get the points attributed to me. The rooms and cars were always in my name so maybe that was the difference.

[pbreit]

Even when I use a company card I always give the hotel my own member number.

[mbreese]

Right - but I've heard anecdotes (I know...) of companies requiring the use of their own loyalty cards (or special deals with vendors). If a company is paying for the trip, they will eventually try to capture all of the benefits.

[pbreit]

But that's not really what you said.

Not necessarily or even probably since it's a popular perk and most companies are sensitive to sending their employees on the road.

[scurvy]

Not to split hairs, but they're technically owned by the hotel. You participate in the program at their pleasure. See the Northwest Airlines Supreme Court case.

To the spirit of your question, almost always the employee.

[scurvy]

Why are people downvoting this response? It's not malicious nor incorrect.

[wodenokoto]

The main benefit is if you have a group that are traveling. A house/apartment is a much, much better base for a group than several hotel rooms.

But yes, if you are just one guy for a night or two, a hotel is more convenient.

[robrenaud]

What if the employer just split the savings with you in cash?

[fishywang]

That would be great, sure. But which employer do such things?