Ask About Hotel or Wi-Fi on Airbnb Before Booking
Last Christmas, I decided to splurge on Airbnb for a few days in my hometown, rather than staying with friends and family throughout the trip. I really liked the idea of being able to come and go when I want, and also not go to bed as long as I want, without disturbing the owners. It turns out that midnight bedtime on the west coast turns to 3 am, sometimes on the east coast. That way I could watch Netflix, stay late at a bar, or work late without bothering anyone.
I found a great Airbnb, checked to see if wifi was there so I could work during the day, and booked it.
I checked in and everything was great. I met some friends for dinner, returned around 10pm and decided to try connecting to wifi to check my email. Then things got risky.
As it turns out, the Wi-Fi network listed in Airbnb’s instructions was not actually Wi-Fi, it was a network that was launched from a Verizon hotspot. My trip was at the end of the month, so it was a Verizon hotspot that previous guests had been using heavily prior to my arrival, so much so that my data was limited to the point where I couldn’t load Gmail.
When I contacted the host to see what I could do, he blamed previous guests for broadcasting the video against his wishes (a rule not mentioned in either the Airbnb listing or house rules). When I said I needed him to work in the morning, he advised me to cancel Airbnb and find another place to stay. Not exactly what I wanted to do at 11pm or a few days before Christmas.
In my case, the host was just weirdly cheap (although it may have cost himself more money). My hometown is a pretty big city. There are several companies that sell high speed internet, many offering packages starting at $ 30 per month. My father, the cheapest person on the planet, pays for the package. It never occurred to me that someone would provide Airbnb with a hotspot rather than the regular internet. But it happened.
This underscores the fact that “Wi-Fi” on Airbnb’s listings, or even on hotel lists, does not always mean high-speed or free Internet.
Several times in the past year, I have also encountered Internet problems in hotels. In those cases, there was indeed high speed internet, but it was not free. The hotel wanted to use a daily or weekly rate for the opportunity to use it.
Neither are technically “bad”. Sometimes you don’t need internet, so having a hotel or Airbnb that charge or don’t have it doesn’t really matter, or the hotel was such a bargain that you don’t mind paying an extra $ 10 a day. Internet.
However, if you are making a reservation and you know you plan on working or doing things like streaming video at night, it’s worth making sure the internet can handle it.
In the case of hotels, the hotel website should tell you if Wi-Fi is free, and the hotelwifitest website could potentially tell you how fast it is.
For Airbnb, I recommend taking a quick note to the host. I booked another Airbnb this weekend in my hometown, but before booking, I sent a message asking what wifi is there, specifically mentioning my previous hotspot issue. The owner immediately called me back to let me know that high speed internet is available and that this would not be a problem, which is one less thing I need to worry about.