Rant about airbnb

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I’ve just tried and failed to book a holiday cottage via Airbnb. Half way through they want your date of birth, but the only way is to click the back arrow on the month, in my case over 800 times. They then want a photo of me, I’m not sufficiently vain to have a photo of me on my phone. Having eventually sorted that they then want a photo of a government document. At that stage I gave up, my blood pressure won’t stand any more. I then had to work out how to cancel the pending PayPal payment. That was dead easy. Why does Airbnb make it so difficult? At the very least tell me before I start that I’m going to need all this documentation and make it so I can just type in my DOB.

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

I hope they make it as difficult as possible and all their customers are prompted to cancel, then they will go bust and we can have our town back!

Paul.

[MikeKParticipant @mikek40713]

How was this all done before AirBnB?  I remember my father got us a beach cottage a few times for summer vacation back in the 70’s.  Did this really need a tech solution?

Mike

 

[Dave WoottonParticipant @davewootton]

Couldn’t agree more with Paul, we live in a small seaside town over 50% of the properties are holiday homes and AirBnB, no chance of my kids being able to buy even a tiny property here. Hence both moved miles away.

Oh dear gone into a rant of my own… sorry, be allright after the coffee kicks in!

Angry of Sandgate

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

I don’t use Airbnb because my wife and I prefer to stay at a proper B&B or hotel. I have mostly used Booking.com and have noticed that there are an increasing number of Airbnb type lets being offered on that site which is very easy to use with a range of room and payment options always displayed. The accommodation prices are often lower than calling the property and booking direct.

BTW, I have encountered other sites that don’t let you enter your DOB directly making you click back many times. Is there a way round this inconvenience or is it done to keep the bots at bay?

[Chris Crew]

On Chris Crew Said:

I don’t use Airbnb because my wife and I prefer to stay at a proper B&B or hotel. I have mostly used Booking.com and have noticed that there are an increasing number of Airbnb type lets being offered on that site which is very easy to use with a range of room and payment options always displayed. The accommodation prices are often lower than calling the property and booking direct.

BTW, I have encountered other sites that don’t let you enter your DOB directly making you click back many times. Is there a way round this inconvenience or is it done to keep the bots at bay?

Hello from 50% Cairngorms.  My 3 nearest neighbours are now holiday homes.  The more difficult they make booking, the better.

Just ask wifey who, precisely, is the self in self catering.

Martin

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

There’s 10 of us going on this short break including 2 small children and a toddler. I didn’t count the dog. B&B and hotels would not be all that convenient. The area we’re going to is heavily dependant on tourists, so if they have nowhere to stay the locals will be a bit snookered. If the area needs more affordable housing, the council should build some, they could even build them for sale with a restriction on selling to people employed locally, there is probably some legal way of making this carry on to subsequent sales. Why not? Well the local NIMBYs will object, just as they do to any kind of change.

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

Just to clarify my previous post which may be a little ambiguous. I have no intention of using Airbnb,  ever!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

The point you make early on, about not being told at the start what documents you will need find if not forward, is not confined to AirBnB.

A lot of commercial web-sites do that, leading through the twaddle and rigmarole then sending you off round the house to find documents you would not expect to need cite. It’s common in a lot of company telephone transactions too.

 

Duncan –

The real residents would probably welcome your suggestion of local homes that must not be used as holiday lets or sold on as second-homes. The NIMBY’s are most likely the second-home shower with their own “County” magazine ideas of what a rural or seaside village should be. However, you can build all you like but local young people will still move away if there there is no work available in their home area – and by work I mean worthwhile employment that gives them a chance of saving towards a home, not serving in twee-ified gastro-pubs, cleaning camp-site khazis or stewarding pedalo-hire for 12/6 an hour in the Summer.

Best stop there lest I awake the “P-word” dragons….

 

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