The problem with AirBnB is that they want you to scan your id card and send it over the internet. Which is illegal here in Germany. I would not use a company that wants me to do illegal things in the first place.
Additionally they want access to your Facebook account, which I find offensive as well.
I travel a lot in Europe. Since I prefer to stay in apartments over staying in hotel rooms, my approach is to look up local apartment rental sites. Usually I find good deals this way. I only stay in hotels if I absolutely must. Apartments are so much nicer.
It's illegal to make copies of the ID card unless required by law. Opening a bank account is one of these things were the law requires a copy of the ID card due to money laundering legislation.
I find that law even more ridiculous given those requirements. Making it illegal to do X unless they force you to do X undermines almost all arguments for criminalizing X.
Not entirely. The companies that must collect presumably have better security safeguards than those just wanting it just because it's easy or customary.
I have a client that must collect and store drivers license copies for 2 years by state law. The system encrypts with GnuPG, such that only an offline private key stored on a crypto smart card can decrypt, and the encrypted image into a cloud storage bucket with an expiration date. Unless they get a spoliation order because the police come knocking no one ever sees the data. After 2 years, the file auto deletes and a record is left indicating that the record was "deleted in the ordinary course of business." The company does not really want to do all of this, but its required by law and good infosec practices.
I recently applied for it but they didn't ask me to send ID via email. They used idnow (http://www.idnow.eu/). You get a real operator via website (or even mobile) asking some questions and taking a photo of you and your passport. I was actually surprised as it worked quite seamlessly.
Yes, I went through the same, but wouldn't "taking a photo of your passport be the same as "scan your id card and send it over the internet" which OP claims is illegal?
Do faxes in Germany have their own super-secure network? Or is it illegal to fax identifying information as well?
Actually I would not be surprised that the old way was legal and any new way that threatens incumbents is illegal. This seems a fundamental dysfunction of Europe in general.
"Illegal" is relative in this case. The law isn't a set of divine rules to live by (you're probably breaking a few laws by accident every day), it's more of a correction mechanism for abuse. That, and every country has weird quirky laws on certain matters. Just use common sense.
That said, you should be careful with your ID. But, I personally wouldn't mind verifying my ID with Airbnb (last I checked, they used specific verification software)
And this law is very likely in place to avoid situations what Airbnb has created.
Namely Airbnb has created a database of (very likely high quality) copies of ID cards that when leaked could be used for identity theft in similar places where digital photographic copies of ID cards over the Internet are accepted as proof of identity.
To be more clear - digital photographic copy of a ID card can not be considered as a proof of the identity because it only shows that the person who is providing this information had either access to the copy itself or had limited time to make a copy in real life.
I think, when I verified my ID a couple of years ago, they used a sort of middleware to analyse + verify the ID. If I remember right, they said they didn't actually store the ID (i.e. the underlying image was discarded once verified)
It seems like you have an impossible standard for determining proof of identity. What type of verification do you envision that isn't subject to flaws? Presenting an ID in person also only proves that someone had access to or a copy of an ID. Of course, there are some physical appearance constraints, but it's not hard for a determined identity thief to get around those.
Personally, I'm glad I live in a country that doesn't criminalize identity verification that utilizes 21st century technology (though I'd gladly accept some other German public policies).
Making a photocopy of an ID is in my opinion not a finest example of the 21st century technology.
One option to have a proof of identity without an actual in person visit is to use a trusted third party (what has verified the person in person). This could be a state (if it provides such service) or a private institution (a Bank for example).
Otherwise you can use old and proved method of trust. I understand that of course for a service like airbnb this might not be enough and this is also the reason why I probably would not use them in the future.
Denmark's online id system, called NemID (EasyID) requires
* A username
* A password
* A one-time verification code, either from a card which is posted to your registered address, or using some kind of USB thing (as far as I know, the USB option is mostly used by companies).
The system is run by the government.
I don't know what information a business using this system for authorization gets — I'd guess name, address and perhaps date of birth — but they at least don't have the password or single use verification code, so they can't authorize themselves in my name.
When I tried to sign up through Google they wanted access to my Google Drive for verification. You can have lengthy arguments about the sanity of giving Google access to 8 years worth of random files, documents and photos alone, but then give a third party access to all that just for "verification"?
This is super common practice in the UK, at least in some industries (e.g. Gambling). Most online bookmakers & exchanges will require age-verification before they let you place a stake.
I've had similar experiences ordering alcohol online (though only from smaller retailers, and usually only for a first purchase).
As an AirBnB host I'm not all that cool with letting out my apartment for a day to someone who won't share some form of proof of identity.
As an engineer I get the privacy concerns so I'm split on which way I sit on this fence but I trust in a large tech company like AirBnB to get security right - so on balance the short term risks of someone abusing my flat outweigh my long term risks of someone getting my passport data.
Because insurance is a hassle? Who wants to go through the process of being righted after being wronged? Getting wronged to be reimbursed is not the business model most renters are seeking when they put up a property on AB&B.
Ok let's say you had a delivery business and have all the insurance necessary. You're saying you're equally likely to use a driver who has a history of careless driving as you would a driver who has a history of driving safely because you're covered by insurance.
I'm claiming people are seeking avoidance. People would rather have the deterrent effect, so that they might avoid the hassles of going through claims and then waiting for things to be righted.
> Last week Money Box heard from a listener who was surprised to find that her home contents insurance did not cover her for theft by a cleaner. Money Box listeners have told us that insurers seem confused about whether you are covered if carers and home helps steal from you. An insurance expert tells Money Box how you can find out.
(They misuse the word "carer" here, which should only be used about people who provide unpaid care. They mean something like "care worker".)
It's really only the online part of it that's trouble; many hotels will make a note of your passport or similar at the front desk when you register. I think it may even be required by law in some places in Europe.
There's a great difference between a photocopy in a safe and a photo of ID on the internet. The one in the safe is much harder to steal in bulk.
Could also be solved by using the passport instead of the identity card. The NFC-feature can't be disabled and most people have NFC smartphones (well, at least the people who are using AirBnB)
This is true, but I can't imagine why I'd pay thousands of dollars to travel somewhere and spend the time cooking instead of eating at that place's unique restaurants.
Especially for longer-term stays, it can be nice to have a refrigerator at least so that you don't need to go out for every light meal (esp. breakfast) or beer. And not everyplace has a great choice in restaurants--e.g. more rural areas. (Don't get me started on hotels with minibar refrigerators that you can't use to store anything in.) But, yeah, other than the fridge or maybe a kettle/microwave to heat water, I can't remember the last time I used a kitchenette to actually cook something.
[EDIT: It probably also depends why you're at a place. If you're on vacation I pretty much agree. If you're there for some sort of project or other reason and you're paying for your own food, I can see why one wouldn't want to eat out every meal.]
I don't claim to either. But its super fun to just go to the grocery store and the ability to actually try to replicate a few dishes with local ingredients (as opposed to whatever substitute is available back home) is really fun for a lot of people.
For example, I've taken cooking classes in places like Thailand where they even take you to the market and show you what to buy. Since you know what to buy and you've already been taught to cook several dishes, its not that hard to go back to the same market the next day to whip up some more Pad Thai.
I usually eat at the restaurants, but order more food than I can reasonably eat, so the fridge is great to take leftovers home and then enjoy them for breakfast.
I was recently in vegas. You can get hotel rooms cheap, but they have the tax and entertainment fee's that add up quickly. My problem with AirBnB was the $200 cleaning fee for a two night stay.
So far, it's been extremely hit or miss for me. I've found VRBO/Homeaway to be better for vacations.
$200 is pretty steep but it's not that unusual for vacation-type properties (whether booked through AirBnB or someone else) that don't offer daily maid service to have a nightly fee plus a one-time cleaning fee. I imagine that this is partly to encourage longer-term rentals and partly it just reflects their costs.
And, yeah, Vegas is notorious for tacking on mandatory resort fees.
They have mostly similar offers (in EU) as airbnb.com and I consider them more trustworthy (as they have offered the service for longer time as airbnb).
Except some hosts told me that Booking.com is a rip off, plus it doesn't handle their accounting like Airbnb does.
From the user's point of view, Booking.com is a horrible cluttered web site with 1990'ish approaches to design, usability and online marketing. I don't trust them at all.
I can confirm this. We booked a hostel in Patagonia in December through booking. We decided to stay in the same place a week later after doing a trek. She charged us 20 or 25% less as she didn't have to pay Booking.com
How is this any different than working on oDesk (or whatever it's named now) once then working outside of it and splitting the difference in fees? I don't see how that makes Booking a rip-off.
You'll nearly always get a better deal from cash payments to a place you've already stayed at. In fact, plenty will offer you discounts if you come back when they're not expecting to be full even if you didn't use a booking site or travel agent to find them first time around.
Booking.com have a "lowest price guarantee" for online bookings (and from personal experience, do actually honour it), so it's the hosts that bear the costs if Booking.com's commission is higher than other booking portals or agents. Presumably they generate enough bookings for the hosts to find being on there worthwhile though.
> Except some hosts told me that Booking.com is a rip off, plus it doesn't handle their accounting like Airbnb does.
Well, Booking.com (or any other similar site) offers hosts the reach they may otherwise miss.
It is also good if there are many such sites hosts could use as it would then presumably make situation more favorable for them. This is also why I mentioned Booking.com at all, as I do not see and I do not want to see the world in black/white (airbnb/hotel).
Having competition also (usually) helps to keep things more honest.
> From the user's point of view, Booking.com is a horrible cluttered web site with 1990'ish approaches to design, usability and online marketing.
I actually do not mind their design approach.
It is actually quite usable, even better as airbnb as they show the total amount upfront for the search period and not just the pay for a night in what, to be honest, I have no interest in. There are many other small differences that make Booking.com interface more usable for me.
Of course it comes down to personal preferences and this is only my personal opinion.
As a beginner host I can tell you, booking.com IS a ripoff. They charge several times more than airbnb (15%), so hosts reflect this to higher price. So far I haven't seen the option to actually send the money to me, it seems I have to collect it on spot (hopefully not). I am 3 weeks into account opening process with them, and it's not yet done (because they fail to send me a mail with which I confirm whatever - this is internet company in 2016!). Airbnb was done in 15 minutes in super-intuitive manner.
They deserve competition desperately, either improve or die. The only reason why it's still in existence is they were first, any many people are used to them. But as with all internet technologies, this will change over time.
I am not sure if it is a ripoff but it is quite close to protection racket - either you are available one of such sites or your object never gets any tourists. Looks like another industry that naturally goes in monopoly/oligopoly direction.
The customers only check the sites the have seen commercials for and think is reputable. Its in the end a web of trust and the consumer does not trust randoms
> From the user's point of view, Booking.com is a horrible cluttered web site with 1990'ish approaches to design, usability and online marketing.
Strange because they A/B test literally everything. The site looks the way it does because it sells better that way. You could actually say the same for Amazon then.
I use both sites quite a lot and at least 25% of the time Booking.com will say that they're taking payment at time of booking only for me to arrive at the hotel and find out that the payment has not been taken.
For business travel this creates the annoying situation where I have to cover the cost of accommodation from my personal account and submit an expenses request.
I have also had booking.com take the payment but there has been a break down in communication with the hotel and they have not received it or have not been informed and I've had to pay twice. Then spend time afterwards playing pass-the-buck as booking.com tells me it is the hotel who owes me the refund and the hotel telling me it is booking.com
I have had a hotel say they have no record of a booking.com reservation at all. Lucky it was not full and they had a spare room.
It's only happened once but if it was an important reservation i would now call ahead and make sure the hotel got the booking. At that point you might as well make a reservation direct. I'm sure they would be happy to match booking.com price.
Cheaper is one angle. But did anyone mention the location problem? Simply put, there are way way more places where people live than hotels are. I have visited Tel Hazor and Tel Megiddo both and I challenge you to find a hotel near either (note: I don't drive).
Yes! Look at the region south of A57 in Manchester, UK (Hulme and the University for example). There are like 1-2 hotels in pretty big regions vs dozens north of A57.
If you book Airbnb for a month, it's usually around the same price as a 2 week stay, and the nightly rate cannot be touched by hotels, particularly for the size and location.
I can't see the images/charts since the site is down and I am reading the cache, but this analysis seems a bit suspicious to me. They are comparing AB&B prices without taxes and fees (and website + cleaning fees can be quite expensive) to hotel prices with taxes. The conclusion is that AB&B is more expensive, but I suspect if the additional fees were factored in, the difference would be even greater.
I've travelled extensively for the last 2.5 years using a combination of Airbnb, hotels (booked via Agoda & Rakuten Travel) & apartments arranged via local classifieds (Craigslist, Gumtree etc.).
At the beginning airbnb was my main choice, because of the experience it delivered. Not because it was cheaper. I used to stay in houseshares and the vast majority of the time the host was amazing, sociable and generous. But I think as airbnb has gone more into the mainstream and hosts get more experienced, the host cannot maintain that level of service. Now the best hosts are professional, but without the friendliness of the early days.
What works best on price depends on many factors: the time of year, the country, the length of stay, big events or festivals, number of guests.
I now make my choice based on the price and quality. I've recently found last-minute hotel bookings via Agoda have worked well.
Hotels in cities work especially well in off-seasons. They have staff cost and vacant rooms, so have a strong incentive to get any revenue they can. Prices can sometimes be lower than anything that an airbnb host would be willing to accept[1]. Also hotels work well for 1 day stays. Many airbnb hosts want 2 day minimum stays. Also airbnb hosts often add a cleaning fee, which can significantly bump up price for very short stays.
Conversely airbnb can work great when your visiting a city/area during an extremely busy period. Hotels are obviously aware these peaks and have adjusted prices accordingly. Experienced airbnb hosts have done the same. But novice airbnb hosts will often have much lower prices.
[1] I used to be an airbnb host in a UK city. During the winter months it just wasn't worth competing with the budget hotels (EasyHotel, Premier Inn etc.)
I don't deny you can get cheaper hotels rooms than airbnb rooms. nonetheless, I have visited Japan, US, Caribbean and in many cases the airbnb proposal is way better for the same money.
The majority of my experience comes from staying in NYC for 3-4 days. I stayed in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and each time I compared prices of AirBnB and hotels. AirBnB always won. Getting a room (with access to kitchen) instead of a whole apartment makes the difference even bigger.
Apart from the price, having access to a kitchen is a huge plus to me because I do not want to spend on eating out all the time. Eating out is much more expensive than cooking at home (not only in NYC). This should be taken into account too while doing the price comparison.
I would argue that for one person it is cheaper to eat out in NYC if you know where to look. The numbers change once you start cooking in advance (meal planning) or cooking for more than one person.
> I would argue that for one person it is cheaper to eat out in NYC if you know where to look
I find this hard to believe. Is there seriously a place you can eat out (and eat reasonaly well) for $1 a time? Or, how expensive is your home-cooked food?
Home cooked food is a lot more expensive than normal if you are only in the home for a couple days and don't want to spend the first one preparing food.
Having also lived in NYC, that is true if you're OK with the health effects of eating $1 slices every day. Otherwise, I'm not sure how that math could work out.
You are absolutely correct. Not only are groceries disproportionately expensive in NY, economies of scale kick in, as well as intense competition in an already low-margin industry drive the price down for restaurants. A high-quality and tasty meal that I might enjoy at a neighborhood pub for ~$11 would definitely cost me over $20 if I was to recreate it at home, plus I would have the opportunity cost of the time spent making it and cleaning up.
You may not notice this effect if you are only in town for a few days and eat mostly at tourist-friendly spots in midtown. Not to mention several math-impaired people seem to believe they only spend $1 a meal. Where do they live, India?
>> intense competition in an already low-margin industry drive the price down for restaurants.
Isn't the same thing true for the grocery stores? They are located in the same areas as restaurants and have to pay pretty much the same expensive rent, no? meanwhile, their expenses may be lower than the ones of a restaurant.
anyway, could you tell more info about what your neighborhood pub - for example, what neighborhood is it? what meal did you eat?
I can share my numbers - and sorry I did not tell in advance I went with my BF, so there were two of us eating cooked food.
So, I ate at Cafe Aroma in Manhatten and I paid about $17 for a plate with rice + fish + some salad.
the same day I went to a grocery store on Myrtle Ave in Brooklyn to buy supper for 2. I paid about $27 for tortellini, some chicken ham, a small watermelon, and some beer. It was enough for us for supper + some leftovers for breakfast (beer haha ;). The day after I found an even cheaper store where I bought supper for the other two days at once.
$17 for a cafe meal seemed too expensive for me, so the next days I tried to eat cheaper cafe lunches. So I ate sandwiches for ~ $10-12; however, they contained a much smaller amount of proteins so I felt hungry much faster after.
> Isn't the same thing true for the grocery stores?
Not nearly. Groceries stores have higher margins and vastly less competition.
I'm most familiar with North Brooklyn (Williamsburg/Bed-Stuy) where most bars and unfancy restaurants have dishes that will make a full meal for $10-16. My experience is that LES and East Village are a touch pricier, but not much.
My question to you is how much do you think a restaurant would have charged for your tortellini/processed chicken/watermelon meal? I mean no slight to your culinary abilities, but I suspect it wouldn't have passed muster at most restaurants.
the initial discussion was about the price not the fanciness of food
And this is one of the main reasons to buy your own food - you have a choice of what to buy! While eating out, your choice is much smaller.
You pay for some extras you may not like but you cannot remove it from the menu. Even if you can - would it affect the price? I doubt so.
Composing my own meal gives me the flexibility of choosing only the things I like + saving money.
On the top of that, the nice extras like tea/coffee/dessert/fruits come with increased margins.
Especially fruits due to their short shelf life in cut form.
Let's look at the following example; though it does not involve the restaurant prices, I still think it is representative.
In IGA (a Canadian grocery chain) a fruit salad comes for $1.30 / 100 G. A mini watermelon is $5 each, and its weight is ~2.72 kg (6lb) with 70% of it being edible. This gives us the cost of $0.26 / 100 g.
The fruit salad margin is like 500% ??? Isn't it crazy. Of course, there are other fruits in the salad but the one can easily satisfy their sweet tooth with eating one fruit instead of eating many.
I agree with you. My SO's family chose to stay at an airbnb for our wedding this fall so they could have kitchen access. On one hand it comes down to convenience - it's easier to buy a couple boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk and some sandwich supplies rather than find a place to eat 3 times a day. I suppose a hotel could have a mini-fridge, but that wouldn't be able to hold enough for them. I've stayed in a suite with a full-size fridge, but that was considerably more expensive.
There are 5 of them, so that's a factor too. It's easier to plan/use up groceries for multiple people over multiple days than if you're just alone.
I did not mention I was not alone, I went with my boyfriend, so it makes 2 of us. But I am still pretty confident if I were alone, it would still be cheaper for me to cook rather than eat out.
Just being a fussy mathematician, but I didn't see anywhere where in the article where it discussed the time of year where these figures were pulled from.
In addition to other chargers other folks are pointing out, it's not hard to see how that can affect the model to portray AirBnB or Hotels one way or the other.
Comparing entire-home AirBnB rentals to hotel room costs seems like an unfair comparison. Renting out an entire home on AirBnB seems much more akin to getting a hotel suite, which is more expensive than a single room.
This is actually a problem I ran into last weekend. My wife and I were going to a friend's wedding in the suburbs of Nashville and essentially all the rentals available on AirBnB were whole homes, 3 bedrooms or so. The prices were quite reasonable for such homes (and if we'd thought ahead of time we probably could have coordinated with other friends of ours who were going to the wedding) but we don't need all that space for the two of us, so in the end we just got a hotel room. But last time we went to Nashville we were staying in the city and AirBnB was significantly cheaper for a one-bedroom apartment than a hotel room would have been.
Nashville's weird at the moment, hotel rooms are sky-high some weekends. You're less likely to have living circumstances that allow a single room to be rented out in the burbs as well. In town, it's a lot more common for a loft or extra room to be available. Could be all the AirBnb Hoteliers around as well. Hope you had a good weekend.
I agree. But when I get an AirBnb I only go for entire-home (usually an apartment) since I want my own key, privacy. I don't want a bedroom in somebody's house (which is much worse than a hotel). I don't need a hotel suite. So its comparing the two minimum offerings for me: AirBnb entire-home vs standard hotel.
"This analysis does not take into account Airbnb’s additional fees charged per rental (Service Fee) and any charges optionally imposed by the host (Cleaning Fee)"
This is pretty significant as some hosts encourage long-term stays (or deliberately game AirBnB results) by lowering the per-day price while raising the cleaning fee.
Cleaning fee amortized over short stays tends to add significant markup, and at this point many hotels do come cheaper, as daily cleaning in their case is already taken into account and is cost-efficient.
Edge case for AirBnB is family travel. Booking anything 1-bedroom and larger somehow seems to signal to the hotel industry that you've finally made it to the Forbes list and therefore no expense will be spared. I'd venture to say that any decent 2-bedroom (and up) apartment/house on AirBnB would be [significantly] cheaper than a 2-bedroom (and up) suite at the hotel.
>Booking anything 1-bedroom and larger somehow seems to signal to the hotel industry that you've finally made it to the Forbes list and therefore no expense will be spared.
It depends. Absolutely for a typical downtown hotel, their relative handful of suites tend to be oriented toward being used as business meeting rooms or by people who are really price insensitive. You can sometimes get deals on weekends and the like but, yeah, it's a bit like business and first-class pricing on planes.
It's far less true of the residence style hotels though (e.g. Marriott's Residence Inn). In suburban/sprawl locations I often favor these because it's nice to stretch out on a sofa. Some locales, such as Vegas, also have suites as a pretty standard offering.
The damage you do is different. Think about the worth of an apartment. It's net worth is calculated: rental revenues during a year multiplicated with 100 and divided by the interest rate of the bond market = $$$$... example: rent $1000/month =$12,000/year multiplicated with 100 = $12 Million divided bey 5 = $2,4 Million --- now remember the gentrification in big city's and it's influence on prices. Sure, if you calculate your apartment worth using daily earnings your, rental revenues fur upper calculation maybe higher than with a monthly or weekly earnings, but the price of the estate...
An odd analysis, given most hotel rooms don't have kitchens. Or space for more than 2 people.
I recently booked a trip to Florence, Italy. While hotel rooms and single-room apartments were on par price-wise, Airbnb offered larger apartments, many with nice balconies and view, that were not available in the hotels. And the apartments were generally less expensive than hotel suites (with kitchen).
AirBnb seemed to not have good prices for off-season beach rentals. I was checking there a few weeks ago and found way better prices for off-season beach rentals on traditional rental sites... sometimes for exactly the same property. I assumed that individual property owners tended to forget about off-season pricing or just didn't want to rent their properties at off-season value. Perhaps I was doing something wrong in the search though?
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 163 ms ] threadFrom personal experience it's much cheaper to stay in airbnb with large (6+) group of people instead of getting 2 or 3 hotel rooms.
Additionally they want access to your Facebook account, which I find offensive as well.
I travel a lot in Europe. Since I prefer to stay in apartments over staying in hotel rooms, my approach is to look up local apartment rental sites. Usually I find good deals this way. I only stay in hotels if I absolutely must. Apartments are so much nicer.
I have a client that must collect and store drivers license copies for 2 years by state law. The system encrypts with GnuPG, such that only an offline private key stored on a crypto smart card can decrypt, and the encrypted image into a cloud storage bucket with an expiration date. Unless they get a spoliation order because the police come knocking no one ever sees the data. After 2 years, the file auto deletes and a record is left indicating that the record was "deleted in the ordinary course of business." The company does not really want to do all of this, but its required by law and good infosec practices.
Handling data breach material is expensive.
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Gericht-Personalauswe...
Actually I would not be surprised that the old way was legal and any new way that threatens incumbents is illegal. This seems a fundamental dysfunction of Europe in general.
That said, you should be careful with your ID. But, I personally wouldn't mind verifying my ID with Airbnb (last I checked, they used specific verification software)
Namely Airbnb has created a database of (very likely high quality) copies of ID cards that when leaked could be used for identity theft in similar places where digital photographic copies of ID cards over the Internet are accepted as proof of identity.
To be more clear - digital photographic copy of a ID card can not be considered as a proof of the identity because it only shows that the person who is providing this information had either access to the copy itself or had limited time to make a copy in real life.
Edit: they use Jumio Netverify - http://www.jumio.com/
Personally, I'm glad I live in a country that doesn't criminalize identity verification that utilizes 21st century technology (though I'd gladly accept some other German public policies).
One option to have a proof of identity without an actual in person visit is to use a trusted third party (what has verified the person in person). This could be a state (if it provides such service) or a private institution (a Bank for example).
Otherwise you can use old and proved method of trust. I understand that of course for a service like airbnb this might not be enough and this is also the reason why I probably would not use them in the future.
* A username * A password * A one-time verification code, either from a card which is posted to your registered address, or using some kind of USB thing (as far as I know, the USB option is mostly used by companies).
The system is run by the government.
I don't know what information a business using this system for authorization gets — I'd guess name, address and perhaps date of birth — but they at least don't have the password or single use verification code, so they can't authorize themselves in my name.
https://www.nemid.nu/dk-en/
I've had similar experiences ordering alcohol online (though only from smaller retailers, and usually only for a first purchase).
As an engineer I get the privacy concerns so I'm split on which way I sit on this fence but I trust in a large tech company like AirBnB to get security right - so on balance the short term risks of someone abusing my flat outweigh my long term risks of someone getting my passport data.
But i was really referencing AirBnB insurance....
Having your passport or ID saved would make you think twice about committing some kind of crime
I'm claiming people are seeking avoidance. People would rather have the deterrent effect, so that they might avoid the hassles of going through claims and then waiting for things to be righted.
Many home insurance claims in the UK are not paid: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35401104
There are plenty of cases of people in the UK being robbed by eg cleaners and insurance doesn't pay.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05qvn36
> Last week Money Box heard from a listener who was surprised to find that her home contents insurance did not cover her for theft by a cleaner. Money Box listeners have told us that insurers seem confused about whether you are covered if carers and home helps steal from you. An insurance expert tells Money Box how you can find out.
(They misuse the word "carer" here, which should only be used about people who provide unpaid care. They mean something like "care worker".)
> Some examples of what the Host Protection Insurance program doesn’t cover:
> Intentional acts where liability isn’t the result of an accident.
EG, theft.
There's a great difference between a photocopy in a safe and a photo of ID on the internet. The one in the safe is much harder to steal in bulk.
Problem is many disable it, do not have a card reader and many smartphones are not compatible.
[EDIT: It probably also depends why you're at a place. If you're on vacation I pretty much agree. If you're there for some sort of project or other reason and you're paying for your own food, I can see why one wouldn't want to eat out every meal.]
For example, I've taken cooking classes in places like Thailand where they even take you to the market and show you what to buy. Since you know what to buy and you've already been taught to cook several dishes, its not that hard to go back to the same market the next day to whip up some more Pad Thai.
So far, it's been extremely hit or miss for me. I've found VRBO/Homeaway to be better for vacations.
And, yeah, Vegas is notorious for tacking on mandatory resort fees.
They have mostly similar offers (in EU) as airbnb.com and I consider them more trustworthy (as they have offered the service for longer time as airbnb).
From the user's point of view, Booking.com is a horrible cluttered web site with 1990'ish approaches to design, usability and online marketing. I don't trust them at all.
Booking.com have a "lowest price guarantee" for online bookings (and from personal experience, do actually honour it), so it's the hosts that bear the costs if Booking.com's commission is higher than other booking portals or agents. Presumably they generate enough bookings for the hosts to find being on there worthwhile though.
Well, Booking.com (or any other similar site) offers hosts the reach they may otherwise miss.
It is also good if there are many such sites hosts could use as it would then presumably make situation more favorable for them. This is also why I mentioned Booking.com at all, as I do not see and I do not want to see the world in black/white (airbnb/hotel).
Having competition also (usually) helps to keep things more honest.
> From the user's point of view, Booking.com is a horrible cluttered web site with 1990'ish approaches to design, usability and online marketing.
I actually do not mind their design approach.
It is actually quite usable, even better as airbnb as they show the total amount upfront for the search period and not just the pay for a night in what, to be honest, I have no interest in. There are many other small differences that make Booking.com interface more usable for me.
Of course it comes down to personal preferences and this is only my personal opinion.
They deserve competition desperately, either improve or die. The only reason why it's still in existence is they were first, any many people are used to them. But as with all internet technologies, this will change over time.
The customers only check the sites the have seen commercials for and think is reputable. Its in the end a web of trust and the consumer does not trust randoms
Strange because they A/B test literally everything. The site looks the way it does because it sells better that way. You could actually say the same for Amazon then.
For business travel this creates the annoying situation where I have to cover the cost of accommodation from my personal account and submit an expenses request.
I have also had booking.com take the payment but there has been a break down in communication with the hotel and they have not received it or have not been informed and I've had to pay twice. Then spend time afterwards playing pass-the-buck as booking.com tells me it is the hotel who owes me the refund and the hotel telling me it is booking.com
I've never had these payment woes with AirBnB.
It's only happened once but if it was an important reservation i would now call ahead and make sure the hotel got the booking. At that point you might as well make a reservation direct. I'm sure they would be happy to match booking.com price.
If you book Airbnb for a month, it's usually around the same price as a 2 week stay, and the nightly rate cannot be touched by hotels, particularly for the size and location.
At the beginning airbnb was my main choice, because of the experience it delivered. Not because it was cheaper. I used to stay in houseshares and the vast majority of the time the host was amazing, sociable and generous. But I think as airbnb has gone more into the mainstream and hosts get more experienced, the host cannot maintain that level of service. Now the best hosts are professional, but without the friendliness of the early days.
What works best on price depends on many factors: the time of year, the country, the length of stay, big events or festivals, number of guests.
I now make my choice based on the price and quality. I've recently found last-minute hotel bookings via Agoda have worked well.
Hotels in cities work especially well in off-seasons. They have staff cost and vacant rooms, so have a strong incentive to get any revenue they can. Prices can sometimes be lower than anything that an airbnb host would be willing to accept[1]. Also hotels work well for 1 day stays. Many airbnb hosts want 2 day minimum stays. Also airbnb hosts often add a cleaning fee, which can significantly bump up price for very short stays.
Conversely airbnb can work great when your visiting a city/area during an extremely busy period. Hotels are obviously aware these peaks and have adjusted prices accordingly. Experienced airbnb hosts have done the same. But novice airbnb hosts will often have much lower prices.
[1] I used to be an airbnb host in a UK city. During the winter months it just wasn't worth competing with the budget hotels (EasyHotel, Premier Inn etc.)
I find this hard to believe. Is there seriously a place you can eat out (and eat reasonaly well) for $1 a time? Or, how expensive is your home-cooked food?
You may not notice this effect if you are only in town for a few days and eat mostly at tourist-friendly spots in midtown. Not to mention several math-impaired people seem to believe they only spend $1 a meal. Where do they live, India?
Rice and beans is too.
Not very nice meals, but possible.
Isn't the same thing true for the grocery stores? They are located in the same areas as restaurants and have to pay pretty much the same expensive rent, no? meanwhile, their expenses may be lower than the ones of a restaurant.
anyway, could you tell more info about what your neighborhood pub - for example, what neighborhood is it? what meal did you eat?
I can share my numbers - and sorry I did not tell in advance I went with my BF, so there were two of us eating cooked food.
So, I ate at Cafe Aroma in Manhatten and I paid about $17 for a plate with rice + fish + some salad.
the same day I went to a grocery store on Myrtle Ave in Brooklyn to buy supper for 2. I paid about $27 for tortellini, some chicken ham, a small watermelon, and some beer. It was enough for us for supper + some leftovers for breakfast (beer haha ;). The day after I found an even cheaper store where I bought supper for the other two days at once.
$17 for a cafe meal seemed too expensive for me, so the next days I tried to eat cheaper cafe lunches. So I ate sandwiches for ~ $10-12; however, they contained a much smaller amount of proteins so I felt hungry much faster after.
Not nearly. Groceries stores have higher margins and vastly less competition.
I'm most familiar with North Brooklyn (Williamsburg/Bed-Stuy) where most bars and unfancy restaurants have dishes that will make a full meal for $10-16. My experience is that LES and East Village are a touch pricier, but not much.
My question to you is how much do you think a restaurant would have charged for your tortellini/processed chicken/watermelon meal? I mean no slight to your culinary abilities, but I suspect it wouldn't have passed muster at most restaurants.
And this is one of the main reasons to buy your own food - you have a choice of what to buy! While eating out, your choice is much smaller.
You pay for some extras you may not like but you cannot remove it from the menu. Even if you can - would it affect the price? I doubt so.
Composing my own meal gives me the flexibility of choosing only the things I like + saving money.
On the top of that, the nice extras like tea/coffee/dessert/fruits come with increased margins.
Especially fruits due to their short shelf life in cut form.
Let's look at the following example; though it does not involve the restaurant prices, I still think it is representative.
In IGA (a Canadian grocery chain) a fruit salad comes for $1.30 / 100 G. A mini watermelon is $5 each, and its weight is ~2.72 kg (6lb) with 70% of it being edible. This gives us the cost of $0.26 / 100 g.
The fruit salad margin is like 500% ??? Isn't it crazy. Of course, there are other fruits in the salad but the one can easily satisfy their sweet tooth with eating one fruit instead of eating many.
(the prices are in Canadian dollars)
There are 5 of them, so that's a factor too. It's easier to plan/use up groceries for multiple people over multiple days than if you're just alone.
I did not mention I was not alone, I went with my boyfriend, so it makes 2 of us. But I am still pretty confident if I were alone, it would still be cheaper for me to cook rather than eat out.
In addition to other chargers other folks are pointing out, it's not hard to see how that can affect the model to portray AirBnB or Hotels one way or the other.
This is pretty significant as some hosts encourage long-term stays (or deliberately game AirBnB results) by lowering the per-day price while raising the cleaning fee.
Cleaning fee amortized over short stays tends to add significant markup, and at this point many hotels do come cheaper, as daily cleaning in their case is already taken into account and is cost-efficient.
Edge case for AirBnB is family travel. Booking anything 1-bedroom and larger somehow seems to signal to the hotel industry that you've finally made it to the Forbes list and therefore no expense will be spared. I'd venture to say that any decent 2-bedroom (and up) apartment/house on AirBnB would be [significantly] cheaper than a 2-bedroom (and up) suite at the hotel.
It depends. Absolutely for a typical downtown hotel, their relative handful of suites tend to be oriented toward being used as business meeting rooms or by people who are really price insensitive. You can sometimes get deals on weekends and the like but, yeah, it's a bit like business and first-class pricing on planes.
It's far less true of the residence style hotels though (e.g. Marriott's Residence Inn). In suburban/sprawl locations I often favor these because it's nice to stretch out on a sofa. Some locales, such as Vegas, also have suites as a pretty standard offering.
I recently booked a trip to Florence, Italy. While hotel rooms and single-room apartments were on par price-wise, Airbnb offered larger apartments, many with nice balconies and view, that were not available in the hotels. And the apartments were generally less expensive than hotel suites (with kitchen).