Building and Improving the Superhost Program

Airbnb
Official Account

Building and Improving the Superhost Program

Superhost Criteria.jpg

 

As our global host community grows and becomes increasingly diverse, Airbnb’s programmes and policies need to grow and adapt as well – both to ensure the success of people from all over the world, and to show our appreciation for hosts’ hard work and amazing hospitality. That’s why we’re updating the Superhost programme to make it more fair, inclusive, and valuable to hosts everywhere.

 

 

Review rates

Great reviews are essential to earning Superhost status. They also help create a community where trust and transparency is shared between guests and hosts. But, hosts can’t control whether or not their guests choose to leave a review. After examining global data and speaking with Superhosts in a number of countries, we discovered that review rates aren’t consistent worldwide – some travellers always leave reviews, while others rarely do. This discrepancy can put some hosts at a disadvantage when it comes to consideration for Superhost status. In order to make the evaluation process more fair for everyone in our global community, we’ll no longer require that hosts have at least a 50% review rate in order to become Superhosts (or retain their existing status).

 

 

Cancellation policy

As part of our effort to make sure Airbnb programmes are built to meet the needs of all hosts, we’re also updating our cancellation requirement. Previously, we required that Superhosts have zero cancellations, but for hosts with an extremely high volume of bookings across multiple listings, that standard is impractical. To make the programme more fair for high-volume hosts, we’re now allowing one cancellation per 100 trips booked over the past year, which means a cancellation rate of less than 1% across all of your listings. It’s important to note that we still take cancellation as seriously as ever. Over the past five years, the Superhost community has worked hard to earn the trust of their guests and we will continue to reward that trust by recognising the most reliable hosts with Superhost status.

 

Both the changes to our cancellation and review requirements will take effect on the 1 July quarterly Superhost assessment. We’ll also be updating hosting dashboards at this time to reflect this new criteria.

 

 

Stay tuned 

We’re committed to continually improving the Superhost programme so that it works for the entire host community. That includes using clear, fair qualification criteria and making it valuable for every Superhost. From the overall design of the programme to how it rewards the community, we’re looking at different ways to not only make your hosting experience more positive, but also help you be more successful. So, please stay tuned, there’s a lot of exciting news to come.

674 Replies 674

What do you mean?

 

My Guest never turned up and wrote a bunch of lies.

Ouch!   

My experience has been that, a cancelled guest had been unable to review it.  I can see both sides depending on why they cancelled.  Like yours, I didn't think that my potential guest was being reasonable or truthful.

@Kaz21  What gave you that erroneous idea? Guests who cancel day-of check-in are allowed to leave a review, whether they ever stepped foot on the property or not. It's insane, but true.

Sarah977,  

Let's go easy on one another. Our different experiences are the evidence of inconsistency in the the system. While the software is, USUALLY,  consistent, the staff have varying degrees of experience with all the details and one can call back and get a different CS rep., thus a different answer.  

It’s not fair most people love my place it just takes one bad review to downgrade you from super host 

yikes...

Or when you have a guest registered for 1 that shows up with 4 people smoking pot in your apartment and disturbing other guest having a party and you have to kick them out and try to get help from Airbnb only to get a bad review that you can't respond too... then you lose your super host status, by trying to protect your good paying guests. Oh yeah, and it's a for work listing too..." Very disappointed with Airbnb customer support when we contacted then with help with our revenge review. And we refunding a night just as Airbnb support said to do.

U must state a very high "extra Guest fee" in Ur House Rules; cause AirBnb will pay up when the Guest refuses !!!

Really? Airbnb told me they, "can't enforce your house rules," when I tried to charge a key fee to a guest. I wonder if this is new policy?


@Stacey23 wrote:

Really? Airbnb told me they, "can't enforce your house rules," when I tried to charge a key fee to a guest. I wonder if this is new policy?


yeah, I had that too. I had an issue and was told the same thing. What’s the point of having house rules if no way to get support to enforce them.  I suggested to them that guests lose their security deposit if they break house rules but airbnb told me they couldn't do that. 

So what the **bleep** is the deposit for then?

There is no "deposit". The guest is never charged the money and it's never held. 
So what's it for? Who knows?

Don't be shy about escalating to a higher level, (supervisor) they are growing very fast, and may have less experienced folks in first line customer service...

 

My personal experience is to escalate issues if you are not getting satisfaction right away. 

The team does seem quite responsive to my needs, but it's crucial to get those out in the very first conversation. 

If you find lack of response, get another person on it... 

this really helps. 

When push comes to shove, they have ALWAYS supported my decisions and been there for me. 

Just my own 2 cents. 

 

They can't enforce your rules, but they will collect any penalty fees you include as part of your house rules, provided you can give Airbnb documentation of rule-breaking. For instance, I have a hefty penalty fee listed in my house rules that applies to any violation. Had one group of guests break a rule regarding overnight guests who are not part of the reservation. Since we have security cameras, we were able to send Airbnb copies of the video files showing their unauthorized guest arriving and leaving. They collected the fee for me, and it was in my PayPal account in 72 hours.

 

Be certain to make your fee high and list it in your house rules. Airbnb will back you up.

thank you for this!