If you had a choice between staying at a hotel or an airbnb, which one would you pick?

I should make clear I don’t like hotel brands or chains. I like little boutique hotels.

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My best hotel experiences are non-chains as well. I love an old style motel where you park in front of your room. My good experiences range from Stone Village Tourist Camp (Camp Room) in Ft. Davis TX; a “room” with communal bathroom down the walkway at $39 a night to the Hotel Andaluz in Albuquerque.

This is why I work so hard! I know that many hosts don’t agree with the ‘extras’ but wine, fresh flowers, arrival snacks - even fluffy bathrobes - are essential to distract guests from the peeling paint on the bathroom ceiling :slight_smile:

Most guests only use a fraction of the things we provide (hardly anyone uses the robes or wine) but they all exclaim that we have ‘thought of everything’.

I see getting the apartment ready for guests more as ‘staging’ as in real estate sales.

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Do they still have these???[quote=“K9KarmaCasa, post:104, topic:13940”]
I love an old style motel where you park in front of your room. My good experiences range from Stone Village Tourist Camp (Camp Room) in Ft. Davis TX; a “room” with communal bathroom down the walkway at $39 a night to the Hotel Andaluz in Albuquerque.
[/quote]

I remember them fondly during family road trips… We kids would rejoice if the motel had a pool!!!

I truly love the boutique feeling i get from some of these small hotels. I found a super cheap one in Prague over New Year’s. ALL, and I mean ALL Airbnbs and Wimdus were sold out during that time period so I felt lucky to get our little hotel.

I guess I have burned with lack of manners or appreciation for gifts and extras I just don’t do them anymore. (yes I used to!)

You would have thought I would have learned… but I left chocolate covered mac nuts and coffee for my 2016 Christmas guests and didn’t even get a thank you. So one wonders why… make the effort???

My next guests are on their honeymoon. I’m inclined to push the boat out a bit with a bottle of something sparkling, a long-stemmed red rose in the bedroom and some gourmet chocolates. I’d love to do the whole bit with rose petals on the bed and other honeymoon suite stuff but even I wouldn’t do that. (Might mean extra laundry!)

Any cheap ideas for honeymooners? I’d love to do something special but at little cost.

Don’t do roses on the bed… totally Hollywood, and some people like me would not be able to sleep on that bed until the sheets were washed!

If I were a host where you are a host, I might choose to purchase some of those marvelous croissants for their first breakfast, or perhaps a dessert tart, or for the bride, a foot massage! [Did everyone else’s feet hurt the night of the wedding?]

Not truly great ideas, but I would emphasis what your location offers that is special. [And those croissant are special!]

They are great ideas! Croissants for sure. :slight_smile:

I constantly host honeymooners or anniversaries and I can’t really do anything special, as every other guest has one or the other.

I always have fresh flowers in the room, but simply cannot and will not do anything extra.

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http://www.stonevillagetouristcamp.com/

Had a first anniversary couple, left a split of Cava (on sale at World Market for $1.59; it was probably dreadful), two champagne flutes, a heart shaped crystal dish ($1 at Goodwill!) which of course I will reuse, with some wrapped chocolates filched from my personal supply, some of my climbing roses in a vase, and a little tent card I printed up in fancy lettering Happy Anniversary. They were thrilled.

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Kona, with that view i would sleep on the roof and watch the stars every night. One day i will for sure come and rent your place and hopefully will be that perfect guest.

This is a bit of “kitch”:blush: my loving hubby wanted to do for guests: I clearly said “NO!!!” :sweat_smile:. Maybe it’s a nice and cheap detail to do for newly weds.

Otherwise, just a personal card wishing them all the best. We always offer a personalized welcome (in the information leaflet) to everyone. People are always surprised and love it.

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Ooh, That would be a good option to do for someone you know is coming for a honeymoon or an anniversary. I wouldn’t do it for all couples, but I will definitely do this for special trips as it shows you’re paying attention. I had guests a few months ago who this would have been perfect for (hubby took her here for a surprise weekend away) and they’ve already returned once and requested a few other times, but I was unavailable.

Bad patients, or non-submissive patients? :slight_smile:

I’m not generally popular with doctors, because (as they sometimes put it) I argue with them. I don’t call it argument, I call it attempted discussion. Regardless, they don’t like it.

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I’m puzzled by all the comments about how unreliable Airbnb hosts are. From Airbnb hosts, no less. Surely, if you pick a listing which is a Superhost with lots of glowing all 5 star reviews, you’re pretty safe? It’s not like an Airbnb host could hypnotise or blackmail that many people. And unlike hotel reviews, you can be sure that the review is by someone who actually stayed at the listing, as opposed to (say) a competitor making stuff up to ruin business.

Personally, I’d be fine with an Airbnb listing, provided it was highly rated. Otherwise, no. And I’d personally prefer Superhosts.

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This is why I will be forever grateful to the guests who stayed with us when we were just starting in Airbnb. They look a gamble because we had no reviews and no star ratings (of course) and yet still stayed with us. And the great thing is that we refused to take Airbnb’s advice and set a low price to attract our first guests, :slight_smile:

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What about new hosts, or farely new hosts? I was once a brand new host, and so were you. And why are you puzzled? Have you stayed in many Airbnbs yourself? Not every host is wonderful like us. Many host are not that wonderful at all. I stayed with hosts who were irresponsible, indiferent, plain rude, dirty and weird. Once i booked a listing with bad reviews only because that was the only price i could afford, and bad it was!!.

When I started 3 years ago there were about 50 hosts in El Paso so you didn’t have much choice. Now I’d have a hard time going with someone with no reviews. Maybe a description of them as older and responsible would make me try them. I would not stay with anyone who made it clear they were renters not owners or who seemed desperate for money. Someone older and more stable.

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Hi @Yana,

That’s a fair point. But Airbnb doesn’t provide any way to know whether hosts are new. All you can see is that they have no reviews. And obviously, staying in a place with no reviews is risky. Would I take a risk on a host with no reviews? Possibly, if the place looked really nice, and the listing overall made a good impression. But there would have to be a compelling reason to prefer that over someone with an established track record.

(Ooh, expanded post. Edited in response.)

I’m puzzled because it seems to me that using an Airbnb isn’t risky provided you choose suitably, as stated above.

None yet. I don’t travel much, sadly.

Again, pick someone with excellent reviews, preferably a Superhost, and there shouldn’t be a problem.

Now, granted, such people might not be available, but that’s a different kettle of fish. At least in this city, there always seems to be plenty of vacancies, often by people with excellent reviews. I haven’t extensively researched the issue, of course.