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Comments (4)
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Save/ShareBrian Chesky of San Francisco has found a way to one-up the George Clooney character in "Up in the Air"—the movie about a businessman who spends every day in a plane and every night in a hotel.
Chesky doesn't own a home or an apartment. Instead, he moves from one vacation rental to another every three to five days.
Chesky does this for two reasons: He's in his twenties, so he can. More importantly, he's the co-founder of Airbnb, a room-renting site that he thinks represents a new stage in the evolution of travel.
He may be half-right.
Airbnb has come a long way since it's major launch in 2008, when Budget Travel first blogged about it. Travelers have booked nearly a million nights in 89 countries through the site, which makes it simple to find private homes, apartments, and even boats, to rent.
Vacation rentals aren't a new idea. But being able to book a room by the night instead of by the week—and being able to do so at the last-minute, with plenty of precautions that you're not being scammed—is all new. Since November, there's even an iPhone app. Booking a room at a person's house has become as fast as reserving a stay at a Marriott.
My main beef with AirBnB is how its rates are set. I wish AirBnB adopted a Priceline model. Why can't I bid on how much I would be willing to stay at a room, instead of merely accept the price a property owner has posted?
Maybe that would be too complicated for Chesky. It's tough enough moving to another apartment every few nights without having to add auction-style bidding to the mix.
If you're not familiar with how Airbnb could be useful to you for your next vacation, check out the following video.
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I stumbled upon AirBnB as I was hunting down accommodations for this coming April's Boston Marathon weekend. My goodness---no place left to stay intown near the finish. (Well, except for a very few $400+/night rooms, and a few more $600 or $700/night rooms ; ) AirBnB is salvaging my once-in-a-lifetime trip! I hardly can wait to meet the Cambridge couple who are hosting us. I can tell already that everything about this operation is excellent.
Posted By Bonnie on January 28, 2011, 9:02 AM
I booked an apartment in Paris on the Isl St Louis (a very exclusive area right in the center of town) via airbnb. This was last October. We paid about $160/night for a studio with a tiny but adequate kitchen and a nice bathroom. It all went very smoothly. My only recommendation would be to to check the specs and check them again. Our place was fine but smaller than the pictures looked. We could have made a better comparison by looking at the square feet. We were still happy and we got our deposit back right away. I'm sure a similar hotel room in that area would have cost nearly twice as much.
Posted By Rick R. on January 31, 2011, 7:51 PM
This is great Sean and thanks for posting this. I've had my eye on Airbnb for some time and have been wanting to try them out. One thing that I was curious about that I didn't seem to find with them is that for like monthly rentals for example, the price is the same as nightly? Is that correct. I would be even more prone to use it if there was a little bit more wiggle room for longer rentals.
Posted By Spencer Spellman on February 1, 2011, 2:40 PM
I booked a room in LA for a month. It turned out to be really dirty with a very weird host. I decided that I really couldn't stay and found a hotel. Despite Air Bnb saying that they hold onto your money for 24 hrs after you arrive to ensure everything is okay they told me that the money had been passed on to the host. I informed them of the problem within hours of leaving the place but it seems I'm unlikely to get any of my $1300 refunded. It is no safer using this company than testing your luck with Craig's list, they do nothing for the percentage that they charge. Check out their terms of use, basically they just provide the website and anything that goes wrong is not their problem.
Posted By Anne Taylor on June 4, 2011, 5:35 PM