Trying to book a holiday - Given up on Airbnb!

[Mike-And-Jane0]

Wow - Just trying to book a holiday for ourselves and extended family. Every website I have tried has been easier to use than Airbnb. I wonder if Airbnb ever actually compare themselves to others. My observations:

1) We are needing a place for 7 people, 1 dog and want 4 bedrooms - Can't input all of this on Airbnb

2) We are flexible as to whether its a Fri/Sat/Sunday check in - Can't input this on Airbnb

3) Used the 'week in June' search on Airbnb - It came back with 5 day stays

4) Best websites showed price for the week on a map - Airbnb showed price per night leaving me to work out the total price

My conclusion?

1) Airbnb search facility is not user friendly

2) We would be better listing our places on a different website. Sadly the UK alternatives require commitment of a year or more so we are stuck with Airbnb.

[Huma0]

@Mike-And-Jane0 

I've only booked as a guest via Airbnb a couple of times and I found the search okay, but then I wasn't looking for anything terribly complicated.

However, I have noticed that some guests do have issues. A recent one is that Airbnb shows listings outside of the filters the guest has entered, which is just annoying. If the guest wants a private bathroom and enters that, then it's just annoying for them to have to wade through listings with shared bathrooms.

Also, Airbnb will show guests hotels when they actually want to stay in a homeshare.

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  They do something else dastardly I never relized until a guest told me of her search experience. She said she set a price range, and my place didn't come up until she upped the max price to twice what I charge. She kept upping it slowly, because she was being shown stuff she wasn't attracted to, and did that 5 times. Mine came up on the 5th try. 

So they are making guests input higher price filters in order to try to get them to book more expensive places on which they can charge a higher service fee.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

Mmm, that's interesting. Haven't heard of that one before but it doesn't surprise me.

A guest who checked out today wanted to extend her stay but unfortunately I didn't have availability. She ended up booking a place just around the corner. The place looks good. It's newly renovated, conveniently located etc. and has around 30 reviews and the price looks fair. Yet, it doesn't have a single booking other than hers for the next six months (which I assume is how far ahead the calendar is open for). It's not because any dates are blocked. All the dates are open and available. Why no bookings?

I suggested that maybe the listing was getting buried in search results (not sure if the host uses IB or not). The guest said that this listing did not appear at all in her searches. It was only when she clicked on the map to specifically search for listings minutes from mine that it appeared. No wonder the poor host has no bookings!

[Mark116]

@Mike-And-Jane0  I also just recently did a search to book a place in Saratoga Springs NY and it was not very smooth.  The bar along the top had what appeared to be a list of random items 'kitchen' 'wifi' 'workspace' to use for filters.  I mean, seriously, Airbnb, 'kitchen' when I'm already searching for entire homes?  Then, a huge amount of places not in Saratoga Springs w/no clear way to know how far away they were.  Lastly, the ranking seemed really off.. a place w/a rating of 4.3 is a 'hidden gem'?  Oh really.

Overall, the once easy to use reservation function has moved to closer to the back end that hosts see...clunky and random, without much rhyme or reason to it.

In contrast, VRBO's listing all stated X miles from town center or X miles from beach.  Although there were only a handful of listings.

[Jennifer2682]

I'll tell you though, that VRBO's "X miles from wherever" are often incorrect.  I have been pulling my hair out trying to get them to correct mine, which says 11.9 miles to the lake when I am only 1.9.  

[Huma0]

Another thing I noticed is that the cancellation policy is no longer stated on the landing page of listings. You have to enter dates and then get a pop up with more details. Okay, this makes sense as the host may accept long term stays in which case the policy would depend on the dates, but we all know that many guests do not bother to read the fine print, so putting the cancellation policy section right at the bottom of the landing page and the guest then having to click on it to find out more, is not a great idea in my opinion.