Airbnb 2022 Summer Release: What you need to know

Airbnb
Official Account

Airbnb 2022 Summer Release: What you need to know

Our 2022 Summer Release represents the biggest change to Airbnb in a decade. We’re introducing:

 

  • Airbnb Categories: A new way to search that makes it easy for guests to discover millions of homes they never knew existed

  • Split Stays: An innovative feature that pairs two listings when a guest searches for a longer stay

  • AirCover: The most comprehensive protection in travel, included for free with every stay

 

Get all the details on the Resource Center, and tell us: Will you be updating your listing for Airbnb Categories and Split Stays? How will you update it?

1,048 Replies 1,048

Hi Rhonda and air BNB if they look at these questions ? 

 

We are a small listing but In the 3 years we have been hosting we have never not had a booking in the week ahead , we searched the airbed site for listings in Hobart Tasmania and it brought up all the listings including ours, with weekly pricing (and Discounts ) this is not how people look up stays for 1, 2 3 nights and I firmly believe that this is why we are not getting bookings and they are going to hotels instead. This needs to be fixed !!!

Mark4150
Level 4
Chapel Hill, NC

So our central UNC and Chapel Hill unit isn't popping up with search results but Durham, Cary, and Morrisville units are? So ABB is essentially influencing customer choices and deciding for them while reducing the host leverage, bookings, and general influence? Doesn't everyone see that the endgame is to eliminate hosts from the equation entirely? Time to switch platforms or perhaps build a host-centric platform. 

@Airbnb @Mark4150 @Jennifer2672 @Nancy1633 @Emilie 

 

Hello Mark4150,

 

The 'end game' is for you to be an obedient superslave to the greedy corporate 'Airbnb'.

 

Do not despair, it is all for the good of the Airbnb 'community'!

 

The shareholders of this cynical company will benefit from you working for them and essentially lowering your price and reducing a good few years of your life as a result of the stress involved in striving to protect your superslave badge despite that the 'category' scheme automatically acts as headwind in the best case or more akin to a marathon runner with stones in his/her shoes.

 

By the time you are fed up with Airbnb you will calculate the financial benefit you got from working with them.

 

If you were able and lucky to maintain the superslave badge you will probably have increased your earning from your property by a whopping 1.7% per annum over what you would have made had you just rented it long term or rented it to a vacation rental firm.

 

Airbnb is now run by AI robots with little influence of humans.

 

The goal is to reduce to the bare possible minimum the impact of humans because human employees need cash to spend on food, clothing, heating, and such trivialities and this usually comes at the expense of more noble endevours such as superyachts, luxury cars, offshore bank accounts and designer jewellery shareholders are accustomed to.

 

Rest assured however that your grievances and suggestions are highly valuable to 'Airbnb' and that they will no doubt act upon them sometime in the future (yeah right!).

Andrew1435
Level 2
England, United Kingdom

I've realised it's even worse than I thought! If you search for properties in an area without entering dates, you end up being shown  a map with prices per night for the properties. Can anyone tell me why when I then click on the icon of the property in the map, for some properties, the price is for a week in the peak summer season and other properties, it's the price in the middle of winter. My own 2 properties having the same price are shown as having different prices as they've chosen different weeks. How is this in any way helpful?

And for that matter, if I choose dates, it then suggests I might like to split my week's stay into 2 trips with 3 days in one of my cottages and 4 days in the adjoining one (they share the same garden!) Who on earth is going to want to do this????

Gillian166
Level 10
Hay Valley, Australia

Is there a category for “good value”? Realising cheeky wouldn’t have thought of this but the “budget friendly” niche must be popular. 

Rhonda45
Level 6
Eminence, MO

Why are there 7 day future dates below every listing now?  It makes the listings look like that is the only dates available.  My bookings have already dropped because of this useless addition.  Why is AIRBnB making these useless dates a part of every listing?  I rarely get a 7 day or more booking but if I do, I give the discount.  Many hosts don’t even realize that the reduced price is showing up on their listing so there will be angry guests if they do not get the reduced rate showing.  It’s bait and switch and illegal in some states.  

Yes, I just discovered this on my own listing. 98% of my guests are 1-2 night stays. I *might* get a week long stay once per year.  

I think I will just eliminate the weekly discount and add language to my listing for folks to contact me before booking if they wish to book for a week or more.


Everything about this rollout is very poorly thought out.

@Stephanie365 @Airbnb @Erez162 @Hannah993 @Suzanne302 

 

I am still waiting for payment of thousands of dollars to reach me for a 28 night stay in my villa that was completed successfully in March 2022.

 

With 15 tickets opened and a total of twenty (20) 'Community support team' individuals speaking to me on the phone and/or messaging me in April and May with zero results so far I am frankly amused that hosts think their input and suggestions on this forum will make any difference.

 

Is the frustration of being put at a disadvantage vis-a-vis other listings and hosts and the anxiety worth the 1.7% POSSIBLE extra annual income from a typical property listed on Airbnb?

 

The average 1.7% in extra income as compared to renting long term or exclusively on other sites is of course only if the host is lucky enough to maintain the superslave badge and also doesn't get free riders and complainers or nightmare guests that cause damages or leave the property to demand full reimbursement etc.

 

 

The irony is the same house owners that chase the 1.7% on average extra income they hope to gain from superslaving for Brian Chesky and shareholders often spend a large chunk of their income on totally useless gadgets they don't need and never use.

 

I say time to move on.

Airbnb also put in a discount for 3 months over the summer that I never approved of on my new listing.   I only learned this after talking to a great gal at Airbnb who was an ex Apple Tech.  

Hosts, go into your settings and look at everything carefully!  Our bookings are in the summer as we are a river floating town.  Airbnb did this to my new rental after I had set my discounts to 0.  They did this without my permission and I had already booked 6 guests.  I agreed to the first 3 bookings as a discount for a new booking but not 3 months!  The tech told me this is part of the summer rollout!  

A lot of the area Airbnb bookings are down here but many of us thought it was due to high gas prices.  I’m getting bookings but not like before.  I think it’s more Airbnb than high gas prices. 

@Rhonda45 

 

Still ZERO new bookings since Airbnb hijacked Host control over bookings...

 

Here's an imperfect workaround to the arbitrary future dates and artificially low nightly fees:

 

(1) In settings, change discount to 0%

 

(2) Change advanced booking parameter- I changed mine to 3 months. 

 

Since doing this, my "normal" nightly fee is displayed, and the weeks being offered are more appropriate. Until Airbnb addresses their mess, all I can do. 

Emilie
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

@Rhonda45 Would you be able tell me a bit more about this 7 day display and reduced price please? I'm not sure I see what you're referring to, but I'd happily pass on your feedback on to the team once I get more details! 

 

Thanks, 

 

Emilie

-----

 

Merci de jeter un oeil aux Principes du Community Center/ Please follow the Community Guidelines

@Emilie 

When you first log on to AirBNB's website, you are greeted by a bunch of listings with crazy dates all over the calendar. Note the search box at the top automatically defaults to a week long stay ... "Any Week"  instead of allowing the guest to enter their own length of stay.

Every property shown has a week long period on the listing which implies the listing requires a minimum of a week long stay and the arbitrary dates shown for each listing imply this is the soonest this property is available, which is misleading to guests and detrimental to us hosts.  

If the host offers a discount for a stay that is a week or longer, the per night price on the selection page reflects the discounted nightly price one might receive if they booked for a full week.  Please note the price on the listing I've highlighted in red.  It shows the price is $342 per night.

Stephanie365_1-1653109224488.png

 

But if you click on the listing and adjust your stay to only 4 days, the nightly price jumps up because you lose the weekly discount.  This could be seen as bait and switch which is not legal in the US.

In this case for the listing I've highlighted, when you only stay for 4 nights the price jumps to $396.00 per night. A $64 per night increase which is not insignificant.

Stephanie365_2-1653109363858.png


To more accurately reflect what a guest will pay, the home page with the listing selection should show the standard nightly rate without discounts. That way when the guest books for a week, they are pleasantly surprised by a lower price instead of angered by a higher one if they want to stay for less than a week.

I know when I discovered my listing advertised at a lower price than my minimum, I was not happy. It was pointed out that the price reflects my weekly discount.  I don't want customers marking me down on value because AirBNB pushed the weekly price. My solution was to eliminate all length of stay discounts so my place is not misrepresented to guests.


The other HUGE issue I have with this "any week" format that misleads guests into believing you have to book a week long stay is, my property is simply not a property where people will stay for more than a weekend. 95% of my stays are 2 nights or less. If they think they can only book with me for a week and don't bother to take the time to go to my listing and change the dates the DumbBots have assigned to my listing, I'm going to lose a lot of bookings because they will think my place isn't available for the weekend they're searching for.  AirBNB has made the search process more difficult, not easier.

Finally, AirBNB is really pushing hosts to find alternate platforms because your Bots are too controlling. You don't let us choose our categories. You arbitrarily assign available dates to our listing, you assign arbitrary lengths of stays to our listing calendars and you mislead guests with discounted pricing. 




 

 

6C05BF3A-E0FC-4D8A-9E8C-CC2D4A529769.jpeg

Hannah993
Level 1
Wenham, MA

Have to say as a person searching for places to stay I do not like this layout at all. Too many graphics on the screen and I miss the simple list view. Bummed.

Couldn't agree with you more.

 

I ended up booking my trip to Paris on another platform.  On there I could easily search the distance from where I wanted to stay at a price I liked.

 

Wasn't interested in a tree house or yurt in the centre of Paris, thanks very much.