Airbnb has changed significantly in recent years and moved from an enterprise that in some ways benefitted both travelers and locals to a commercial operation where in some cities the use of properties solely for Airbnb purposes has increased rental prices and reduced available housing stock for locals. Examples of places where this has occurred are popular destinations such as New York, Barcelona, Dublin, among others.
Airbnb has no rules for whether the property is used full-time or part of the time on their site. While it is great for people who need to be in two places regularly to help them offset the price of rent, it’s not so great if properties are snatched up by investors solely for the use of an Airbnb cash cow. Some cities have even made Airbnb illegal to help combat the issues caused for locals by using the service while some have introduced licenses to have some understanding of housing stock and how this is used.
If you want to keep using Airbnb – which is a fully valid option seeing that they are the market leaders in self-catering accommodations, then it is worth checking the rules for your destination to avoid any trouble and to ensure that the owner has the appropriate licensing.
Though that is one reason some people have chosen to stop supporting Airbnb, others have concerns about pricing structure as the price is rarely the one your first see when you start completing your booking and fees can really add up. Others yet are concerned about privacy and so might prefer using a different service.
If you have decided to end your Airbnb journey or just pause it semi-permanently then it is worth considering deactivating or deleting your account to reduce your online footprint but also to let the service know about any unhappiness such that they may change any practices disheartening to customers in the future.
Below we will discuss the differences between deactivating and deleting your account and how to complete each.
Deactivating Your Account
You can easily do this on the Airbnb website. It takes a few steps. The implications of deactivating your account are:
- Any booking your have will be cancelled so ensure to only deactivate once you have completed any reservations you wanted to keep.
- Your profile and listings will be hidden.
- Your comments and reviews will remain visible.
- Airbnb will keep your account data so you can reactivate your account in the future.
To deactivate your account, follow the steps below:
- Login to Airbnb on a web browser
- Click on your picture in the top right corner
- Select Account
- On the bottom of the options select “Need to deactivate your account, take care of that now” -> see picture
- Select your reason for deactivating your account and click continue
- Click continue on the next screen to confirm your choice
Deleting your Airbnb Account
The difference between deleting your account as compared with deactivating it is that your account will be irrecoverable once the action is completed. Interestingly comments and reviews remain visible (apart from on your own listings which will be hidden). Airbnb will likely also keep additional data on you as not everything is deleted for legal reasons. This data may eventually be anonymized.
You need to contact Airbnb directly to request that your account be deleted. It is relatively easy, but they will need to ensure that you authenticate that you are seeing that the action is irreversible.
Deleting your account step by step:
- Click the link above
- Select My Airbnb account
- On the next screen select update or remove account
- Then select Delete or deactivate my account
- On the next screen select Request to delete your account and follow the steps that ensue, these may be different depending on where you are and the authentication methods you have set up
- Once your account is deleted you should receive confirmation by email from Airbnb
Conclusion
Deactivating or deleting your Airbnb account is easy, however, it is worth considering whether you might want to use the service again before deleting as this is irreversible.
