nonthaburi

Recently did a one month road trip through U.K., Holland, Belgium, France, Germany. Used airbnb the whole way. Much better value than a hotel. Stayed in two bedroom apartments or houses all the time. The chances of getting a decent hotel room for four people for less than £100 a night in Paris or Amsterdam are very slim.

Plus, and this is a big one for me, you have a kitchen to do your own food.

I'm all for airbnb.

littlejimmy

I've used it in the UK when working away in Scotland. A little hit and miss in terms of quality, but you can't argue with the value.

DXBtoDOH

Exactly.

I like having the self-catering option available. Family did this for our Christmas trip in France. AirBnB flat in the Marais with a kitchen and we cooked some of our own meals. It was festive.

scrubbedexpat141

Awesome

I imagine it's great value with a family, especially the dinner bit and comfort to basically have a home and somewhere to chill.

Autonomy

It's about consumer choice and state regulation - get the service fit for purpose and let the consumer decide.

Uber is getting beaten with the shitty stick as it has a shitty reputation. It's also a negotiation tactic by TfL.

40,000 Uber driver's are not all rapists and smelly cabbies - on the whole I'm sure they are decent people making a living from a convenient service for them and their passengers.

The convienience is huge - from cheap short hops for Londoners to travellers with Uber apps on the phone just arriving. I've used Uber in London, Dubai, NYC, Beirut, Liverpool and many other places - it's easy, decent and cheap.

Careem is better here IMHO.

TfL will get the assurances they need and all will continue. As it should.

Jingsamichty

EDIT: added a key word to your post. Uber take 25% of the fare... 25%!!!!!!!

Black cabbies make a decent living, can afford to bring up a family in London. Uber drivers, much less so. Just because Dubai is happy to have bachelor cabbies living in compounds out of sight of the 'decent people' doesn't mean that's what one of the premier cities of the world should be aiming for. Race to the bottom...

Boomhauer

Me neither. Reason for me is concern on just how clean their bathroom and linen is, though I suppose even some decent hotels can be icky. I use Hotels.com or Booking.com to find a hotel .

Dubaiexile

Be very careful with AirBnB in some countries as you are likely to fall foul of the Law, one such place is Thailand where you can be kicked out and fined, these are not designated "Hotel" buildings and are supposed to be residential, and are therefore not licenced to operate as such!
AirBnB operates here but I am sure again that that would fall foul of the letter of the law in terms of registering guests!

Gavtek

I'm not sure I agree with the safety argument.

If wife takes an Uber/Careem, I can track her exact location at any time on the app (not that I actually do), have a photograph of the driver along with the make and model of his car and his license plate. And I can do this anywhere in the world.

There's very few places in the world that I can have the same peace of mind with a regular taxi, including here.

UKCityGent

Am I one of the few people who has never used Uber or AirBnb ?


Black cabs can be expensive but the most expensive cabs I used were in Zurich - the electronic meter who literally incrementally adding every 5 seconds !

scrubbedexpat141

Most expensive cab I've had was in Hanoi. Paid a guy about 2 quid to drive us to the end of the road. Was pissing down and I was drunk.

DXBtoDOH

Nasty city anyway.

Going back to the airport we had a car arranged by the hotel and had arranged a price for it in advance. Halfway to the airport the car driver suddenly claimed it'd be twice the agreed fare due to tolls.

We told him to sort it out with the hotel (advance research confirmed the original agreed price was right on target for a car to the airport).

Vietnam had some cool sights and great food but it seemed like the entire time we were there we were viewed solely as walking ATM machines and I say this as someone who's survived Egypt, India and Thailand.

scrubbedexpat141

I didn't like Hanoi that much either, but maybe just because it was the least cool place in Vietnam.

Otherwise I loved the place but I totally get the wearisome nature of constantly being fleeced or attempted to at least. It gets boring really quickly and I did find myself arguing over very small amounts of money purely for principal.

DXBtoDOH

Same here.

jam25mack

Amsterdam is filthy for hotels costs. I'm there next week for 3 nights and any where decent in the centre was crazy money. The 4* place I stayed at last time for 450 GBP odd was 980 GBP this time.

Even AirBnB's are up there with anything within a 10 mins walk to the centre starting at 80 GBP night.

That said I have used AirBnB quite a few times and have found it very good and far more reasonable than hotels of a similar standard.

Uber in Dubai is a totally different model to that used overseas so that's not a great example.