Bewelcome Reviews 24

I have met so many nice people over the years, hosting and also staying myself in dozens of countries. I find BeWelcome easy to use on my laptop as well as on the smartphone. I have made only good experiences contacting and inviting only members with a reasonably filled profile and a clear profile picture. The feedback system is better than on other sites because you can see the feedback of both members in the form of paired comments side-by-side.

No serious, quality people, their access is way to complicated and they don't take you seriously, I am afraid.

I recently requested to edit a reference on your platform, following the procedure made available by your support team. My intention was simply to correct the content to comply with community guidelines — I did not harass, threaten or otherwise mistreat anyone.

However, instead of providing a neutral response, I was told that my request constituted “harassment,” and informed that “a complaint has been filed with the Brazilian authorities.” This statement seemed intended to intimidate me, since I received no form of legal notification, protocol number, or any proof of formal complaint.

My concern now is about the lack of transparency and due process. I used the editing feature offered by the platform in good faith, and yet was treated as if I had committed a crime.

I request:

A clear explanation of the criteria you used to consider a simple editing request as harassment.

Evidence of any formal complaint — including protocol number, authority contacted, and documentation.

Information on how a user can safely terminate their account and personal data under these circumstances.

I do not want any conflict or retaliation; I only wish to ensure that the platform respects its own rules, treats users fairly, and allows for transparent dispute resolution. I hope this review helps to prevent similar cases for other users.

— A former user trying to raise legitimate concerns

Poor usability of the site - the fact that you can't block other users just shows the site developers to be inexperienced in life: you are expected to fill out a profile that makes you very identifiable but can't hide it from exes, stalkers, workplace bullies. There are discussions about this in the forums and the developers seem to think of the fact that this standard feature is intentionally missing as something noble and enlightened, when all it does is make people feel unsure about using the site because you don't feel safe on it.

There aren't that many members, or that much going on. I live on the outskirts of a fairly touristy city in the UK and have been a site member for two years now. Only ever hosted two people. Looking to travel myself, I could never even find any hosts in the places I was looking to travel to (mid-size towns in Germany and the UK). Looking for a stay in London, the first page of profiles was just a sea of red flags - a profile with right-wing dog-whistles dressed up as "curiosity about other viewpoints", several hosts offering to share the bed with them, one demanding of all guests that they pose for a life drawing, and several profiles so "spiritual" that it just made you uneasy. I gave up looking after that!

I have hosted twice and both times the experience was good. I had to turn down one request but the requester kept messaging me and I couldn't find an option to block them (didn't look for it very intensively, knowing that you can't just block people you know in RL and don't want to have access to information about you whose profile you come across when browsing).

Too many people who abuse hospitality. Eating all food supplies, hanging bras on railings and windows for the neighbours to see and expecting to stay for 2 weeks. And themselves not hosting anyone, or only offering a shared bed !

Many of these bad experiences.

No good experiences.

I used couchsurfing for years, and it was life-changing before it went downhill and betrayed its loyal users. Bewelcome.org is the closest thing to what that community used to be, and it is growing as people flee the couchsurfing site. It is not just about free places to stay, it opens the door to cultural experiences and friendships with people all over the world. Of course the site is a bit rough, but it's not worth deducting a point. It's better than a well-polished corporate for-profit site. I hosted my first guests through the site over the weekend and it was everything I've been missing.

Creepy contact from someone with no known profile on the site. They quickly wanted to go WhatsApp instead of through the website.. Be careful. I deleted membership

BeWelcome is a free CS-Alternative. The idea is fantastic and the search for members works very well with some useful filter options and a nice map. It's great that the app is now available. It works very well (except that I have to log in every now and then even though I have checked the box "remain logged in").

However, unfortunately most members are not active and in my experience the average response rate is around 10 to 20%. In addition, your own messages are limited (I think up to 10 or sth like this). These points in combination make BeWelcome almost unusable for me - what a shame! :(

Update:

I'm currently having my second Couchsurfing experience thanks to BeWelcome. Both experiences were great, but the second one is beyond anything I could have ever imagined. What an amazing experience - wow!

I've also had a few hosts respond to me very late (some after 1-2 weeks). The average response rate has increased significantly in the last few weeks and all the rejections I've received have been friendly to really warm.

I can't recommend BeWelcome for spontaneous meet-ups or overnight stays (nor can I recommend Couchsurfing based on my previous experience with it), but for stays planned in advance, the effort can be worthwhile.

Even if it didn't feel good at first, I now write to many hosts at the same time because the likelihood of being hosted somewhere is very low. And my recommendation is to get in touch as early as possible.

So I've changed my rating from 2 stars to 4 (- there's still some room for improvement.) Thanks BeWelcome team!

Not enough users compared to Couchsurfing, almost not events and moreover, one can't send more than 6 DM per day I was looking for people to hang out.

there is already an opinion on the .com, so if you want to read some more you should check it out over there as this is its actual full name. They label themselves as a free hospitality platform run by volunteers so they make you believe they can do no wrong, oh hombre is there so much wrong. They must be very aware of all the empty profiles and the next to none meet ups taking place because they can track down views, activities, messages and stuff like any other admin that runs the platform so don't pretend there is nothing wrong. I challenge you to find at least one profile that has accumulated uno/eins/Раз single reference, that would be really hard pressed and would take you quite some time. So I don't know if these volunteers are proud of all the numbers that have signed up but do nothing, why would anyone do that? I mean, did you suddenly had to deal with a power outage while you were filling out your name and you spontaneously forgot which of the thirty-four anonymous e-mail accounts you signed up with, why is 99% just empty names. What is the point of that? You see someone logging in, they look at your profile and because you are not a famous superstar Chad or a sexy young Emily they are not gonna respond simply because it is the hosts home and they are totally in control of who they accept so you can't say nuthin', it is just ridiculous that these volunteers let this happen. They are very aware of the low activity and profiles that ignore all the messages ought to be suspended. All the empty profiles should be wiped and closed after one year of inactivity. why does everyone around you pretend not to know anything? Strongly suggest not to waste your time here.

The website is great. Most of the experiences I've had with hosts have been lovely. However, the Safety Team has next to zero power to help users. The website does not have a 'blocking' function, so if a user is being harassed with messages from another user they had a bad hosting experience with, the advice of the safety team was to "just ignore the messages" on the basis that people could just create new accounts and continue harassing people that way. True enough. Why do so many other websites have this feature, then, and why do people use it? I suspect it's because taking some sort of stand in support of your users is better than nothing at all. The Safety Team was also markedly impolite and lacking compassion in our interactions when I reported a member, and consistently doubted my report of my experience.

My profile that I created in 2018 was deleted without any reason in 2020, the I created again a new profile in the same year, and now they deleted again my profile in 2023.

Bewelcome.org is a non-profit hospitality exchange platform, which provides a way for travelers and hosts to connect with each other and share accommodation. Members can offer a place to stay, or request a place to stay, in cities all around the world. The platform is free to use and is based on the idea of "trust and generosity." Its the largest free couchsurfing community.

it s a nice website for hospitality exchange , meet nice people and i like the spirit of the team, free of charge and open source

A good and proper non-profit travel community and a website that replaces what used to be known as Couchsurfing (that has been taken over by scammers and swindlers with no respect to the community). Some issues with usability and user interface but, hey, it is all volunteer-run and completely free.

Very good service, nice and organized website, great for traveling and getting to know people.

Better than couchsurfing definitely...