I just had one such removed myself.
The review removed was from a family friend I wanted to get into using Airbnb. So I signed her up and removed my costs yet still ensuring that she paid the Airbnb fee.
I could easily have just blocked my calendar, as I have for her in the past, and let her stay the night.
Doing this encouraged her to try out Airbnb - she loves, LOVES, staying at The Crown, and I really would like to see her stay at other Airbnb’s.
Anyways, lesson learned. Don’t sign up any family or friends to Airbnb - just block the calendar.
What concerns me most about your situation though @Margo12, is that you’re being pinged for being charitable.
I allow my place to be placed into raffle draws or as an auctioned prize for not-for-profit rescues four times per year - we’ve factored in that this is the most we can afford.
When someone has won the weekend away, I’m notified by the rescue the winners details.
Part of the win is that the people who win it must signup with Airbnb. It is explained to them in advance that they will be required to signup and a small fee will be required to be paid by them for the cottage and they get to choose which weekend away they have from the available dates on my Airbnb calendar.
It goes down very well, the rescues raise a lot of money from it, and the cottage is usually the biggest donation they have and becomes a draw card for that rescues fund-raiser.
- Airbnb obtains new guests.
- Airbnb gets free advertising (as do I) at the rescues event.
- It’s a win-win situation for Airbnb, the rescue and myself as host.
- we often end up with more repeating guests from this.
- ‘We also obtain new guests that didn’t win - they wanted to stay so badly, that they look it up, join and book.
Suffice to say, I don’t understand why, when Airbnb are so inclusive, that they don’t have a ‘donation’ button in the area where we change the costs.
It could include an explanation for the donation, allowing anyone from Airbnb to check it out further if required.
A simple solution to my mind.
Loving the Airbnb community and it’s diversity❣️