Curious, where have you been staying with the egregious misrepresentation? What sorts of things were false?
We've used Airbnb about 2x/year for a while now and the worst we've had is a house that's a bit dirty (but never to the point we'd leave). But, most of our stays are rural, smaller towns, or western Europe, so maybe it's a location thing?
I dislike the pricing visibility (fees and taxes only shown later, and sometimes the feed are astronomical). That's probably my biggest gripe with the platform.
> Curious, where have you been staying with the egregious misrepresentation? What sorts of things were false?
The biggest offender I've seen is a "Dedicated workspace". Everyone seems to just tick that box, and it never really exists. I can see from the photos that it doesn't exist, but it makes searching really annoying. I stopped ticking it, because it just filters out otherwise acceptable places.
I've also seen people tick stuff like gyms/pools when really they mean a commercial one is available a short walk away.
What counts as a 'kitchen' is pretty debatable as well, I've seen places with only a microwave tick that box.
I don't mind all these things, I know what to expect judging from the photos. I just wished there was some penalty for doing that to make filtering easier. In the current state, the filters are pretty useless (in my experience).
Cleaning fees for dirty places also feels pretty bad. I don't mind paying the fee if the place is actually clean, but it seems people just set it to make extra money. I've had hosts ask me to take out the trash and put the bed sheets in the washing machine whilst also asking for $100 cleaning fees.
I don't actually mind cleaning the place myself (if there's a vacuum/mop and washing machine), but charging for it and not providing it really rubs me the wrong way.
Ah, dedicated workspace. I can see your problem, and agree. I'd expect that to be a proper desk and chair, not the kitchen table or similar. I've never tried using that filter - the one time we booked for a working vacation, we knew it would be a massive compromise for the duration.
And totally agree on the cleaning fee - that should be baked into the nightly cost, along with the taxes. It's a cost of doing business, no different than other running costs (mortgage, etc). Our expectation for departure is to quickly sweep the floor, wipe counters/sinks, and put sheets/towels in a laundry basket. Basically put the place in a state where the cleaning crew can do their job without having to clean up our messes.
EDIT - my other pet peeve is the lack of pet pricing transparency. There's a pet filter, which works, but pet fees aren't part of the Airbnb pricing model, and hosts have to add them manually after the fact. Completely ridiculous oversight.
> The biggest offender I've seen is a "Dedicated workspace". Everyone seems to just tick that box, and it never really exists.
Different people seem to have different understanding of what it means. To some, it implicitly means a separate room; to others, any table and chair are a workspace.
AirBnB should explain to the people offering a room / house when they should tick it, or what the place should conform to in order to be allowed to check it.
But that requires oversight from AirBnB, to the point where they have to send out inspectors or mystery guests, and they don't want to have to pay for that, they want the service to be self-regulating. So the people offering the rooms, if there are no negative consequences to ticking a box unjustly but there will be benefits, i.e. more people viewing the advert and renting it, they will keep doing it.
The only way to fix it is with human intervention and Consequences. AirBnB would be a much better experience if it was curated, if people couldn't make their own listings, if there were Consequences for lying, or if they can't post their own listings but need an AirBnB representative to do it for them. With fines if they change something afterwards.
But that requires money and to give up on some of their profits, they wouldn't want that. It's about volume, not the best experience for their users.
Anyone claiming to have a dedicated workspace can easily include a picture of it. Those 99.9% that don't do that can easily be discounted as liars. And if they are lying about having a workspace, well they can just as easily be lying about everything else too - such as:
The place is very quiet (except for dogs, nusiance neighbours and constant building work).
Is walking distance to the beach (if you consider a 5 mile treck nothing but a stroll).
Has nice views of the park (if you stand on the 5th rung of a step ladder).
Has fast internet (provided the local bar has not changed the password recently).
Etc, etc
> To some, it implicitly means a separate room; to others, any table and chair are a workspace.
I take it to mean a _dedicated_ table & chair. A sofa and coffee table are not a dedicated workspace. I don't expect a separate room, that would be an extra bedroom in my mind. Just a desk that isn't the single dining/coffee table is enough for me.
Here's an example of what I mean [0]. That was the single desk like thing in the entire place, not even a coffee table. Calling that a dedicated workspace is clearly bullshit. That place was pretty convenient though, the perfect height for me as a standing desk :D.
And for lots of hosts "a table" is either a kitchen countertop or a coffee table, while "a chair" is a small sofa next to it. Et voila, "a dedicated workspace".
It is absurd that some hosts will even consider high/club chairs next to a kitchen counter a suitable place for work. It is the most frustrating filter on Airbnb right now.
This is one of the reasons I believe that Apple will feature Airbnb as a launch partner for whatever kind of AR/VR device they might end up launching. Could easily see the user story of "know exactly what you are renting" on stage when they launch the product. Remember, Airbnb built their business on high quality image capture. The famous story of doing things that don't scale where they hopped from host to host capturing beautiful photos of their spaces. VR is the next leg and a meaningful use case. Imagine if every host could capture their own space by waiving their phone around their space? Big idea here.
Apple does this all the time. Here is a link to the Apple Watch hardware launch which shows off use cases made by developers (Twitter, American Airlines, City Mapper, BMW, Nike):
I would actually be very concerned if Apple launched the device (still an if for me) and didn't have 5+ 3rd party partners to show off the capabilities.
These companies weren't on stage, but they have brought many partners on stage for various reasons (Verizon CEO for mmWave in the phones, I believe Epic games, and a few other games-related partners as well).
"cleaning fee" often means "base price for the booking".
Ie. It's a way to charge more for short bookings and less for longer lets. That makes sense because for a host the chances of a place being trashed totally is approximately proportional to the number of bookings, not the total days booked.
I wish they just had an option to use different wording so the customer didn't think the money was for actual cleaning.
> Curious, where have you been staying with the egregious misrepresentation
One thing I recently noticed was, including "sofa bed" as an actual bed. Screwed up with my filters so much that I had to verify from the pictures that they actually had the number of beds I was looking for.
We've used Airbnb about 2x/year for a while now and the worst we've had is a house that's a bit dirty (but never to the point we'd leave). But, most of our stays are rural, smaller towns, or western Europe, so maybe it's a location thing?
I dislike the pricing visibility (fees and taxes only shown later, and sometimes the feed are astronomical). That's probably my biggest gripe with the platform.