Reserving BnB’s in Europe
 

My wife and I are going to Amsterdam in late May, staying 3 nights then taking a train to Cologne, staying 1 night. We will rent a car in Cologne and drive around Germany then driving to Lucerne, staying 2-3 days and ending up in Zurich to fly home.

I am now in the process of reserving rooms for us.

I would appreciate opinions on the best way to reserve local BnB’s

Has anyone used Airbnb?

Is there another website to use?

Lots of folks here have used Airbnb.

I normally book through the B&B's website or through booking.com.

I prefer to book directly through the B&B's website. That way, if there are problems, issues, questions or changes, I already have that direct connection.

I normally book through the B&B's website or through booking.com.

There are also a few B&B collectives (portals) so https://www.bedandbreakfast.nl/?lang=en is pretty good when I used them

I would like to book directly with the B&B's website, but I have to find one first. I dont know where there is a list for them, say in Amsterdam.

I usually start with Trip Advisor's listing for a given type of accommodation in a given locale when I start my research. For Amsterdam's B&Bs use this link:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g1...ce-Hotels.html

Just to be clear, given that you asked about Airbnb: the rentals through Airbnb are not B&Bs in the classic sense of the term. A true B&B is a formal and regulated business that offers rooms for rent and often offers other amenities like a breakfast or (in some locales) a voucker for a nearby restaurant for breakfast. Airbnb rentals are not regulated and are often illegal depending on the laws of a given locale. The rentals range from individual "landlords" in the business of offering rental properties to indidivuals with vacation homes and apartments that they rent out for part of the year. Sorry if I'm telling you something you already know, but it wasn't clear to me from your initial post whether you appreciated that difference.

'The rentals range from individual "landlords" in the business of offering rental properties to indidivuals with vacation homes and apartments that they rent out for part of the year'

Completely misleading. You don't even mention the fact that the majority of listings are owner-occupiers letting out their own home on an occasional basis and not necessarily in contravention of any local laws whatsoever. Your description makes it sound as though every single property is a year round holiday rental owned either by a private individual or a letting agency, with no-one in situ, which is a total misrepresentation of the site. No one disputes the there are listings in contravention of local laws in some cities and that users should take care to check listings thoroughly but this blanket dismissal of the whole site every time Airbnb is mentioned is becoming unbelievably tedious.

You might as well also advise the OP to check that every hotel they are considering is registered as a business, paying tax at the appropriate rates, not employing illegal immigrants and not paying less than minimum wage. All of which happen not infrequently in the hospitality business.

PS At the risk of being helpful, Booking.com is a great site for cross-comparing potential accomodation OP - hotels, B&Bs, apartments and villas. Many allow reservation with no payment up front and/or free cancellation within a certain timeframe.

I'd never use airbnb for hotels/B&Bs.

I often start out just googling . . . say "Cologne B&B" (or 'Guesthouse' or 'Gasthaus') and up pops a map w/ tons of properties marked. I zoom in to the area I most likely want to stay and click on the various markers.

And then look at the website/reviews etc and go from there.

I most always do this for smaller towns/villages but sometimes just use booking.com or venere.com for large cities.

We used AirBnB in Amsterdam with no problem, but I do not know the rules in Amsterdam and this was not an independent unit.

In Europe there are also lots of small, family run hotels - bigger than a 'true' b&B but much smaller and more personal than a large chain hotel. Depending on the country, most have breakfast included.

booking.com is not just for larger towns/cities. It used to be but now they have lots of listings for everywhere. And for every size accommodation. Last summer we stayed in what I call a 'true' B&B (3 guest rooms in the owner's own home where he lived, and he made us breakfast). He told us that before he got listed on booking.com he had to rely on people finding him by googling, or one of the B&B sites that listed several in his vicinity. Once he got on booking.com he had enough bookings that he was full most of the time and was therefore able to reduce his nightly price. He said most of the other B&B owners he knows don't even bother with the smaller sites anymore since booking.com (or venere.com) is so effecient.

You can find places on booking.com and then of course google the name of the place and see if they have their own website to book direct but I'm finding no advantage in that. In fact sometimes the opposite is true. I found a samll hotel (about 8-10 rooms) on booking.com but by the time I got around to making the reservation it said they were full for my dates. Doubting that this was really the case since it was many months in advance I contacted the hotel directly and they did indeed have vacancies (they allocate a certain number of rooms to booking.com but often have more). But it took several emails - and they never responded sooner than 5 or 6 days - and then they wanted me to make a deposit to their bank - which for me would be a big pain for me. With booking.com they take credit cards and the booking is instant, and the vast majority you can cancel until a few days your scheduled to stay.

I took it to mean that the OP was considering Airbnb apartment rentals as well as hotels and bed and breakfasts, Janis, but re-reading perhaps you are right and they are confused about what Airbnb actually does.

You can use all those booking sites mentioned above if you wish, but for the MOST COMPLETE set of choices in Town X, the best source is the LOCAL tourist information office website. Small-time operators of B&B's and apartments usually do NOT hook up with commercial sites like airbnb or booking.com, but they almost always ARE listed with their TI office.

Just for example... For St. Goar in Germany's Middle Rhine Valley, booking.com has 15 listings for hotels, B& B's and apartments that accommodate two persons. Airbnb lists 15 or so in St. Goar; at least 4 listings are 4 units in the same building offered by the same proprietor. (Airbnb also manages to include more units in a St. Goar search by expanding the radius WAY outside St. Goar.)

But if you go to St. Goar's TI site, you'll find 4 private B&B operators, 52 different apartments, and 17 hotels.

http://www.st-goar.de/612-1-host-directory.html

"...and then they wanted me to make a deposit to their bank - which for me would be a big pain for me."

I will just say that in Germany, small-time B&B's almost NEVER ask for a deposit of any kind. I've been booking rooms and apartments in advance for many years via email and never had to do such a thing. If this place was found on booking.com, where owners routinely request advance deposits and post cancellation policies that swipe some of your cash if cancelled, it is possible that the owner really likes the booking.com scheme and has decided to try the same policy with his private email bookings.

The one thing you should be cautious of when booking privately in Germany, deposit or no deposit, is that German law makes you responsible for every € that you agree to book for if you cancel. Book a week, then the law says you pay for a week whether you cancel or not, whether you show up or not. If no deposit is made, you are still legally responsible and can be sued. The exception comes in only if the owner has a policy (or agreement with you) in place that allows you to cancel without penalty.

I think the OP thinks AirBnB is actually BnBs, but it isn't. If tghere are any real B&Bs on there, I've never seen them.

I've booked a few, one in Switzerland and one in Amsterdam, I just did it directly with them. Lots of places have websites nowadays, if they don't, too bad as I won't book there. I actually found mine by reading guidebooks, believe it or not (probalby Fodors or Frommers). Some guidebooks are better at budget accommodations, if that is the goal (some B&Bs are not, especially in the US). Lonely Planet, Let's Go, for example. www.venere.com lists lots of budget places, also, and you can filter so you only see B&Bs if that is your goal for some reason. They have 31 in Amsterdam.

Air BnB is NOT really BnBs. It is private individual who are either renting out a an extra room or perhaps renting an apt when theyare elsewhere.

Real BnBs - set up just for tourists and usually run by a family on the spot - generally have a number of rooms - usually with private bath - and follow a certain set of local rules and regs, are registered with the local tourist office and do this as a living - not a random sideline. There are many ways to find these "professional" BnBs - which may be caleld gashauses in europe - either through association websites or local tourist offices.

If it were me I would want this rather than a spare room in a random stranger's apartment.

RM67, thank you for clarifying that some of Airbnb's rentals include in situ owners. True enough, for what it's worth. The fact remains that some of the rentals are illegal in some locations (I didn't say they were all illegal). Don't get me wrong; I use other rental sites that thare are no better than Airbnb as far as legality goes, but unlike the OP, I do not confuse them with true B&Bs, which is seemingly what he/she was after. That was the primary thrust of my post, although I recognize that that may have been lost.

As for the tedium of the Airbnb discussions, I can't help you there. This issue is going to be around a long while. Along with other oldies but goodies like carry on versus checked backage, chip and pin creditor cards, and the merits of Rick Steves. If they grow too tedious, then move on.

In Germany, I agree that the local tourist office is the best bet. German towns usually have a website with the format www.town name.de

On my last trip, two apartments required a deposit which was a pain to send as a bank transfer. Both places were so good that I didn't mind the added expense.

On our last 2 trips to Europe in mid to late June, 4 years ago, we did not book one single room in advance. We drove, saw the sights and then looked for the Zimmer frei sign and got a room with a nice view. We averaged $140 a night.

"We drove, saw the sights and then looked for the Zimmer frei sign and got a room with a nice view. We averaged $140 a night."

Ouch. That price is in part why I pre-book. I averaged way less than half of that for a single room in clean, comfortable hotels and B&B's on a trip that included nights in hotels in cities - Berlin (€45), Düsseldorf (€37) and Duisburg (€46) - as well as smaller towns - Diepholz (€38,) Osterspai (€30) and Weeze (€30.) In only 2 of the hotels did I pay additionally for breakfast. I spent no time looking for a room and didn't have to take what was left over - and saw all the sights I planned to see.

You can do it day by day but you lose a degree of choice over what you get and what you pay for it.

Last minute choices in France are much cheaper than $140 per night( wqith the possible exception of high tourist areas like the Riviera), and I suspect that this is the case also in Germany, depending on what one is expecting.

bedandbreakast.nl is a subsidiary of booking.com by the way.

twice I booked a B&B through booking.com. (netherlands) and they were well outside the large cities: one near a village in Drenthe, one in Friesland.

no deposit, no weird cancellation policy and the B&B owner was in direct contact with me almost right after receiving my registration.

News flash to everybody: Lots of B&Bs in Italy list themselves on AirBnb. They also simultaneously list themselves on booking.com, venere.com, etc. Many long time Italian b&b owners view AirBnb as just another portal for attracting customers.

A lot of B&Bs in Italy, though, are not what most people from other countries think of when they are looking for a B&B. They are often just cheap lodgings without hotel services. I've stayed in a number of B&Bs in Italy where there was no one at all onsite, where the agent met me at the B&B and needed to be paid in cash on the spot, where I never again saw the owner or an agent, and where the second "B" was just a voucher for a cappuccino and pastry at a nearby bar. Usually, I was told to leave the key on the table when I left.

This type of Italian B&B fits very well into the AirB&B model. Of course, there are B&Bs operated by owners who live onsite, but there are also lots of hotels that are similar to that. In fact, many of the lodging categories in Italy have definitions that are a bit blurred.

There are so many b&bs in Italy where the owners live on-site or there is nighttime staff, plus you are served a full breakfast, that you really should not worry much about encountering b&bs where there is not the case. They do exist, and if one wants onsite staff or onsite breakfast, confirm it will be there for you if the descriptions you read online don't make that obvious.

I note that the original post of this thread is not tagged for Italy, but since so many people made broad statements about AirBnb, I thought it was worth including here that AirBnb can be an excellent resource for finding b&b accommodation in Italy. It is also true that what an accommodation calls itself in Italy may lead you to expect something other than what it is -- but that is true in all categories of accommodation in Italy, so reading descriptions and reviews is a must.