14 Reasons It is Better to Stay at a Hotel Than an Airbnb
Airbnb continues to occupy a critical role in the travel space. If you’re a family of eight heading to the mountains for a week and a half, a spacious Airbnb on the lake provides perks and memories that a hotel never could.
That said, time has revealed the warts that blemish Airbnb’s business model. Between voyeuristic homeowners and fees that make airline baggage policies look reasonable, hotels are officially back in vogue.
If you have a trip coming up and are teetering between booking someone’s home or staying in a hotel, this list might tip the scales in favor of the Hampton Inn.
1. No Cleaning Fee
Airbnb owners have a particular brand of obliviousness when it comes to cleaning. While insisting that the customer pay literally a quarter of their total booking price for a “cleaning fee,” the same landlords demand haughtily that the customer strip the beds, place dishes in the sink, and do everything short of scrubbing the toilets with their tongues—or else.
Outside of leaving the remnants of a Motley Crue-style party, most hotel guests can bank on getting their credit card back without a charge for incidentals.
2. You’re Guaranteed to Get Into Your Room When You Need To
Showed up to your Airbnb and the key code doesn’t work? You better hope the homeowner isn’t on a hiking trip in the remote mountains. While being locked out of an Airbnb can be the guest’s fault (there’s an entire forum on the topic), an off-site landlord is not always the perk some view it as.
At hotels, there’s almost always a front-desk attendant ready to activate a new key, and you can be sure of getting into your room once the cleaning crew finishes their sweep.
3. Lack of Neighbors
Of course, neighbors are part of the hotel experience. In most cases, you literally share two walls, a ceiling, and a floor with neighbors. The difference is that every half-decent person who checks into a half-decent hotel brings a sense of decorum and mutually assured destruction should they break that decorum.
When someone converts a residence into an Airbnb, the neighbors aren’t usually amenable to the decision. This may lead to spiteful noise complaints, which may be the best-case scenario for neighbor interactions at an Airbnb.
4. More Affordable
While an Airbnb can be more affordable than a hotel room, the fees mean that hotels are typically more cost-effective for short stays. Of course, a penthouse at the Four Seasons will always be more expensive than a spare bedroom in Raleigh, but hotels can be more economical in many circumstances.
Even if an Airbnb costs less than a comparable hotel room, can you justify spending more than $100 on a cleaning fee alone? Any perception of value evaporates as soon as you eat the fee (which may not even go towards cleaning if we’re being skeptical).
5. Fewer (And Hopefully No) Hidden Cameras
When there are articles being written titled “Does Your Airbnb Have Hidden Cameras,” it’s already too late. Before you say, “I have nothing to hide,” you should think long and hard about the grander implications of someone placing hidden cameras in their Airbnb.
Even as society becomes increasingly comfortable with 24/7 surveillance, we should draw the line at our Airbnbs. While your hotel could have cameras, too, something tells us it’s less likely.
6. Room Service
For those of you who were raised in Airbnbs, let me clarify your confusion. Room service is like DoorDash, but without the draconian delivery fees. The food isn’t prepared at Denny’s seven miles away but in a kitchen four floors down.
Rather than having soggy, half-eaten french fries hurled at your hotel door by someone who may or may not come back later to avenge your poor tip, a smiling hotel employee will slide a cart of food into your room under silver platters. Or, you can just order DoorDash from your hotel room if you want a lukewarm Grand Slamwich.
7. No Roommates
The ever-rising cost of Airbnbs (thanks, cleaning fees) means that penny pinchers often rent a room rather than the entire place.
As they say, you get what you pay for. When you pay for roommates, you might also pay for the toxic smell of their garlic-heavy dinner, the noise of a family of four on the other side of the door, and the myriad other hazards that come with shared residences. An Airbnb shared with a roommate (or four) can make the local Motel 6 look like a Ritz-Carlton.
8. The Feeling of Being Waited Upon
There’s something to be said about a front desk attendant whose job is to ensure your satisfaction. If you indulge in room service, the feeling of being doted upon reaches a new level.
An Airbnb might have a yard, an actual living room, and other amenities that are often worth paying for. What Airbnbs don’t have, though, are bellhops. Or concierges. Airbnbs just don’t conjure that feeling that you’re somebody. If you’ve been feeling like a bit of a loser lately, a hotel is the obvious choice.
9. The Hotel Gym
You can take a jog anywhere, but some travelers just don’t feel the same unless they can get in a brisk lift before starting the day. Hotel gyms aren’t exactly the Gold’s Gym standard, but they typically offer a treadmill, some free weights, and a Bowflex-like machine—the most affordable Airbnbs offer none.
10. The Consistency of the Experience
Photographs of a living room or backyard only tell you so much about an Airbnb. An online ad doesn’t tell you whether the next-door neighbor works on their vehicle at three in the morning or whether the landlord spends the cleaning fee on cleaning.
Hotels have an entire brand to consider and more to lose than Airbnb owners. While some Embassy Suites are newer or better managed than others, you can be certain that the sheets will be fresh, the television will work, and you’ll be able to check in when needed.
11. No Pet Smells (or Stains)
Dog-friendly hotels are few and far between, and for good reason. Hotels are for humans.
Sure, you don’t want to break out the blue light at any hotel. The blue-light special can be far more terrifying in any hotel or rental that accommodates cats, dogs, and pet raccoons. While Airbnbs have been a godsend for pet owners (including me), one man’s pet should not be another man’s burden.
12. Real, Reliable Customer Service (Just a Phone Call or Lobby Visit Away)
What screams “customer service” more than messaging a faceless host on a clunk app? Well, since you asked, a smiling front-desk attendant (and concierge, if you’re in a classy joint) is ready to deliver fresh towels, place a room-service order, or generally ensure your total satisfaction—that is customer service.
If something goes wrong in the middle of the night at your Airbnb? You had better call the Ghostbusters because your host is almost certainly dead asleep a few counties over.
13. Clean Sheets (and Probably Soft Ones)
Being a landlord means scrounging up profits wherever you can find them. Therefore, spending money on fine linens is typically out of the question (unless you’re marketing your Airbnb to the hedge-fund-managing class, which most aren’t).
A hotel that subjects its customers to low-thread count sheets is not a hotel that’s long for this world. While the hotel experience is imperfect, soft sheets are a perk you can typically bank on.
14. Blackout Curtains and Reliable A/C
Nothing will make you regret the $1,300 you dropped on a week at an Airbnb like the relentless glare of the sunthrough translucent blinds. An air conditioner with a temperature lock or a compressor on its last legs might induce more regret.
These are the kinds of critical amenities that make hotels the more reliable option when seeking lodging. Worse comes to worse, you can always demand a new room. You have no such option when you’re locked into an Airbnb contract.
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