Anyone Used Air Bnb In Thailand?

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I live in Thailand and have just had a look on the air bnb website for a holiday-type villa rental and seen a few bargains.

Has anyone used this service in Thailand and if so, how did they find it?

If you've stayed in any reliable places you've found through that or another site, please let me know.

If anyone knows of any other good places to find short to medium let apartments of villas near beaches in Thailand please leave a reply below.

Thanks.

[NewlyMintedThai]

There are a bunch listed at vrbo.com as well.

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Thanks for the reply Newly Minted Thai.

Unfortunately I am not minted and those ones look a bit pricey!

Does anyone have any tips on finding a few months rental villa near a beach for about 15k a month?

Thanks.

[californiabeachboy]

I just returned from a 5 week stay in Thailand and used Airbnb three times. All of them were in the Bangkok area.

For me it worked out great. The main advantage over a hotel room is that you can have some cooking facitlities. I rented a one bedroom condo each time.

My advice is to read the reviews carefully. And email the host with some questions just to get a feel for how responsive they are.

But keep in mind they are not a hotel - often times the host has a day job.. You cannot just walk down to the reception and ask questions.

I liked it, and I will use them again.

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That sounds good. Did you stay there when the host was also staying there? If so, how did that work out?

I was looking at renting the whole place near a beach, there seems to be a few bargains on there. Hopefully Thailand will get more places on there in the coming months.

[californiabeachboy]

In each case I was the only one living there. In one, the host owned another condo in the same building and I believe lived upstairs, in another I never met the host but she had someone meet me in the lobby who lived in the building, and in the third the host used to live in the condo but had moved to the Bkk suburbs. I met her to look at the unit.

Another thing to think about is deposits. I have been told (I have no connection with Airbnb) that in many countries Airbnb provides insurance to the host against damage by the guest, but they do NOT do that for Thailand (wonder why?)

So you sometime sees a request for a deposit, but I believe it generally is held by Airbnb, which is ok with me (although none of my hosts asked for a deposit). But I did see a couple of cases where the host wanted a cash deposit on check in. I would never do that.

I think it is a good system and the number of places will increase, but they need to resolve the insurance/deposit issue with Thailand.