I've deleted my account and vowed never to support the company again. If it works, it's great. If it doesn't, you're
completely hosed, often with no ability to complain or get recompense beyond your own insurance and/or consumer credit legislation. Their customer service system is _designed_ to make it as hard as possible to contact a human, and there are times when you _really_ need to contact a human. Three vignettes over three different years highlight why:
(a) Experience 1: Went to a scientific conference, rented a flat ["condo" in en-us] in Toronto with colleagues. Beautiful apartment, great location, great price. Toilet blocked on day 3. Host blamed the only female member of my party and claimed that she must have flushed 'sanitary products' down it -- without having previously seen it. Colleague was offended. Searching ~500 reviews showed occasional mention of toilet blocking. Host did not unblock toilet. Toilet started to accumulate other people's toilet contents. I went and bought draino and a plunger. I got toilet semi-working before the flat got filled with faeces. It still stank. I complained to the host and asked if she could sort out a plumber. Host blamed us, refused to. At the end of the stay, host charged us 600 CAD, and took the deposit, for a plumber coming to rod the building, and, again, blamed my female colleague for flushing tampons down it. Female friend/colleague flatly told me that she wasn't menstruating that week, didn't flush anything, and the whole thing was moot.
I became convinced that someone, at some point in the past, had indeed flushed something inappropriate, and the host knew about this, and then used us to pay for fixing it. Complained to Airbnb (a difficult thing to do). Airbnb sided with the host. Ended up making a chargeback on my credit card and they never pursued it.
(b) Experience 2: A colleague of mine rented an airbnb house in Montreal for a large group of us for the same scientific conference a few years later. We arrived, late at night, to see her upset and wet. The property had a definite vibe of crack-den-cum-brothel. There were urine stains on the curtains, a broken poledancing pole in the corner, and the whole place smelt of bad air-freshner, cigarette smoke, urine, and semen. The windows were broken, electricity didn't work, the sockets were hanging out of the walls, and the roof leaked. The front door locked, but you could push the polystyrene out of the windows and hop in. It was the same place as described on the net, just...ruined. We'd just landed on an international flight, it was about 2 am local time, and we were shattered. Airbnb refused to do anything. We paid for another hotel out of our own pockets, and claimed on insurance. Airbnb eventually gave us travel credit.
(c) Experience 3: Cologne, DE. Friend's stag do ["bachelor party" in en-us]. Again, group of us, going on a weekend holiday for go-karting, to see the groom's family, a bit of football (to date the only live football I have ever seen in my life), and some opera [we had a mix of tastes]. Nice-looking airbnb apartment booked by a friend of mine, who was german, with good reviews. We travel to Germany, and he gets a message. The host wants to meet in a random location.
Now, something I didn't realise at the time was that Cologne was home to Europe's largest brothel [1], and where the host wanted to meet us was in a nearby park to Pascha. At about 10 pm at night. We turn up, huddle by a dark tree away from street lighting as per instructions, and this guy on a BMX bike arrives out of the gloom. A hushed, sotto voce conversation takes place in German with my friend, of which I glean a few bits of information -- there's quite a lot of apology and "take it or leave it". Guy on bike vanishes into the night towards the brothel. My friend says, in english, "Okay, so there has been a change of plan...." and proceeds to hand us all ~€20 in cash, and some keys. We go for what seems like forever on the u-bahn to a totally different location, again, by a sex shop, and arrive outside a concrete block of flats. There's a single lightbulb swinging in the stairwell. The flat on the right has a solid steel front door with reinforced piano hinges. The (three) keys open the locks. It's the kind of lock that needs keys on both sides to open. We go inside, and see a completely furnitureless apartment, with a wooden park bench in the kitchen and a pyramid of toilet-rolls by the toilet -- right on the left side, without a door to the hallway. The two bedrooms consist of enough mattresses for us all on the floor, with threadbare blankets on top. By this point, it's about 3 am, and I am exhausted. I lie down, and the pillow feels like it bites me. I reach around, try to adjust it, and realise that it's not really a pillow. It's the broken arm of a sofa in a cotton sack. I wonder if this is repurposed accommodation for...a different purpose.
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Three times. Once by my own volition, and twice by peer pressure. I'm not staying in an Airbnb again, even if someone else is paying. Hotels may have their own problems, but fundamentally I don't feel like I'm going to get "accidentally" confused for a sex slave at 3 in the morning when the mob come knocking. I also think it's better to support a business that pays taxes (even if it's a badly run business) than what I can only describe as tax-dodging "entrepreneurs". Avoid Airbnb. Just do so.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascha_(brothel)