Summer travelers who are planning vacations face a modern dilemma: Splurge on a traditional hotel, or potentially save a few bucks by renting someone’s home on Airbnb?
Here are some tips on becoming a well-reviewed
guest.
Read Listings Carefully
This may sound obvious, but
bear with me: Read — don’t skim — an Airbnb listing. Airbnb hosts and their
homes vary widely in quality, and you can learn a great deal just from closely
reading the listing and its reviews.
Be Wary of Price
Fluctuations
There’s something that many
Airbnb hosts have in common with hotels: They may raise prices during peak
travel seasons. The savviest hosts use dynamic pricing tools that automatically
hike prices when demand is likely to be high, similar to Uber’s surge pricing.
Protect
Yourself
A big trade-off with an
Airbnb is there’s no security personnel or hotel manager to help when something
goes wrong. The onus is on you to protect yourself.
Be a Good Guest
All of those tips are
irrelevant if you can’t book on Airbnb in the first place because hosts don’t
like you. Fortunately, being a superb guest is relatively easy.The rest is common sense: Be communicative and polite,
follow the house rules and treat the rental as you would a friend’s home.
That’s usually enough to earn you a perfect review from a host.
