The Challenge
We’ve stayed in quite a few Airbnbs over the last 3 years! Most have been very nice – some have been exceptional – but then there have also been 3 that have been, well…AWFUL! On those particular 3, we needed to make other arrangements after our arrival. The first one, we left almost immediately. The second one we left on day 15 of a planned 30 day stay. And the latest one in Chiang Mai, we left after the first night even though we expected to stay for 6 weeks. Michelle and I both do a lot of research before we reserve an AirBnb. It’s really the most important decision we make when we’re planning our travels because we know that accommodations are of utmost importance. If our accommodations are terrible, it doesn’t matter where we find ourselves. It simply won’t be enjoyable.
So what steps do we take to ensure that the apartment we choose on Airbnb will be adequate for our needs, while still maintaining our budget? And what happens if we arrive at an Airbnb and the pool looks like this? (I took these three pictures of the pool at the AirBnb we reserved in Chiang Mai)
When we are expecting it to look like this…
Reviews Are Your Friend!
There are countless listings of all types of accommodations on the AirBnb website. Sifting through them can be exhausting. All of the owners list and advertise their properties with the intent of renting them out, so they will nearly always magnify the positives of their place, and minimize (or forget to mention) anything negative. I should say that most of the AirBnbs we’ve rented have been pretty accurate in their descriptions. Even a few far exceeded what their listing promised. Here are two of those…
These two places stand out to me as by far the best places we’ve stayed at. The cabin on Whidbey Island sat in a lush green “enchanted” forest. It had a wood burning fireplace and a back porch where Michelle, our dog Roxy, and me, were able to submerse ourselves in all of the nature around us. There was a rabbit we named Mrs. Greenbanks, a chipmunk named Mr. Whidbey, and a squirrel named Ninja who had a brother named Samurai (or Sam for short), who used to visit us every day and I found great satisfaction in feeding them carrots. It was a glorious place and provided us with memories that we’ll never forget!
The house in Ca stood out because it had the most luxuriously comfortable furniture that we’ve encountered in any AirBnb we’ve stayed at so far. Most Airbnbs don’t provide that top quality furniture you’d have in your own home. In fact, it’s quite hard to find an AirBnb that has a comfortable couch! But not so our house in Pioneer, Ca! It was beautiful inside. The bed was like sleeping on a cloud and the reclining couch was amazing! It also had a deck out back that contained a hot tub which we used almost nightly. Watching the stars while soaking in the hot tub at night, high up in the mountains in Northern California was wonderful. It’s astounding just how many stars there are in the sky in the darkness of the night when there aren’t other houses or buildings within a half mile of your home. We truly enjoyed this house and were sorry when it came time for us to leave.
After locating an AirBnb we might want to rent, we look at reviews of the place we’re considering. Each rental listing on the AirBnb site will include reviews from previous tenants, and these reviews will be your best friend when trying to decide which property to rent. The reviews include two parts. The first part is the number of “stars” that the previous tenant rated the property, and these can be anywhere between 1 and 5 stars (1 being terrible – 5 being wonderful). The second part of the review is where you are able to read which things the tenant liked and/or disliked about the property. It’s these reviews that we’ve always base our decision on. It’s important to read reviews carefully, and to also take certain things into consideration. Such as:
- How many reviews are there on a place? – If there are less than 5 reviews, we tend to stay away from renting that property (unless the property is newly listed and all 5 reviews are positively glowing!). We’ve found that in most cases, the more reviews there are, the better chance there is of getting the “full picture” of the property you’re looking at renting. Because AirBnb limits the review to a finite number of characters, sometimes there isn’t enough room to list everything that might be of importance. In other words, a property might have 5 things that the reviewer didn’t like, but there’s only enough space to list 3 items, so 2 of the items might not get mentioned. However, if there are many reviews, it’s likely that those other two items will get mentioned in someone else’s review of the place. The more reviews of a property there are, the better!
- Does the number of stars the reviewer gave the property match the actual review? – Sometimes a reviewer will give a place 5 stars and will say something to the effect of “Nice place!” and that’s all. These reviews don’t mean anything except that the reviewer was too lazy to actually write a review, and aren’t helpful in making an informed decision on whether to rent or not! If a property is worth 5 stars, a good review will mention those things that merit the high rating. In other cases, a person might rate a property as 3 stars, but will give it a positive review, then mention that they took 2 stars off because “the weather was too hot while they were there!” We tend to not take either of these types of reviews into consideration. A good review will nearly always match the number of stars given to the description of their stay, and will list both positives and negatives of the property. The more of these kinds of reviews you see, the better it is to make a final decision!
- Make note of when the most recent reviews were written! – Sometimes a property will be listed and have great reviews, but the latest review may have been written 2 years ago! We stay away from these because a lot can happen in 2 years! Just because a place had good reviews 2 years ago doesn’t mean that everything will still be in working order when you arrive. The property could have sat empty for 2 years, or it could have been rented out long term during that time and appliances or general conditions could have deteriorated since the last review was written.
- A good property to rent will nearly always have consistently positive reviews! – If we are considering a property and it has a lot of 4 or 5 star ratings, with positive and consistent remarks about how great the property is, it’s generally a good bet that the property will meet your high expectations. We’ve very seldom been “surprised” when we rented a property with consistently positive reviews!
- Look for reviews that mention “good internet” and “good A/C” (or heat if you are going somewhere cold)! – We’ve been in a few places where the internet was terrible even though the property was advertised as “WIFI access included”. We learned quickly that “WIFI access” doesn’t necessarily mean access to “good WIFI”. We also rented 2 places where even though the listing said it had A/C, in one case there was none at all and in the other case there was an air conditioner in the apartment but it wasn’t working.
- It’s also very helpful to note where the person writing the review is from! – I mention this because in Asia, many AirBnb’s have very hard beds because Asians for the most part prefer to sleep on harder mattresses. So if a person who is from Thailand mentions a “very comfortable bed” in their review, it may not carry the same weight as someone like me from America who mentions the same thing! The hardest bed we ever slept on was at our AirBnb in Bangkok, Thailand. It was very similar to what sleeping on a sheet of plywood would feel like…yet there were one or two reviews that mentioned “comfortable bed”. We failed to take into account that those reviewers were Asian and probably were quite comfortable!
Don't Despair If You Rented a Lemon!
Let’s say you’ve done your research. You’ve read all the reviews that there were to read on the place you want to rent, and you’ve decided to go ahead and reserve it, so you click that button! In most cases, you’ll be charged the rental price immediately and now all you need to do is get to the property on your planned arrival date. You’re expecting it to be great because otherwise you wouldn’t have rented it, but upon arrival you realize it’s got problems. Is there anything you can do at this point, or is your money simply gone and you’re stuck in a place you know you’re going to hate?
The good news, and short answer is “NO”, you’re not stuck there without options. There is hope and I’m going to share with you the steps you can take that will help you make this dark situation a little brighter! This scenario happened to us 3 times over the course of the last 3 years staying almost entirely in AirBnbs. If you find yourself in this situation. Here’s what to do:
- Contact the owner or “host” of your property first! – On the AirBnb app, there is a section that allows you to send and receive direct messages to your host. Normally, the host has one hour to respond to you so give them a little time. In your message, be respectful, but explain the problem to them. Ask them if they are able to rectify the problem, then give them a chance to respond to your concern. It will be easy at this point for you to be angry because of the situation you’re in, but refrain from allowing the anger to show. Stay calm and allow the process to play out. If your issue is a very green pool (like in my pictures above), take pictures and include them in your message to the host. (AirBnb has access to and can view these messages if there is any disagreement, so it’s good to include pictures if you can. Sometimes the host will try to get you to communicate with them in some other way, either by phone or by text, but it’s important to use only the AirBnb app message section because this will be your official record in any dispute). If the host is able to rectify the problem(s) you’ve identified, problem solved! However, if they are unable or unwilling to address your concern(s) then proceed to the next step.
- Notify your host by message that you’re going to contact AirBnb – You should, out of courtesy, notify the host that you are going to contact AirBnb for a resolution. Continue to be polite and keep your messages calm and in a professional manner.
- Contact AirBnb – AirBnb is open 24/7 so you don’t need to worry about whether they’ll be open. You can reach them by phone, or by instant chat. When you reach them, calmly explain the issue to them. We’ve been through this process twice and both times they’ve been really helpful! They will want to know the details, and especially whether you’ve already contacted the host first for resolution and what their response was to you. Likely they will contact the owner of the property and will contact you shortly with their suggested resolution. I’m an impatient person, so it’s always hard for me to wait to hear from them again, but in both cases, they’ve resolved the issue within 2 hours. Both times they offered us a complete refund of our booking, and then added a coupon to use as a credit for our next booking. Depending on the situation, the coupon ranged between $170.00 and $700.00 for us.
- After receiving an offer for a refund and accepting, you can expect the money to be credited back to you and should arrive in your account within about 3 business days. – If you’re offered the refund, you’ll need to check out of your property and find other accommodations, but at least you’ll know you aren’t paying for something you hate. Throughout this process, remain friendly and courteous to the owner of the property and leave the property as clean as when you found it. Even though it’s tempting to “ruin their day” because they “ruined yours”, refrain from acting on that. The goal is to be able to find other accommodations and get your money back without any hassle. When we went through this process on our last AirBnb, we needed to pack up again and then search for a hotel for the night until we could plan what to do next. After checking into the hotel, we decided to stay there for about a week until we could rearrange our upcoming travel. In the end, it all worked out for the best for us and we were satisfied.
There is one final piece of advice that Michelle and I can give you as you navigate through the process of finding, renting, checking in and staying at the AirBnb you’ve chosen, and that is to be as flexible as possible. Plans change, so try to book AirBnbs that offer free cancellation up to a certain date. Also, know that if you do end up having to move to a different accommodation because the one you booked didn’t work out, just remember that there’s a reason for everything! One of our best stays was when we booked our AirBnb in Montana. We arrived there during an unusually scorching “heat wave”. Temperatures were near 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but we weren’t worried because our rental house was advertised as having air conditioning. Imagine our surprise after we checked in, only to find out that the owner had lied on the listing! There was no air conditioning at all in the house. Adding to our frustration was the fact that the nice big lush green yard that we’d seen in the listing photos, turned out to be so overgrown with high grass and weeds that I’m not sure we’d have been able to find our dog in that mess if we’d have let her out there. I don’t think they mowed the lawn in 6 months and it was horrible. After contacting the owner, then reaching out to AirBnb, we were given a full refund of our money, along with a $700.00 coupon to use on our next booking. We had a little trouble finding another place until we located one in Boise, Idaho (about 365 miles away). We never planned on stopping in Idaho, but we’re so glad things worked out this way because Boise turned out to be one of our favorite cities and we wouldn’t have seen it if our original AirBnb rental hadn’t blown up in our faces.
Everything happens for a reason!
Safe travels everyone! Have a great day!!