AirB&B are a plague that should be avoided.

ann, no worries

Menachem, how is Airbnb a plague? I am not being critical of your statement. I do see how some issues might arise, but they seem to pertain to specific areas, and are not blanket problems. I also know there are tax issues, but I am curious and concerned about issues that I do not know about.

Airbnb
It is a problem for a number of reasons:

They are taking valuable and affordable rental apartments in many cities such as NYC, Barcelona, and San Francisco. There is a severe tourist backlash in Barcelona with Airbnb and the cruise lines taking mostof the blame.

There is very little screening done of the guests and the guests and they are transients among permanent residents

There have been numerous proven incidents of racial discrimination.

In NYC, for example, they are only legal if the tenant or owner also occupies the residence. That is only sometimes the case and hard to enforce. Others are violating leases and C of Os.

Hotels go under much greater scrutiny, will Airbnb goes under little

Hey, I've read this thread with some interest. I have booked on booking.com either 5 or 6 times. I have a couple of experiences to share.

I had an occasion where I was given a lesser room than what I ordered. We decided to make the best of it, but when I got home, I contacted booking.com and asked for a refund of the difference. I had photos of us in the unit in different rooms, and I had the writeups of both properties. booking.com did take a little time to review my case, but they made the owner refund me the difference. Maybe it didn't occur as "fast" as the OP would have liked, but they got it done and I was satisfied.

Booking.com has a 24-hour phone line for travelers currently on their trip. I did not realize this on my first trip, or I might have called.They mentioned it to me in one of the emails.

They will take a call and help you find a new place if the one you are in is not as billed or there is some extenuating circumstance. I did need to use this number on a later trip, and the representative, who was based in the Netherlands, added the owner of our unit in a three-way call, and she sorted out the problem. This was on a Sunday night in London at 10 pm.

That was a high level of service, and I really appreciated it. I have since talked to another traveler who also had to call. Booking.com did find them a new unit and paid for the taxi to get to the new unit.

I can't say that other companies don't do the same--but I know that booking.com does. Booking.com also rents regular hotel rooms like travelocity, expedia, orbitz. That gives them a larger inventory to work from.

I have also rented from Home Away once. I would do it again.

I would be concerned by issues like fire regulations which will be lower for on going family use than multi party use. Certain areas the legality is an issue and of course do the neighbours mind their residential home become a hotel.

So far I've rented whole appartments in a family owned building....

Thanks, IMDonehere,

The issue has been hashed over so much, I hated to ask because there does not seem to be any middle ground. Whatever the law is, I want to know and will abide by it, but it is good to understand the reasons behind the law.

I can see how taking away rentable apartment space is a problem. However, I can't explain this exactly, but there seems to be something amiss here. If that is the true concern, why not encourage and reward developers to build and renovate more regular, affordable apartments? Zoning could force it. I see more and more huge, luxury apartments built in NY, that are so expensive, only the ultra rich can afford them. People are making billions of dollars on this kind of construction. Is that not also depriving people of affordable housing while making the rich, richer? Are those people too big (and important?) to attack? Is animosity about the housing situation possibly misdirected? Is it easier to target people owning a tiny apartment or studio that they rent out for minuscule extra income rather than finding a concrete solution? Just something for thought.


Having strangers in a building certainly is a valid concern, don't know how to address that, except that many people do not even know or trust their permanent neighbors and there seem to be few verified problems with people who use Airbnb.

Years ago, I stayed in an apartment which I later realized was not illegal by the law, but was probably against the condo rules. The lady who owned the apartment had lived there 40 years and raised her family there. She stayed so her Grandkids could visit often, but was struggling financially. She didn't advertise and rented only on recommendations of friends. Personally, I felt she should be able to do that, but it still was not comfortable for me, so we never stayed with her again. Even if I don't think it is reasonable, I prefer in that case to follow the rules.

When I have rented through Airbnb, the owners and I talked several times via video. I actually knew as much, if not more, about the apartments or rooms, and the owners, than I sometimes do about hotels. In that situation, both owners and guests have a buyer beware risk. If I arrived someplace and felt unsafe or uncomfortable now, I would not stay. Call Airbnb immediately and they do not pay the owner if you choose not to stay. That is one safety net. The money is not released to the owner until you have stayed one night. I do not know if the owner has the same protection.

LOL, some hotels could do with a lot more screening, especially with cleanliness, chemicals and fire safety issues.

I have seen this site so many time during using http://kayak.com/ but never used it because i was never sure about it that it is trust worthy. Your reviews here are giving me quite positive view about this site, may be in future i will use it

Kayak is not the same as Booking

>>Kayak is not the same as Booking<<

Kimberly didn't say they are the same. I read it to mean that she had seen Booking when researching trips on Kayak. Kayak does list Booking.com when searching for hotels

Manhattan real estate is truly an island unto itself. 20% of the apartments are second places for the wealthy from around the world and are frequently vacant. That in turn, has a cascading effect down on the cost on all apartments. There is very little affordable housing in Manhattan. And Mom and Pop stores are also disappearing.

There is probably too much luxury housing being built. There is finite amount of billionaires and multi-millionaires.

There is a deep struggle to keep the middle class in the City and Airbnb contributes to the problem.

I hate having apartments being rented illegally and having strangers traipsing around the building. Airbnb just has an internal vetting program that is based on previous stays. Very haphazard.

I vote we stop talking about real estate prices, AirBnB and other financial dealings in the United States.
This thread is for Paris and France...

"I vote we stop talking about real estate prices, AirBnB...the United States."

I vote to keep talking about whatever we like. My artistic temperament, I guess.

I vote we stop talking about real estate prices, AirBnB and other financial dealings in the United States.
This thread is for Paris and France..
___________________
Wow, someone actually went off topic. This is a first.

So that the Earth does not come off it axis, it is a problem in Paris as well.

BTW, Paris is just the incidental geographic location for the OP's rage against the Booking.com machine.

well, I like it. Never had a problem, [touch wood] that a phone call couldn't fix. When i'm making multiple bookings for a trip, I particularly like that you can look at a list of your bookings, make sure that they don't overlap or clash, send emails to the hotel, easily find out the free cancellation dates, cancel at the touch of a button..... Simples.

sassafras:

I can see how taking away rentable apartment space is a problem. However, I can't explain this exactly, but there seems to be something amiss here. If that is the true concern, why not encourage and reward developers to build and renovate more regular, affordable apartments? Zoning could force it. I see more and more huge, luxury apartments built in NY, that are so expensive, only the ultra rich can afford them. People are making billions of dollars on this kind of construction. Is that not also depriving people of affordable housing while making the rich, richer?

Answer: yes it is.

>>"Manhattan real estate is truly an island unto itself. 20% of the apartments are second places for the wealthy from around the world and are frequently vacant. <<"

It is simply not true that Manhattan is a unique situation in today's global real estate market

"Housing crisis: more than 200,000 homes in England lie empty" - Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...sing-shortages.

"Ireland: Too many houses in the wrong place" -- Financial Times

https://www.ft.com/content/ba41c19e-...e5b5b?mhq5j=e1

"Barcelona fines three banks more than £1 million for keeping empty apartments amid housing shortage" -- Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...ty-apartments/

"Paris hopes vacant homes can solve housing crisis" -- France 24

etc etc etc

Absent specific public action to prevent it, property is being hoarded to benefit the global affluent (which includes tourists, by the way) rather than meet the basic needs of residents, community and future generations.

I probably should have suggested that someone start a new thread to go on moaning about this.

For the record, I have never used www.booking.com.

I see @massimop found his/her way back here, after announcing "this will be my last post," and never apologizing for the rude judgement, "this increasingly absurd and misleading thread, full of wrong information."

@massimop also wrote:
>>I once again looked up that apartment on booking.com. I put in "dates" for January 2018, in search of an apartment for 4 people. Booking.com showed the avaiability of that 1-bedroom apartment.

Anyone interested can do what I did and see for themselves<<

It's very obvious to me, with my expert research skill set, that NO ONE can actually get available dates for the "Duplex Apartment with Terrace," because that apartment was sold months ago. Nothing I have offered in this thread is absurd, misleading, or wrong.

On top of that, after over 100 replies to this thread, no one has been able to secure "dates" for the "Duplex Apartment with Terrace" even though @massimop insisted that he/she could without actual proof.

In the meantime, the ad is still on Booking and the photos of the "Duplex Apartment with Terrace" are still being used to lure viewers to the "Two-Bedroom Apartment" that PickAFlat is trying to rent.

Turns out my friend, who was supposed to share the "Duplex Apartment with Terrace" with me, joined me in Paris at the last minute. He said Booking never responded to his query regarding the current state of the ad.

He and I had a conversation about Booking, and basically he said, "Booking is for people who only care about price. It's owned by Priceline. It's not a service for people who care about hotel service, decor, or the precise location of their room. Most people who book through Booking view a hotel room as just a place to sleep."

I once booked a rental car through Priceline. The car was super cheap, even though it was coming from a well-known supplier. It was the worst counter service I had ever received from a rental car company, and I'm convinced I received such poor service because I had gone through Priceline.

I wrote a complaint to the CEO of the car rental company. They issued me a credit for a one-week rental and apologized for the poor treatment I had received.

But honestly, the question to ask is who in his right mind would expect great service when you used a 3rd party site to secure the cheapest deal? I fail to see what incentive there is for any hotel to treat you better because you got the cheapest price from some internet site that has no stake in the actual business.

There's clearly a market for Booking to thrive, but there is no way they could have accomplished what I accomplished with the 3 hotels I stayed at in Paris. All of the rates and perks I received far surpassed anything that Booking could have provided. I'll continue to use Booking's map for research, but if I want great service and the lowest price, I'll book directly with the hotel. IMO, it's the smart way to do business.