Travel

The Sol teams try to offer housing for any number of nights. I focus here on the smaller numbers of nights that we spend on trips.

People travel with some business or for pleasure. Where do you want to go next? Which services do you find useful for your travels?

1. Sol services

1.1 Transportation

You can consult with us on how best to plan transportation for your trip. We can arrange transportation by air and by rail, and provide transportation by road.

1.2 Accommodation

You might know more providers than Airbnb. Did you know about the travel agency Sol Real Estate (SRE)?

1.2.1 Your benefits come first.

What benefits do you want from travel accommodation?

You can order with us a benefit-cost analysis that shows which provider offers the best benefit-cost ratio for you. If the analysis shows that SRE can be your most helpful provider and you switch to SRE, you needn’t pay for this analysis.

1.2.2 A possible general comparison:

1.2.2.1 We try to communicate better than other providers.

It’s still not easy to find providers who actually discuss their services publicly. Feel free to discuss ours here!

1.2.2.2 We try to manage data better than other providers.

We’ve seen many expensive, messy methods and means to manage data. We try to use the most helpful. You’ll feel it more and more as you use Sol services.

We manage data about housing units so that you know which ones meet your requirements when. We sort the results better than Airbnb.

We work e.g. with hosts to inform you about anything that matters to you, e.g. safety.

1.2.2.3 At Airbnb one can be disturbed by cleaners and their family.

We work with hosts to schedule our activities around yours.

1.2.2.4 At Airbnb it seems unclear who cleans.

We include housekeeping and maintenance for every unit.

1.2.2.5 We can make available in some places at least one laptop computer for you to use during your stay.

1.2.2.6 Allie Conti wrote that with Airbnb a guest might have to look for another place to stay.

Sol must observe its obligation to host guests.

We point out in our service agreement that we must offer alternatives, should a unit become unavailable. We work with hosts to prevent e.g. technical failures. Airbnb seems to offer similar terms.

1.2.2.7 Allie also wrote that people might avoid rating someone poorly on Airbnb.

Sol fosters free expression.

1.2.2.8 Guests must pay the agency at the latest when they check out.

Guests may agree with the host during their stay on when they check out.

1.2.2.9 I find it difficult to understand “double bookings”.

We manage data so that the status of each housing unit is up-to-date.

1.2.2.10 Hosts must prove that they may conclude the agreement with our agency and in what condition the offered property is.

1.2.2.11 “The man on the other end of the line said his name was Kris, but it was clearly not the same person she’d spoken to previously”

Guests and hosts must identify themselves to another contracting party when this party asks them to.

1.2.2.12 “The case manager told her over the phone on the first day in August that she would hear something from the company within eight weeks; she’s still heard nothing.”

That seems illegal. We want to say the truth all the time.

We communicate over the Internet.

We help customers sooner than Airbnb.

1.2.2.13 “No one at the company ever agreed to speak on the record about the specifics of what I uncovered.”

Allie, let me manage the relationship between you and Sol!

We can have useful conversations in public.

1.2.2.14 “due to Airbnb’s messaging constraints, means I could not message them for comment”

We help guests and hosts communicate.

1.2.2.15 “If I had another choice, I would not use Airbnb again”

Allie, invite Juan-David Garrido to this conversation!

You have a choice.

1.2.2.16 “Her host gave her the wrong code to unlock the door to a property she’d rented in Texas, and she had to book an expensive hotel at the last minute.”

One can discuss something usefully to the extent that one has information about it, understands it, and can help reach a related goal. I don’t have enough information about this, so I probably don’t understand this situation well. But I express myself because we can help reach a related goal and am out of patience with people being served poorly. I live to see people served the best way they have ever wished.

How do you give a guest the wrong code to the rented property?

We link data carefully in our databases. We work with hosts to keep data up-to-date and well organised. As soon as one sets an access code, it must be recorded in our databases as the code used with a locking device for a certain door of a certain housing unit. The housing unit is linked to at least one communicator who must be available at agreed times during a certain stay.

If the host has made such a mistake, the guest can ask us to correct the mistake immediately, because they have a relationship manager at Sol and a contact person for their accommodation.

If there’s a bigger issue, somebody could meet the guest to make sure that the guest is provided the requested service.

We try to make it clear that we provide more than a catalogue. People need their entire trips to benefit them.

This is not the first time we’ve seen that people find it rather costly to search for what they need. Let’s keep under control the costs of finding providers and managing the relationships with them!

1.2.3 Costs

To which costs have you paid the most attention?

We try to estimate environmental costs, too.

One way to keep your costs under control is to get insured by Sol Financial Services.

To the extent that you need legal services related to your interactions with a host, you can ask Sol Legal Services or a government office to provide them.

1.3 Food

You can ask us to recommend, and reserve seats at, restaurants or to deliver food to you.

1.4 Activities

When one hasn’t planned all activities for one’s stay, one can ask us how they can spend one’s spare time or to organise something for them.

Travel

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