Seth Kugel, the Tripped Up columnist for the New York Times, shared a shocking tale of an Airbnb stay that went wrong. He also gave advice on how to keep yourself safe in a vacation rental. Then Jason Lucking of pAIback.app, discussed this new flight savings tool.
The Frommer's Travel Podcast was named one of the 13 best for travel by the New York Times. It is hosted by Pauline Frommer, the Publisher of the Frommer's guidebooks and Frommers.com, with new episodes issued weekly.
Mentioned in this episode:
Check out the Smart Travel Podcast
This week's show is supported by the new Smart Travel Podcast. Travel smarter — and spend less — with help from NerdWallet. Check out Smart Travel at the Link below:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:52):
Foreign.
Welcome to the Fromer Travel Show.
I'm your host, Pauline Fromer,and we have one of our favorite guests
back for the first segment today.
He is Seth Kugel.
(01:13):
He writes the Tripped upcolumn for the New York Times.
Hey, Seth.
Welcome back to the FromerTravel Show.
Hi, Pauline.
Thank you.
Glad to be on the first segment.
That's very exciting.
Well, you're always aheadliner, and your most recent article
profiled, I think, an issuethat is quite scary to many travelers.
(01:39):
The headline of the piece kindof tells it in a nutshell.
Help.
We found a hidden camera inthe bathroom of our Airbnb.
Oy vey.
What else can you say?
So these people reached out to you.
What was most shocking aboutthis was Airbnb's lack of response.
(02:01):
So tell the story.
How did they find this camera?
I think it was through thepure luck of the battery running
out on the camera or someconnectivity issue of the camera
because it started to blink ared light above the toilet.
It was a camera that was in anoutlet extender.
(02:22):
So, you know, if you have oneoutlet, you plug something into it,
and there's like, four moreplaces to plug things in or maybe
a usb.
And in that, there were these little.
Looked like maybe two tinycameras that you would never know
was a camera.
Sure.
The.
The person walked into thebathroom at night, and before they
turned on the light, they sawa flashing red light.
(02:43):
And of course, it's a spycamera or a nanny camera, as you
might call it, so it wouldn'tnormally be flashing.
I'm here.
Look over here.
But obviously something waswrong with it, so they just.
They discovered it.
They.
They called the police and Airbnb.
This took place in NewHampshire, where it can be a felony
to have a camera installed ina pub in a private place that.
(03:08):
Where other people might notknow it's there.
And, yeah, so that's what happened.
And the police did respond.
But Airbnb eventually, a fewdays later, sort of found in favor
of the host, which wasshocking because it couldn't have
been more obvious.
I read the whole interactionbetween Airbnb and the guests, which
(03:31):
is, of course, all over theAirbnb app.
So it's all documented.
I saw the documentation theguests sent, and it's quite convincing
that it can.
It included the police report, right?
Well, it included the numberof the police report.
The police report wasn't outyet, but.
And is still not out to thisday, by the way.
But it included a photo ofthis thing hanging above the toilet.
(03:55):
And they Had.
I don't know how they didthis, but they found the.
Probably through some imagesearch, reverse image search on Google.
They found out the.
Found the product and commonspy cam.
You know, it couldn't havebeen anything else.
I mean, I was trying to figureout how they could have faked this
story, and it would have beenthe greatest conspiracy of all time.
(04:19):
It's absolutely astonishing tome that Airbnb either didn't believe
them or didn't have thecapacity to sort of process this
complaint in the correct way.
Well, of course they did whenyou got involved, which is one of
the reasons people write toyou, and you gave somewhat of a reason
(04:39):
why this could happen onAirbnb's watch.
So let's tell a little bitabout their side of the story.
Why.
Why didn't they police this better?
Well, you know, Airbnb didn'tgive me a very detailed response,
so I sort of took my best guess.
I read a lot of Airbnb complaints.
(05:00):
A lot come into email.
What's the most common one?
The most common is either Iwrote a negative review of this place
and the host got it removed,or a host writing to me, it said,
a guest wrote a negativereview of a place and I couldn't
get it removed.
So Airbnb has a sort of adispute resolution system.
(05:21):
I call it sort of aninternational small claims court.
They're running out of whoknows where there's a system that
they have to settle thesekinds of disputes, which sometimes
are less serious and in thiscase was very serious.
And I just don't think theyhave the capacity either to handle
as many complaints as they getor to understand the seriousness
(05:44):
of some of these complaints orreally, I mean, to judge between
two sets of customers.
And I think this is the bigmisunderstanding of the public.
You're not Airbnb's only customer.
When you stay in an Airbnbproperty, their other customer is
the host.
And they're not going to favoryou over.
(06:09):
You can't be.
You can't have the saying, thecustomer is always right as Airbnb
because one of the twocustomers has to be wrong, either
the host or the guest.
And they're just trying to dosomething that actually, to their
credit, may be impossible.
They've got hundreds ofmillions of nights of stays in over
(06:30):
200 countries and territorieseverywhere in the world, and things
come up all the time.
I can't tell you whether theyhaven't invested enough in training
or they don't care enough orwhat, but.
Or if they're just overwhelmed maybe.
I don't know, but it justcouldn't have been clearer.
(06:52):
And, you know, this is onlyone of who knows how many cases.
And maybe sometimes they.
I'm sure sometimes they get itright, but it's very hard.
Like, one person says onething, one person says another thing.
How does a customer serviceperson in who knows where, the Philippines,
Hawaii, India, New Jersey,like, judge something that's happening
(07:13):
in Mongolia with a guest from Uzbekistan?
I mean.
Right.
And you make the point that itis possible because this Airbnb had
been booked for a long time.
It's possible a guest couldhave put in this spy camera and maybe
the host removed it.
(07:34):
You just don't know what theactual story is here.
Right, right.
But, I mean, in this case, itsort of doesn't matter.
This is a clear danger.
There's at least one camera inthis house.
There could have been many others.
And the house was rented out.
This is a summer resort areanear Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.
(07:55):
And this was Memorial Dayweekend, the beginning of the summer.
It was rented out by a numberof other people for the next few
months.
And they just left it out there.
Right.
The people who reported thisto you said they didn't do anything.
We wanted our full money back.
And we also wanted this houseto be taken offline because in the
(08:17):
reviews, they had seen thatchildren had stayed there.
And so that didn't happen.
It stayed booked for theentire summer of 2025.
And just to be clear, onceagain, they did.
The police did take thiscamera, but there could have been
other cameras.
And it just seemed like, youknow, usually when I do a story like
(08:38):
this, it's because I've heardsimilar problems from other folks,
but it's either not thatserious or it's not that clear.
This was such a clear andobvious case where it would have
been so, so easy for a personat Airbnb, a reasonable person, to
say, well, obviously, maybe insome cases we're not going to do
(08:59):
anything.
This is a case where we haveto do something.
Let's, for now anyway, cancelall the future reservations until
we figure something out,whatever process they have to do
that.
Right.
So since that's not happening,are there ways to make sure that
you stay safe in.
If you do an Airbnb stay.
(09:20):
And I'll tell you my story ina moment.
But what.
What is your first piece ofadvice on what to do?
I mean, you know, there'scertain things that are obvious,
like you.
You.
You read the reviews Very carefully.
Right.
Don't stay at a place whereyou haven't really had the chance
to read through reviews.
I do say, you know, there canbe one bad review and that's it.
But, you know, hidden camerasare hidden cameras.
(09:42):
You could, if you really wantto take it seriously, you could buy
a device.
There's devices sold that.
Detective.
Human hidden cameras.
I believe you should Googlethis or chatgpt it.
But there's ways to have your.
Your smartphone detect infrared.
I don't really know how itworks, but you have to figure out
if you really are worriedabout hidden cameras.
There are ways to search forhidden cameras.
(10:03):
So that would be one thing I.
Would do well before we leave that.
So you also say read thereviews very carefully.
Here's.
Here's here.
I'm going to tell the Pauline.
Why were you so Stupid storyin this case?
I was going somewhere forwork, and I'm a total cheapskate.
The prices were insane at hotels.
(10:25):
The prices were insane at most Airbnbs.
So I accepted an Airbnb thatwas a room in someone's house.
And I read the reviews, and Idid see a pattern of some people
complaining that the hostseemed a little nutty.
But I also read that they hadkittens, and I love cats.
(10:49):
And I thought, how bad couldthis be?
I'm sure it'll be fine.
I get to the house.
It's clear the owner is onsomething really serious.
She's clearly out of her mindon some drug, and her boyfriend comes
home, and they launch intothis horrific fight.
And I'm in my room listeningto them yelling, you know, doors
(11:12):
banging and all this stuff.
And I'm thinking, okay, maybeI could go out, but will my stuff
be safe?
And if I have to come back in,I could sneak out.
And then I thought, why am Ieven thinking of staying here?
So I snuck out, called Airbnb.
It took several days, but theydid finally refund me, and I stayed
(11:34):
at one of the expensive hotelsfor the night.
But, you know, I just wasblinded by the prospect of being
in a place with kittens, you know?
Right.
And I guess the reviews, youshould have paid more attention to
them.
I should have, yeah.
You know, Airbnb does have awhole system for if you feel unsafe
in your.
In your.
(11:54):
In the place you're staying toat least try to get you another place
or refund you.
I think that that works mostof the time, but you're.
The whole ecosystem of Airbnbis so massive that you are sort of
taking a chance Although I dosay in the article, you're also taking
a chance when you stay in alocal hotel, and you're also taking
a chance when you stay in abig chain hotel.
(12:15):
And, yeah, you know, travelhas a certain element of risk to
it, no matter what.
But in this case, they didn'twant to give me my money back because
I hadn't alerted the host Iwas leaving.
Now, I didn't feel confidentin alerting the host because she
was clearly out of her mind.
So that's why it took several days.
But I did eventually get mymoney back, and she's no longer on
(12:37):
the service.
It's a similar element in this story.
The guest didn't want Airbnbto confront the host because they
were worried about retaliationon the review or some other kind
of retaliation.
So I'm not sure if that hadanything to do with, with the Airbnb
response.
(12:57):
But, but these, these, theseare a real challenge.
And by the way, another thingI noticed about your, your case is
that it was budget related.
Yes.
You know, there are certaintimes when spending less money on
a trip actually makes a tripbetter, but there are also times
when it makes it worse.
Oh, that's so shocking to hearfrom the former frugal traveler say.
(13:21):
I mean, safety is somethingprobably one shouldn't compromise.
Absolutely.
Especially as a womantraveling alone.
So you say look at the, at thereviews carefully and look for patterns.
You said maybe get one ofthose devices that will show infrared.
If you're really nervous about that.
(13:41):
What, what other things canyou do to keep yourself safe on Airbnb?
Well, I mean, despite what Isaid about Airbnb system, you do
want to alert Airbnb right away.
They do have protocols inplace, tell you to call the police,
tell you to get out of theplace, find you a new place.
I.
It's not really.
I guess it doesn't reallycount as staying safe.
(14:02):
But just to protect yourself,I recommend you do the same thing
you should do when you rent a car.
You take a video of the entireapartment and when you arrive and
when you leave to make sureyou're not charged for something.
This is another huge problemon Airbnb is charges that come in
that maybe are for somethingthat occurred before you got there.
(14:25):
For example, like a brokenvase or what broken vase?
I got a story recently aboutsomeone who left a stain on, I think
they had unplugged some insectrepellent thing that's plugged in.
They put it down on a coffeetable, and the coffee table, it leaked
onto the coffee table.
And they were charged somevery outrageous amount that must
(14:49):
have been more than the valueof the coffee table.
Wow.
And, you know, I guess if theyhad had a video of what the coffee
table was, they could havesaid, is there any way this thing
is worth, you know, fifteenhundred dollars or something like
that?
But, you know, I mean, hiddencameras can be any.
Anywhere.
These.
Sure.
By the way, regular camerasare everywhere.
We're being filmed all the time.
(15:09):
So I think there's a lot ofchallenges out there about protecting
yourself, and I don't reallyhave all the answers to this.
So as I alluded to, you usedto be the frugal traveler.
Now you're the tripped up columnist.
Does being deluged with all ofthese horror stories every day make
you less bullish on the travel experience?
(15:34):
I have to admit, it does make.
I am the pessimistic guy.
It's very rare now when one ofmy friends tell me something bad
that happened to them that Idon't immediately launch into where
in the terms and conditions ofthe airline, they're screwed, you
know, because they're nevergoing to get their money back.
(15:54):
I certainly travel.
I'm very wary now of almosteverything that happens when I travel
and everything that can, cango wrong.
Actually, the one thing that Ithink I still maintain from the frugal
traveler days is a lot a sensethat people really need to be flexible
travel and that a lot of thecomplaints I get, I'm kind of like,
(16:17):
maybe you should just realizethis is a part of travel and you
don't need to go to waragainst an airline because they are
not going to refund you the$50 you spent to have an aisle seat.
And then it turned out theairline, the.
This particular airplane had adifferent structure and the bathroom,
the aisle was next to thebathroom or something like, you know,
(16:40):
I do think that people, I havemaintained a certain kind of sort
of flexible idealism abouttravel that things will go wrong
and you should expect them togo wrong.
And only when something reallyserious happens, like this case,
which was very serious.
Do you really want to, like,waste the three months after you
get back from your trip tryingto, you know, fight whatever company
(17:04):
caused you this problem?
Right.
No.
Excellent advice as always.
Well, thank you so much, Seth,for appearing on the former travel
show.
Thank you, Pauline.
(17:29):
About two weeks ago, the cheapair carrier play out of Iceland went
belly up.
And in the United States,Spirit is on its last legs.
It may be going away.
This is all a long way ofsaying it's gotten harder to find
cheap airfares.
(17:49):
You have to be more strategicthan ever.
And my next guest has a newbusiness that is taking a new approach
to saving money on airfares.
Full disclosure, I have nottested it yet.
I'm planning to do so and I'llcome back to you with the results.
(18:11):
But it was such an interestingidea that I wanted to have him on
the show.
So I have Jason Lucking on the line.
He is one of the founders of,of payback, which is not spelled
the usual way.
It's pay a I back.
Welcome to the Fromer Travel Show.
(18:32):
Jason.
Thank you, thank you.
Great to be here.
And I appreciate you giving methe opportunity to share a little
bit more about payback with you.
So how does it work?
What is the idea behind payback?
Sure.
So payback and as you said,spelt P A I back was this play on,
(18:54):
on getting paid back for yourairfare but using technology.
So what we do is we takebookings that are directly made with
the airline and we'll takethose tickets, they're forwarded
to us, we monitor them fromthe time we receive them until the
time that you take off.
Now, as we know, pricingdynamics go up and down.
If the price goes up, we donothing with that ticket.
(19:16):
If the price goes below whatyou originally paid for it, we use
AI to automate that processand of getting you the difference
between what you paid for itand what its value is now.
And you'll get that as afuture flight credit if you get a
non refundable ticket, whichmost of us do, or you'll get it back
on your original form ofpayment if you get a refundable ticket,
(19:37):
which some people do, but youpay a bit of a premium for.
So it's a very simple hasslefree process.
You book your ticket with theairline, you forward it to us and
then you sit back.
That's.
That's all you get to do.
We accrue these credits.
One in every two flights, seea price drop.
So there's some pretty highfrequency that goes on with it as
(19:58):
well.
So just to unpack this, thisworks for folks who travel a lot.
If you're taking one trip ayear, that getting the credit back
could be meaningless for you.
Right.
This is for people who will beable to use that credit later on.
Yeah.
So two, two prongs here.
(20:19):
We at this point recommendpeople that fly two to three times
a year would see advantagefrom it because as you said, they
could use it for futureflights or for Additional flights.
Now, the second prong is,although our business is to save
people money on their existingtickets, our real deep rooted ethos
(20:40):
is, you know, since COVIDwe've seen a fall off in travel.
We really want people to do more.
Wait, hold on, I got to stopyou there.
How have you seen a fall offin travel since COVID That doesn't
make sense to me.
Well, during COVID a lot ofpeople were not flying as much.
There was more travel via carand vehicles.
And you've seen the airlineindustry drop from a $206 billion
(21:02):
US market, it dipped down toabout 175, I think.
And we're starting to see itback up.
We're getting Back to about2019 numbers now at this point.
That's interesting because inthe United States, a lot of the airlines.
This is all a side discussion,but a lot of the airlines are posting,
had been posting record profits.
(21:23):
Record profits, but not necessarily.
That doesn't necessarily meanthat they were having as high a revenue
as possible.
Record profits are obviously adifferent section to revenue.
Okay.
We'Ll go on with ourdiscussion because we got a little
inside baseball there.
So you want to get people backin the air.
(21:45):
You know, deep, deep.
One other thing.
I mean, just so back to theoriginal thought.
So you, you register yourflight with payback.
Yes, ma'.
Am.
And then you guys use AI tomonitor whether or not the cost has
dropped.
Yes.
What if it's the only timeyou're going to Karachi and you're
on Air Pakistan?
(22:06):
Does it help you to have acredit on Air Pakistan knowing you'll
probably never be going backto Karachi?
So right now we're focused onUS Airlines, and that's Delta, American,
United, Alaskan, and we'relooking at adding two of the other
airlines as well.
Jet slu.
We're working on those right now.
(22:27):
Again, as you know, there's abit of a shift in the airline industry
right now where some of themare figuring out partnerships or
figuring out, you know, howthey're positioning their seating
or things like that.
So we're holding off on someof those other airlines right now,
but it does work on bothdomestic and international flights
(22:48):
for those airlines.
So again, focus on Delta,United, American, Alaskan right now
and we'll see additionalscoming in the coming weeks.
I see.
Okay.
Is it easy to use the aircredits or do you get put in the
same bucket as people tryingto use loyalty points, which is getting
(23:08):
increasingly difficult becausetoo many damn people have loyalty
points?
There are far more loyaltyPoints than ever could be turned
in and used.
So the great thing aboutfuture flight credits is it's the
same thing as cash.
So anytime you go to book afuture flight, you can apply those
future flight credits to yourfuture tickets.
We can break it down airlineby airline on which one's easier
(23:30):
and which ones, you know,makes it maybe a little tougher.
But the airlines really areseeing an increase in people that
may have cancelled a flightand therefore get a future flight
credit.
So the, the ease is definitelybecoming, is definitely increasing
there with the airlines.
But it's a very simple thing.
You have a credit, you canvery easily apply it to future flights
(23:52):
and some auxiliary services as well.
Forever, or is there adeadline for when you need to apply
the credit?
Yeah.
So that flight credit has 12months from the time of original
purchase on most of the airlines.
Okay.
All right.
So you have to keep track of it.
Do you guys keep track of thatfor your customers?
It's a pro feature that we'llbe adding again in the coming months.
(24:15):
Okay, interesting.
And I got to ask, how do youmake money on this transaction?
So being a frequent flyer,both for business, myself and with
our family, we love to travel,I wanted to make this as seamless
a possible opportunity foranybody to use.
And so what we said was, theonly time we will make money is when
(24:38):
you make money.
Which means anytime we secureyou a credit, that's the only time
we will charge you.
And we'll charge you 20% ofwhatever we saved you.
So if the price doesn'tchange, we don't, we don't charge
you anything.
So it's going to cost younothing to sign up.
It's going to cost you nothingfor us to monitor.
The only time that we monetizeis when you make money.
(25:00):
It's you win, we win situation.
Very interesting.
So how long have you been in business?
Now?
The idea was conceived alittle over coming up to three years.
We did a lot of R and D, wedid a pilot scheme, and we've really
gone live in the last 12 months.
And it's been extremely exciting.
I come from the luxury serviceworld where I know every single person
(25:24):
that, that, that I interact with.
And so seeing this exceptionalgrowth, obviously, I don't know 99%
of the people that are signedup, but we still take a service approach.
As much, again, as much as weknow we're saving people money, we
believe that we are a singleservice first company for people.
Because travel's superimportant to people.
(25:44):
It's very delicate.
It's you've got to be veryrespectful for people's flights about
their privacy.
And so we make sure that allof those things are taken into account
for us as a company.
I feel like we're on sharktank right now and I'm trying to
assess whether or not it'sworthwhile to invest in you.
Although it does seem like arisk free investment for your travelers
(26:10):
that they're not going to loseanything by simply registering their
flight with you and then theregistration process.
What do they have to give youso that you can cancel and rebook
them?
So, so that's an interesting point.
We do not cancel your tickets.
That was originally somethingthat, that we thought of.
What we do is we, we get thatticket reticketed with the airline
(26:32):
so you stay on the sameconfirmation in the same seat or
in one airlines in the same class.
We try to ensure that youalways remain in that same seat,
but just at that new lower price.
So we don't cancel.
We re ticket.
And that's where you end upgetting that future flight credit.
Because if you cancel, there'salways that opportunity.
There's always that risk ofsomething going wrong.
(26:54):
You know, think of families,families with kids.
The kids end up at the back bythe toilet and you end up at the
front in, you know, comfortplus or something.
So we didn't want to do acancel rebook.
But to your point, it is risk free.
We wanted that case to be.
You don't have to worry about it.
Only when the price goes downare you going to be optimized for
(27:17):
that ticket.
Okay, so to find you people,go to paiback app.
Yes ma'.
Am.
So paiback app or you couldjust Google Payback Travel, Pai Back
travel and that'll get youdirectly to us as well.
So there isn't an app you haveto download.
(27:38):
You can simply do it through a website.
It's in development.
It's in development, like alot of this.
All right, well, best of luckto you.
It sounds like it could be agood strategy for travelers who travel
a lot, as most of ourlisteners do.
So thank you so much forappearing on the Fromer Travel Show.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
(27:59):
And we have reached the end ofanother show.
I thank you so much for listening.
Do me a favor.
If you enjoy the show, won'tyou consider subscribing or giving
us a five star review whereveryou stream this show, whether it
be Apple podcasts or Spotifyor another platform that could really
help us find new listeners andin this day of AI, when so much is
(28:25):
being taken from contentcreators without any compensation,
we really, really depend onour listeners, on our readers, to
be staying in the journalism game.
Things are changing rapidlyand we need travelers to come to
(28:47):
us directly.
Because when you go to othersources, not all other sources, but
AI or marketing based sources,you may not be getting the real deal.
You may not be gettingimpartial reviews or news that hasn't
(29:07):
been filtered by big tech andother wealthy sources.
In order for us to keepdelivering the real stuff, we need
your support.
End of commercial.
Thank you so much for listening.
And to those who aretraveling, may I wish you a hearty
(29:28):
bon voyage.
Sour candy on the table Lazyafternoons in your sweatpants Watching
(29:51):
cable well it feels so faraway all the channels seem the same
Trying to remember all thesongs we like to play Cause those
lazy afternoons don't come sofrequently these days oh it's been
(30:17):
so long and I cannot help butwonder Are you ever coming home?
I like you with your sourcandy in the boothouse on the lake
oh but I hate, I hate, I hate,I hate, I hate, I hate the way it
takes I can't get you off ofmy mind Looking out the window where
(30:54):
we spend so much of our timecause I miss the way it feels But
I guess you can't controlthose damn cards with babe I know
the both of us are happy whenwe're free but would it be so hard
(31:15):
to find your freedom here with me?
Oh it's been so long and Icannot help but wonder Are you ever
coming home?
I like you with your sourcandy in the boathouse on the lake
But I hate, I hate, I hate, Ihate, I hate, I hate the way it tast
(31:51):
and I, I, I hate the way ittastes But I love it all the same
and I, I hate the way ittastes But I love it all the sa.
(33:38):
Oh I know it's been, it'sbeen, it's been, it's been so long
and I cannot help but wonderAre you ever coming home?
I like you with your sourcandy in the boat house on the lake
But I hate, I hate, I hate, Ihate, I hate, I hate the way it takes
(34:02):
it's been so long and I cannothelp but wonder Are you ever coming
home?
When I see you with a sourcandy don't want it any other way
oh I just hate, I hate, Ihate, I hate, I hate, I hate the
way it tastes.
Foreign.
Welcome to the Fromer Travel Show.
I'm your host, Pauline Fromer,and we have one of our favorite guests
back for the first segment today.
He is Seth Kugel.
(01:13):
He writes the Tripped upcolumn for the New York Times.
Hey, Seth.
Welcome back to the FromerTravel Show.
Hi, Pauline.
Thank you.
Glad to be on the first segment.
That's very exciting.
Well, you're always aheadliner, and your most recent article
profiled, I think, an issuethat is quite scary to many travelers.
(01:39):
The headline of the piece kindof tells it in a nutshell.
Help.
We found a hidden camera inthe bathroom of our Airbnb.
Oy vey.
What else can you say?
So these people reached out to you.
What was most shocking aboutthis was Airbnb's lack of response.
(02:01):
So tell the story.
How did they find this camera?
I think it was through thepure luck of the battery running
out on the camera or someconnectivity issue of the camera
because it started to blink ared light above the toilet.
It was a camera that was in anoutlet extender.
(02:22):
So, you know, if you have oneoutlet, you plug something into it,
and there's like, four moreplaces to plug things in or maybe
a usb.
And in that, there were these little.
Looked like maybe two tinycameras that you would never know
was a camera.
Sure.
The.
The person walked into thebathroom at night, and before they
turned on the light, they sawa flashing red light.
(02:43):
And of course, it's a spycamera or a nanny camera, as you
might call it, so it wouldn'tnormally be flashing.
I'm here.
Look over here.
But obviously something waswrong with it, so they just.
They discovered it.
They.
They called the police and Airbnb.
This took place in NewHampshire, where it can be a felony
to have a camera installed ina pub in a private place that.
(03:08):
Where other people might notknow it's there.
And, yeah, so that's what happened.
And the police did respond.
But Airbnb eventually, a fewdays later, sort of found in favor
of the host, which wasshocking because it couldn't have
been more obvious.
I read the whole interactionbetween Airbnb and the guests, which
(03:31):
is, of course, all over theAirbnb app.
So it's all documented.
I saw the documentation theguests sent, and it's quite convincing
that it can.
It included the police report, right?
Well, it included the numberof the police report.
The police report wasn't outyet, but.
And is still not out to thisday, by the way.
But it included a photo ofthis thing hanging above the toilet.
(03:55):
And they Had.
I don't know how they didthis, but they found the.
Probably through some imagesearch, reverse image search on Google.
They found out the.
Found the product and commonspy cam.
You know, it couldn't havebeen anything else.
I mean, I was trying to figureout how they could have faked this
story, and it would have beenthe greatest conspiracy of all time.
(04:19):
It's absolutely astonishing tome that Airbnb either didn't believe
them or didn't have thecapacity to sort of process this
complaint in the correct way.
Well, of course they did whenyou got involved, which is one of
the reasons people write toyou, and you gave somewhat of a reason
(04:39):
why this could happen onAirbnb's watch.
So let's tell a little bitabout their side of the story.
Why.
Why didn't they police this better?
Well, you know, Airbnb didn'tgive me a very detailed response,
so I sort of took my best guess.
I read a lot of Airbnb complaints.
(05:00):
A lot come into email.
What's the most common one?
The most common is either Iwrote a negative review of this place
and the host got it removed,or a host writing to me, it said,
a guest wrote a negativereview of a place and I couldn't
get it removed.
So Airbnb has a sort of adispute resolution system.
(05:21):
I call it sort of aninternational small claims court.
They're running out of whoknows where there's a system that
they have to settle thesekinds of disputes, which sometimes
are less serious and in thiscase was very serious.
And I just don't think theyhave the capacity either to handle
as many complaints as they getor to understand the seriousness
(05:44):
of some of these complaints orreally, I mean, to judge between
two sets of customers.
And I think this is the bigmisunderstanding of the public.
You're not Airbnb's only customer.
When you stay in an Airbnbproperty, their other customer is
the host.
And they're not going to favoryou over.
(06:09):
You can't be.
You can't have the saying, thecustomer is always right as Airbnb
because one of the twocustomers has to be wrong, either
the host or the guest.
And they're just trying to dosomething that actually, to their
credit, may be impossible.
They've got hundreds ofmillions of nights of stays in over
(06:30):
200 countries and territorieseverywhere in the world, and things
come up all the time.
I can't tell you whether theyhaven't invested enough in training
or they don't care enough orwhat, but.
Or if they're just overwhelmed maybe.
I don't know, but it justcouldn't have been clearer.
(06:52):
And, you know, this is onlyone of who knows how many cases.
And maybe sometimes they.
I'm sure sometimes they get itright, but it's very hard.
Like, one person says onething, one person says another thing.
How does a customer serviceperson in who knows where, the Philippines,
Hawaii, India, New Jersey,like, judge something that's happening
(07:13):
in Mongolia with a guest from Uzbekistan?
I mean.
Right.
And you make the point that itis possible because this Airbnb had
been booked for a long time.
It's possible a guest couldhave put in this spy camera and maybe
the host removed it.
(07:34):
You just don't know what theactual story is here.
Right, right.
But, I mean, in this case, itsort of doesn't matter.
This is a clear danger.
There's at least one camera inthis house.
There could have been many others.
And the house was rented out.
This is a summer resort areanear Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.
(07:55):
And this was Memorial Dayweekend, the beginning of the summer.
It was rented out by a numberof other people for the next few
months.
And they just left it out there.
Right.
The people who reported thisto you said they didn't do anything.
We wanted our full money back.
And we also wanted this houseto be taken offline because in the
(08:17):
reviews, they had seen thatchildren had stayed there.
And so that didn't happen.
It stayed booked for theentire summer of 2025.
And just to be clear, onceagain, they did.
The police did take thiscamera, but there could have been
other cameras.
And it just seemed like, youknow, usually when I do a story like
(08:38):
this, it's because I've heardsimilar problems from other folks,
but it's either not thatserious or it's not that clear.
This was such a clear andobvious case where it would have
been so, so easy for a personat Airbnb, a reasonable person, to
say, well, obviously, maybe insome cases we're not going to do
(08:59):
anything.
This is a case where we haveto do something.
Let's, for now anyway, cancelall the future reservations until
we figure something out,whatever process they have to do
that.
Right.
So since that's not happening,are there ways to make sure that
you stay safe in.
If you do an Airbnb stay.
(09:20):
And I'll tell you my story ina moment.
But what.
What is your first piece ofadvice on what to do?
I mean, you know, there'scertain things that are obvious,
like you.
You.
You read the reviews Very carefully.
Right.
Don't stay at a place whereyou haven't really had the chance
to read through reviews.
I do say, you know, there canbe one bad review and that's it.
But, you know, hidden camerasare hidden cameras.
(09:42):
You could, if you really wantto take it seriously, you could buy
a device.
There's devices sold that.
Detective.
Human hidden cameras.
I believe you should Googlethis or chatgpt it.
But there's ways to have your.
Your smartphone detect infrared.
I don't really know how itworks, but you have to figure out
if you really are worriedabout hidden cameras.
There are ways to search forhidden cameras.
(10:03):
So that would be one thing I.
Would do well before we leave that.
So you also say read thereviews very carefully.
Here's.
Here's here.
I'm going to tell the Pauline.
Why were you so Stupid storyin this case?
I was going somewhere forwork, and I'm a total cheapskate.
The prices were insane at hotels.
(10:25):
The prices were insane at most Airbnbs.
So I accepted an Airbnb thatwas a room in someone's house.
And I read the reviews, and Idid see a pattern of some people
complaining that the hostseemed a little nutty.
But I also read that they hadkittens, and I love cats.
(10:49):
And I thought, how bad couldthis be?
I'm sure it'll be fine.
I get to the house.
It's clear the owner is onsomething really serious.
She's clearly out of her mindon some drug, and her boyfriend comes
home, and they launch intothis horrific fight.
And I'm in my room listeningto them yelling, you know, doors
(11:12):
banging and all this stuff.
And I'm thinking, okay, maybeI could go out, but will my stuff
be safe?
And if I have to come back in,I could sneak out.
And then I thought, why am Ieven thinking of staying here?
So I snuck out, called Airbnb.
It took several days, but theydid finally refund me, and I stayed
(11:34):
at one of the expensive hotelsfor the night.
But, you know, I just wasblinded by the prospect of being
in a place with kittens, you know?
Right.
And I guess the reviews, youshould have paid more attention to
them.
I should have, yeah.
You know, Airbnb does have awhole system for if you feel unsafe
in your.
In your.
(11:54):
In the place you're staying toat least try to get you another place
or refund you.
I think that that works mostof the time, but you're.
The whole ecosystem of Airbnbis so massive that you are sort of
taking a chance Although I dosay in the article, you're also taking
a chance when you stay in alocal hotel, and you're also taking
a chance when you stay in abig chain hotel.
(12:15):
And, yeah, you know, travelhas a certain element of risk to
it, no matter what.
But in this case, they didn'twant to give me my money back because
I hadn't alerted the host Iwas leaving.
Now, I didn't feel confidentin alerting the host because she
was clearly out of her mind.
So that's why it took several days.
But I did eventually get mymoney back, and she's no longer on
(12:37):
the service.
It's a similar element in this story.
The guest didn't want Airbnbto confront the host because they
were worried about retaliationon the review or some other kind
of retaliation.
So I'm not sure if that hadanything to do with, with the Airbnb
response.
(12:57):
But, but these, these, theseare a real challenge.
And by the way, another thingI noticed about your, your case is
that it was budget related.
Yes.
You know, there are certaintimes when spending less money on
a trip actually makes a tripbetter, but there are also times
when it makes it worse.
Oh, that's so shocking to hearfrom the former frugal traveler say.
(13:21):
I mean, safety is somethingprobably one shouldn't compromise.
Absolutely.
Especially as a womantraveling alone.
So you say look at the, at thereviews carefully and look for patterns.
You said maybe get one ofthose devices that will show infrared.
If you're really nervous about that.
(13:41):
What, what other things canyou do to keep yourself safe on Airbnb?
Well, I mean, despite what Isaid about Airbnb system, you do
want to alert Airbnb right away.
They do have protocols inplace, tell you to call the police,
tell you to get out of theplace, find you a new place.
I.
It's not really.
I guess it doesn't reallycount as staying safe.
(14:02):
But just to protect yourself,I recommend you do the same thing
you should do when you rent a car.
You take a video of the entireapartment and when you arrive and
when you leave to make sureyou're not charged for something.
This is another huge problemon Airbnb is charges that come in
that maybe are for somethingthat occurred before you got there.
(14:25):
For example, like a brokenvase or what broken vase?
I got a story recently aboutsomeone who left a stain on, I think
they had unplugged some insectrepellent thing that's plugged in.
They put it down on a coffeetable, and the coffee table, it leaked
onto the coffee table.
And they were charged somevery outrageous amount that must
(14:49):
have been more than the valueof the coffee table.
Wow.
And, you know, I guess if theyhad had a video of what the coffee
table was, they could havesaid, is there any way this thing
is worth, you know, fifteenhundred dollars or something like
that?
But, you know, I mean, hiddencameras can be any.
Anywhere.
These.
Sure.
By the way, regular camerasare everywhere.
We're being filmed all the time.
(15:09):
So I think there's a lot ofchallenges out there about protecting
yourself, and I don't reallyhave all the answers to this.
So as I alluded to, you usedto be the frugal traveler.
Now you're the tripped up columnist.
Does being deluged with all ofthese horror stories every day make
you less bullish on the travel experience?
(15:34):
I have to admit, it does make.
I am the pessimistic guy.
It's very rare now when one ofmy friends tell me something bad
that happened to them that Idon't immediately launch into where
in the terms and conditions ofthe airline, they're screwed, you
know, because they're nevergoing to get their money back.
(15:54):
I certainly travel.
I'm very wary now of almosteverything that happens when I travel
and everything that can, cango wrong.
Actually, the one thing that Ithink I still maintain from the frugal
traveler days is a lot a sensethat people really need to be flexible
travel and that a lot of thecomplaints I get, I'm kind of like,
(16:17):
maybe you should just realizethis is a part of travel and you
don't need to go to waragainst an airline because they are
not going to refund you the$50 you spent to have an aisle seat.
And then it turned out theairline, the.
This particular airplane had adifferent structure and the bathroom,
the aisle was next to thebathroom or something like, you know,
(16:40):
I do think that people, I havemaintained a certain kind of sort
of flexible idealism abouttravel that things will go wrong
and you should expect them togo wrong.
And only when something reallyserious happens, like this case,
which was very serious.
Do you really want to, like,waste the three months after you
get back from your trip tryingto, you know, fight whatever company
(17:04):
caused you this problem?
Right.
No.
Excellent advice as always.
Well, thank you so much, Seth,for appearing on the former travel
show.
Thank you, Pauline.
(17:29):
About two weeks ago, the cheapair carrier play out of Iceland went
belly up.
And in the United States,Spirit is on its last legs.
It may be going away.
This is all a long way ofsaying it's gotten harder to find
cheap airfares.
(17:49):
You have to be more strategicthan ever.
And my next guest has a newbusiness that is taking a new approach
to saving money on airfares.
Full disclosure, I have nottested it yet.
I'm planning to do so and I'llcome back to you with the results.
(18:11):
But it was such an interestingidea that I wanted to have him on
the show.
So I have Jason Lucking on the line.
He is one of the founders of,of payback, which is not spelled
the usual way.
It's pay a I back.
Welcome to the Fromer Travel Show.
(18:32):
Jason.
Thank you, thank you.
Great to be here.
And I appreciate you giving methe opportunity to share a little
bit more about payback with you.
So how does it work?
What is the idea behind payback?
Sure.
So payback and as you said,spelt P A I back was this play on,
(18:54):
on getting paid back for yourairfare but using technology.
So what we do is we takebookings that are directly made with
the airline and we'll takethose tickets, they're forwarded
to us, we monitor them fromthe time we receive them until the
time that you take off.
Now, as we know, pricingdynamics go up and down.
If the price goes up, we donothing with that ticket.
(19:16):
If the price goes below whatyou originally paid for it, we use
AI to automate that processand of getting you the difference
between what you paid for itand what its value is now.
And you'll get that as afuture flight credit if you get a
non refundable ticket, whichmost of us do, or you'll get it back
on your original form ofpayment if you get a refundable ticket,
(19:37):
which some people do, but youpay a bit of a premium for.
So it's a very simple hasslefree process.
You book your ticket with theairline, you forward it to us and
then you sit back.
That's.
That's all you get to do.
We accrue these credits.
One in every two flights, seea price drop.
So there's some pretty highfrequency that goes on with it as
(19:58):
well.
So just to unpack this, thisworks for folks who travel a lot.
If you're taking one trip ayear, that getting the credit back
could be meaningless for you.
Right.
This is for people who will beable to use that credit later on.
Yeah.
So two, two prongs here.
(20:19):
We at this point recommendpeople that fly two to three times
a year would see advantagefrom it because as you said, they
could use it for futureflights or for Additional flights.
Now, the second prong is,although our business is to save
people money on their existingtickets, our real deep rooted ethos
(20:40):
is, you know, since COVIDwe've seen a fall off in travel.
We really want people to do more.
Wait, hold on, I got to stopyou there.
How have you seen a fall offin travel since COVID That doesn't
make sense to me.
Well, during COVID a lot ofpeople were not flying as much.
There was more travel via carand vehicles.
And you've seen the airlineindustry drop from a $206 billion
(21:02):
US market, it dipped down toabout 175, I think.
And we're starting to see itback up.
We're getting Back to about2019 numbers now at this point.
That's interesting because inthe United States, a lot of the airlines.
This is all a side discussion,but a lot of the airlines are posting,
had been posting record profits.
(21:23):
Record profits, but not necessarily.
That doesn't necessarily meanthat they were having as high a revenue
as possible.
Record profits are obviously adifferent section to revenue.
Okay.
We'Ll go on with ourdiscussion because we got a little
inside baseball there.
So you want to get people backin the air.
(21:45):
You know, deep, deep.
One other thing.
I mean, just so back to theoriginal thought.
So you, you register yourflight with payback.
Yes, ma'.
Am.
And then you guys use AI tomonitor whether or not the cost has
dropped.
Yes.
What if it's the only timeyou're going to Karachi and you're
on Air Pakistan?
(22:06):
Does it help you to have acredit on Air Pakistan knowing you'll
probably never be going backto Karachi?
So right now we're focused onUS Airlines, and that's Delta, American,
United, Alaskan, and we'relooking at adding two of the other
airlines as well.
Jet slu.
We're working on those right now.
(22:27):
Again, as you know, there's abit of a shift in the airline industry
right now where some of themare figuring out partnerships or
figuring out, you know, howthey're positioning their seating
or things like that.
So we're holding off on someof those other airlines right now,
but it does work on bothdomestic and international flights
(22:48):
for those airlines.
So again, focus on Delta,United, American, Alaskan right now
and we'll see additionalscoming in the coming weeks.
I see.
Okay.
Is it easy to use the aircredits or do you get put in the
same bucket as people tryingto use loyalty points, which is getting
(23:08):
increasingly difficult becausetoo many damn people have loyalty
points?
There are far more loyaltyPoints than ever could be turned
in and used.
So the great thing aboutfuture flight credits is it's the
same thing as cash.
So anytime you go to book afuture flight, you can apply those
future flight credits to yourfuture tickets.
We can break it down airlineby airline on which one's easier
(23:30):
and which ones, you know,makes it maybe a little tougher.
But the airlines really areseeing an increase in people that
may have cancelled a flightand therefore get a future flight
credit.
So the, the ease is definitelybecoming, is definitely increasing
there with the airlines.
But it's a very simple thing.
You have a credit, you canvery easily apply it to future flights
(23:52):
and some auxiliary services as well.
Forever, or is there adeadline for when you need to apply
the credit?
Yeah.
So that flight credit has 12months from the time of original
purchase on most of the airlines.
Okay.
All right.
So you have to keep track of it.
Do you guys keep track of thatfor your customers?
It's a pro feature that we'llbe adding again in the coming months.
(24:15):
Okay, interesting.
And I got to ask, how do youmake money on this transaction?
So being a frequent flyer,both for business, myself and with
our family, we love to travel,I wanted to make this as seamless
a possible opportunity foranybody to use.
And so what we said was, theonly time we will make money is when
(24:38):
you make money.
Which means anytime we secureyou a credit, that's the only time
we will charge you.
And we'll charge you 20% ofwhatever we saved you.
So if the price doesn'tchange, we don't, we don't charge
you anything.
So it's going to cost younothing to sign up.
It's going to cost you nothingfor us to monitor.
The only time that we monetizeis when you make money.
(25:00):
It's you win, we win situation.
Very interesting.
So how long have you been in business?
Now?
The idea was conceived alittle over coming up to three years.
We did a lot of R and D, wedid a pilot scheme, and we've really
gone live in the last 12 months.
And it's been extremely exciting.
I come from the luxury serviceworld where I know every single person
(25:24):
that, that, that I interact with.
And so seeing this exceptionalgrowth, obviously, I don't know 99%
of the people that are signedup, but we still take a service approach.
As much, again, as much as weknow we're saving people money, we
believe that we are a singleservice first company for people.
Because travel's superimportant to people.
(25:44):
It's very delicate.
It's you've got to be veryrespectful for people's flights about
their privacy.
And so we make sure that allof those things are taken into account
for us as a company.
I feel like we're on sharktank right now and I'm trying to
assess whether or not it'sworthwhile to invest in you.
Although it does seem like arisk free investment for your travelers
(26:10):
that they're not going to loseanything by simply registering their
flight with you and then theregistration process.
What do they have to give youso that you can cancel and rebook
them?
So, so that's an interesting point.
We do not cancel your tickets.
That was originally somethingthat, that we thought of.
What we do is we, we get thatticket reticketed with the airline
(26:32):
so you stay on the sameconfirmation in the same seat or
in one airlines in the same class.
We try to ensure that youalways remain in that same seat,
but just at that new lower price.
So we don't cancel.
We re ticket.
And that's where you end upgetting that future flight credit.
Because if you cancel, there'salways that opportunity.
There's always that risk ofsomething going wrong.
(26:54):
You know, think of families,families with kids.
The kids end up at the back bythe toilet and you end up at the
front in, you know, comfortplus or something.
So we didn't want to do acancel rebook.
But to your point, it is risk free.
We wanted that case to be.
You don't have to worry about it.
Only when the price goes downare you going to be optimized for
(27:17):
that ticket.
Okay, so to find you people,go to paiback app.
Yes ma'.
Am.
So paiback app or you couldjust Google Payback Travel, Pai Back
travel and that'll get youdirectly to us as well.
So there isn't an app you haveto download.
(27:38):
You can simply do it through a website.
It's in development.
It's in development, like alot of this.
All right, well, best of luckto you.
It sounds like it could be agood strategy for travelers who travel
a lot, as most of ourlisteners do.
So thank you so much forappearing on the Fromer Travel Show.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
(27:59):
And we have reached the end ofanother show.
I thank you so much for listening.
Do me a favor.
If you enjoy the show, won'tyou consider subscribing or giving
us a five star review whereveryou stream this show, whether it
be Apple podcasts or Spotifyor another platform that could really
help us find new listeners andin this day of AI, when so much is
(28:25):
being taken from contentcreators without any compensation,
we really, really depend onour listeners, on our readers, to
be staying in the journalism game.
Things are changing rapidlyand we need travelers to come to
(28:47):
us directly.
Because when you go to othersources, not all other sources, but
AI or marketing based sources,you may not be getting the real deal.
You may not be gettingimpartial reviews or news that hasn't
(29:07):
been filtered by big tech andother wealthy sources.
In order for us to keepdelivering the real stuff, we need
your support.
End of commercial.
Thank you so much for listening.
And to those who aretraveling, may I wish you a hearty
(29:28):
bon voyage.
Sour candy on the table Lazyafternoons in your sweatpants Watching
(29:51):
cable well it feels so faraway all the channels seem the same
Trying to remember all thesongs we like to play Cause those
lazy afternoons don't come sofrequently these days oh it's been
(30:17):
so long and I cannot help butwonder Are you ever coming home?
I like you with your sourcandy in the boothouse on the lake
oh but I hate, I hate, I hate,I hate, I hate, I hate the way it
takes I can't get you off ofmy mind Looking out the window where
(30:54):
we spend so much of our timecause I miss the way it feels But
I guess you can't controlthose damn cards with babe I know
the both of us are happy whenwe're free but would it be so hard
(31:15):
to find your freedom here with me?
Oh it's been so long and Icannot help but wonder Are you ever
coming home?
I like you with your sourcandy in the boathouse on the lake
But I hate, I hate, I hate, Ihate, I hate, I hate the way it tast
(31:51):
and I, I, I hate the way ittastes But I love it all the same
and I, I hate the way ittastes But I love it all the sa.
(33:38):
Oh I know it's been, it'sbeen, it's been, it's been so long
and I cannot help but wonderAre you ever coming home?
I like you with your sourcandy in the boat house on the lake
But I hate, I hate, I hate, Ihate, I hate, I hate the way it takes
(34:02):
it's been so long and I cannothelp but wonder Are you ever coming
home?
When I see you with a sourcandy don't want it any other way
oh I just hate, I hate, Ihate, I hate, I hate, I hate the
way it tastes.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.