CouchsurfingReviews of couchsurfing.com

From being an excellent, brilliant, and useful application, it has turned into the worst rip-off... stay away!!!

Couchsurfing latest website and app update has completely ruined the platform. Everything is unnecessarily complicated, navigation is frustratingly slow, and the new design is absolutely terrible. Instead of improving the user experience, the developers have made it a complete nightmare to use. After hosting hundreds of people and supporting this community for years, it’s incredibly disappointing to see such a great platform go downhill because of a disastrous redesign. The app feels outdated, confusing, and poorly designed. Please listen to your users and bring back the simplicity that made Couchsurfing great. This is a massive step backwards, and the people responsible for this update should seriously reconsider their approach.

I rarely ever write a review on a company, but this warrants a warning. I had an old account from years ago which I wanted to delete. To access your account, you now need to subscribe to a paid membership plan. They offer a free trial, which I took but still took the first month's payment from me. (I complained to customer service, who told me that the free trial only counts for the yearly subscription plan - maybe this is true, but I personally wouldn't bet my money on it.) Also, another warning!: deleting your account does NOT end your subscription!!! You need to end your subscription first, then delete your account Sad to see such a pro-social platform become a scammer company as well

I joined Couchsurfing over 10 years ago, when it was free. Before membership fees existed, I paid for lifetime account verification. Now I can't access my account unless I buy a paid membership, so what I paid for as "lifetime" no longer gives me anything. I have contacted Customer Service several times and followed up with reminders, but my case has been ignored. In my experience, this is not an honest way to treat long-time members who already paid. I would not trust this platform with money.

Not safe for solo women. First and definitely last time using this app. If you are attractive, I would strongly suggest to steer off couch surfing with men, even with positive reviews of other female travelers. In my case, I decided to meet the host for dinner but he turned out to be quite touchy, and at the end of the night he tried to make me feel guilty for not spending the night and "cuddle", as I had decided to stay somewhere else that week. Nevertheless, I cancelled my stay with him that was supposed to be for the tail end of my trip. If you've decided to stay in someone's house and have no back-up accommodation, you are vulnerable to manipulation. Just like dating, someone's glowing review and experiences will be wildly different from yours. Do not allow anyone (or host) to guilt trip you and suss them out as much as possible BEFORE attempting to stay at their place. Stay safe out there girlies

Couchsurfing completely revamped their website and app and it has become absolutely unusable. Navigation takes forever and is super confusing, UI is from the MySpace era and hideous. We hosted more than 300 people but are now no longer able to deal with this incredible mess. Shame on the developers who came up with this idiocy.

Signed up years ago. Forgot all about it until they emailed me to try and get me to pay them for the joy of a service I haven’t logged into in probably close to 15 years. Wanted to delete my account. I don’t want it anymore even if it was free… I’m CERTAINLY not paying for it. Took 15 minutes of them asking me for detailed personal info to “update my account because they have updated their services” before there was an option to delete my account, taking me all the way to the “choose which type of payment membership you want” before the option appeared. Making it that difficult to delete your account highlights a scammy company. Glad I no longer have anything to do with it.

13 year member, they closed my account in 2025, kept Lifetime Verification fee from 2014 Member since 2012, account 5549819, lifetime verified for 10 years. Account closed in 2025 after a false report (stealing a pillow?!). They refunded annual membership but refused to refund my $60 Lifetime Verification from 2014, citing a Terms clause added in 2020. You cannot sell a lifetime product, keep the money for 10 years, terminate the account yourself, and keep the fee. I have filed a BBB complaint.