Hacker News Reader

Comment by stef25 | Hacker News Reader

Been using Airbnb on and off for 10 years and I'm really not convinced it's a better model than traditional hotels. Maybe it's because I'm always looking at the cheaper end of the scale but when browsing Airbnb I can't help but feel suspicious at most listings, based on previous experiences. It's ALWAYS shittier than the pictures. Often there's a feeling of "oh well could be worse, we'll just deal with it" after walking in to these places.

I just checked a bunch of normal boutique hotels and their listing inspire much more confidence and are actually cheaper. At this point I have no idea what Airbnb offers that hotels don't do better.

View on HN

In my personal experience Airbnb is good when you are travelling with a large group of people (6+) and/or with children. You can get a house with 3-4 rooms, a few bathrooms, a functional kitchen, laundry area, etc, for about half the price as it would be if you got double rooms at hotels for the same number of people, and it's much more convenient since you're not spread across different floors.

For solo travel tho, I'd rather book a hotel sight unseen than use airbnb, since too many people try to make their couch in the corner look like a nice private room in the listing.

> I have no idea what Airbnb offers that hotels don't do better.

As a business? They avoid tons of regulations there for zoning, public safety, etc. That leads to higher profit margins.

To a consumer? I'm not 100% sure anymore. Except some places where hotels are booked through AirBnB to gain better access to customers

It's really easy to find an airbnb that accepts dogs and really hard to find a hotel that does.

booking.com is often cheaper than directly booking with a hotel.

I've worked for a hotel chain in the past. They're using the same rate codes you could be using booking directly with the hotel. They just know how to show the lowest rate code possible.

If you look at hiltons on booking.com and booking at hilton.com you'll see different prices, until you go through the hilton.com process and select non-refundable/non-cancelable rates, then they're the same rate, expect if you book via booking.com you don't get any points with the hotel chain.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com