A new system to hold guests accountable

[Sybe]

When you welcome guests to stay in your space, it’s essential that they respect your home, follow your house rules, communicate promptly if issues arise, and avoid creating a mess. So, we’re introducing ground rules for guests – a new set of enforceable standards that all guests must follow.

If a guest breaks ground rules, they get a warning the first time. If the issues persist, they'll be suspended and, if necessary, permanently removed from Airbnb.

You’ll still be able to write any additional house rules for guests to follow. And if a guest violates any of your house rules, we’ll support you if you need to cancel the reservation early. 

Read more about it on the Resource Center.

[Gillian166]

@CryptoCasa0  Did you think there was something new? the "ground rules" is just a new term for the House Rules you already have. I don't believe there is a new dedicated button for guests stating they promise they have read the rules and will agree, there is something like that when you sign up. 

As every host as different house rules it would seem vital that a guest sees the page of house rules and agrees at the bottom. I have an easter egg in my house rules and generally <50% of guests read it, and lately it's been 0% of guests responding with my requested phrase. 

[Ari46834]

100% agree with this opinion. This new update does little more than pay lip service. There needs to be a pop-up that appears right before guests clicks “pay” that has all the hosts house rules. They have to scroll through all of it before confirming—much like Terms of Agreements when signing up for a new service. If an Airbnb moderator is reading this, please suggest to dev team. Thanks.

[Sybe]

Hi @Ari46834 ! As I mentioned in my reply on the other thread (here) guests will be shown your ground rules on the confirmation screen as they book your space, which I think is similar to what you suggest here. 😃

[Gillian166]

@Sybe  do you have a screen shot of that? Would actually be helpful to include it in the listing, to remind them. I already do this actually, so just looking to update it. 

I should be using abb in a few weeks so i'll get to experience it first hand, and I can do a screenshot and probably mock up something with my own house rules in it. 

[Sybe]

@Gillian166 I unfortunately don't. If you want to share what it looks like when you'll be booking your own stay please do feel free to share but as you mentioned make it a mock up for the privacy of your Host, and make sure to have lots of fun on your trip! 😉

[Gillian166]

@Sybe  we are travelling cross country with a puppy and 2 cats and a grumpy teen......... overnighting in a cheap but cheerful home that allows pets, hopefully the shower is strong. I will try to have fun 🤪 

and yes, of course I will remove the important identifying stuff, as I always do, will share if I remember to do the screenshot!

[Bhumika]

Hello @CryptoCasa0 ,

Hope you find these new updates useful. You can set the ground rules for your listing by following this process. You can check out more information about the ground-rules in the following articles :

👉About Update : Ground rules for guests 

👉 How to set helpful house rules 

👉 More Information about Ground Rules

[Brenda424]

I have read all of these replies and have to say I agree with or have experienced nearly all of these issues with guests from one degree to another.  I think part of the problem is that the hosts rely on the reviews of the potential guest to determine whether they will rent to them and time after time I see 5* reviews, yet it's not my experience.  I rarely see a lengthy review and believe the problem is that hosts are very hesitant to post a negative review because Air BnB does not allow the host to see the guest review until they have first posted one themselves.  Feels a bit extorted to me.  I think hosts need to be more honest with their reviews as a starter.  Secondly, if there is an issue, there needs to be the ability to have a phone conversation with an agent at AirBnB in order to clear things up more expeditiously for all.  

Repeatedly, I have guests who do not follow the house rules yet have rarely submitted for damages until this year when one guest obliterated my kitchen.  The additional cleaning and linen expense topped over 700 euros and yet air BnB did not feel i was entitled to reparation despite the fact the guest had agreed to an additional cleaning expense IN WRITING prior to my acceptance of the reservation.  It was, in fact, a condition of the reservation because it was for greater than one week.  When the guest was questioned by AirBnB, they came up with a laundry list of complaints they had not once posed to me.  (silly things like slow wifi - in rural France, btw....imagine that!)  Air BnB offered me 45 euros.  I strongly protested and got a bit more but it took 6 weeks of my determination to get more.  At that point it had become more out of principal than expense for me. 

Air BnB will ask you for an extensive list of documentation - photo's, invoices, etc. (not always easy to negotiate when working with a foreign country) but even then the people who review seem to act as though their review and findings are God-like and not subject to rebuttal or response from the host.  

[Bhumika]

Hello @Brenda424 ,

I read your post and hoped if you know about the current update on how to dispute a review? You can request removal of any retaliatory review now. You’ll be able to flag reviews from guests who:

• Commit a serious policy violation, like damaging your property or overstaying their reservation
• Violate your house rules—for example, by having an unauthorized party or event at your place

You can read more about it in the following threads: 
Updated Review System 
Process to dispute reviews 

Bhumika

Can't find what you're looking for? Click here to start a conversation!

[Bubba-Lee0]

What is AirBNB going to do about the guests who complain about frivolous minutiae to get a discount or a refund?  The guests whose preposterous complaints are clearly for the purpose of intimidating hosts to get discounts and/or refunds of cleaning fees?  

The same guests who know how to strongly imply, "If you don't discount my stay for this, I will annihilate you in my review" without actually saying it to avoid getting busted for extortion? 

Why do we hosts have to keep making absurd rules/disclosures to cover our butts against ridiculous guests and their unrealistic expectations (And then guests STILL complain!). Meanwhile, AirBNB keeps promoting "pristine" and "sparkling clean" and has made it clear that anything less than 5* is a failure and cunning guests are taking advantage.

Some examples of ridiculousness from guests: 
~Guests complaining about cleanliness because there were leaves on the deck outside. They were renting a cabin in the forest.
~Guests complaining about insects in a cabin in the mountains.
~Guests complaining about jelly fish in the ocean ruining their stay.
~Guests complaining 4 days into their stay that there is sand and dust in the Beach house. It couldn't possibly be that the guest tracked in the sand from the beach or generated dust after 4 days of being there. 🙄
~Guests claiming they found ONE single hair on a towel/sheet/what have you and completely losing their minds over it. Hairs are a fact of life. And sometimes they happen. Exactly how should this single hair entitle a guest to a refund?
~Another complaint yesterday on FB: Guest marked the host down for cleanliness because there is a trash can OUTSIDE next to the garage door for guests to dispose of their trash. 
~Guest claimed they  smelled mildew in the washer so they left and want a refund. (No photos, no chance for the host to rectify, just up and left)
~Guest claimed there was no hot water AFTER they checked out. They wanted a full refund. Fortunately in this case the owner had a Smart Water Heater that documented the both the water usage and the temperature so they outed the guest who suddenly didn't want a refund anymore.

More importantly, what is AirBNB going to do about their Customer Service Reps who immediately refund guests for their entire stays based these ridiculous complaints without even discussing it with the host???  Many of us take detailed "Before" photos of our homes to document how clean they are, just to protect ourselves against these ridiculous claims. But if the Reps never reach out to us and allow us to prove the guest is a scamming pile of poop, how is that fair to us hosts??  Especially when the guest makes these false allegation that their stay was *awful* 2 days after they checked out, but they stayed the entire 10 days without a word.... Hmmmm. 

Or the Scammer Guests - The ones who make a fake claim of bedbugs, and provide a blurry photo of a piece of brown lint and claim it's a bed bug?  Or pull a photo off the internet and claim they found it in their bed. This is really cute when they share a photo of a bed bug they found in bed on a white sheet but all of your sheets are dark blue.... This is why I never use plain white sheets; it's really hard to pull a photo of a bed bug off the internet on navy blue damask sheets - but why should I even HAVE to think of these things??

Or a recent favorite off FB! A guest took a small black piece of something (maybe licorice?) and put it in the bed and claimed it was rat poop. They then took the same piece of black something (identical shape and size) and moved it throughout the house and took photos claiming a rat infestation. Amazing how the rat poop was identical shape and size throughout the house. I don't know about you but my poops are never the same shape or size from one to the next.... And strangely, no rat PEE, just poop. 

When is AirBNB going to shut down guests with these unrealistic expectations or documented scammers?

[JoandJoe0]

@Bubba-Lee0  What's that noise I hear? Ah, yes! Crickets! 

In other words, they're not going to do a bloody thing!

@Catherine-Powell  What say you? Care to opine?

[Vanessa1669]

High five, great post and could not agree more. 

[Joseph1753]

 Thought this was absolutely ridiculous to have guest haven’t spend the whole time he booked  and after checking out ,he posted a photo of bedbugs and asking for a full refund . It was a complete Airbnb scammer. Indeed 

[Bubba-Lee0]

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@Sybe wrote:

"If a guest breaks ground rules, they get a warning the first time. If the issues persist, they'll be suspended and, if necessary, permanently removed from Airbnb."

So explain this....

Host allows a guest to book. Guest books and throws a party. The Host, who has done nothing wrong,  reports guest for violating the No Party policy and the HOST gets suspended with no warning.

Meanwhile, here you are saying that if a guest breaks a rule, they get off with a warning and if they repeat their offense only then will they get suspended? 

Why don't hosts receive this same leniency? 

---

[Michael1186]

I seems that the pre-booking message has been removed. I no longer see the option to set a pre-booking message. I first noticed yesterday that new bookings often didn't have any message from the guest. Why was this done?

[Sybe]

Hey @Michael1186 ,

Good news! After reading and sharing all the feedback regarding the pre-booking message, it's been decided that starting today, December 12th, the pre-booking message feature will be returned. You can read more about it here: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-updates/The-Instant-Book-pre-booking-message-feature-is-r...

[Jennifer2672]

I am really disappointed about that change. I've experimented with adding automated messaging that said the same thing. (We'd love to know more about what brings you here, please make sure your reservation is for the correct number of guests so we can properly stock and prepare the house.) So far, I've had one IB reservation with absolutely no communication whatsoever. 

[Gillian166]

@Jennifer2672  and so, it's time to stop giving guests 5* for communication. I have an easter egg in my house rules and lately zero guests have found it. i've been giving 4* as a standard now, and will drop to 3* or 2* if they didn't once use the message box. I used to not be like that, I thought an event-free stay was 5* but lately i've had a string of "bad" reviews (4* shouldn't be bad!) over silly things like: there's no TV (correct, didn't you read?), the weather was cold (correct, we warned you), there's no washing machine (correct, didn't you read?) and then get 3 or 4* for accuracy because something I never offered was missing! 😡

I predict that reviews are going to get worse overall as a result of all these changes. 

[Christopher1112]

Hi Gillian, I have had very few bad guests over 3 yrs now, however, in the instances I did and the review whined about something like that I respond to their review indicating that the house manual and rule set they were obligated to read prior to booking ( platform terms of service) indicated X amenity was not included in my listing. I admonish them accordingly, then I contact the platform and have their review removed for breach of terms of service. I guard my superhost status and I am in a underserviced destination location- so far so good.

[Gillian166]

@Christopher1112  how do you get the review removed? I tried and they keep saying there's nothing wrong with the review. 

[Drayton1]

LOL, I have been Super Host for over 3yrs. I was just demoted to regular host because of 3 an 4 star 🌟 ratings plus some that don't even leave a REVIEW. All nothing but lies 🤥 I even tried to have their reviews removed but Airbnb's RESPONCE to me was THEY ARE ENTITLED TO THERE OPINIONS! I totally GAVE UP NOW! IT'S ALL BS.