Airbnb 2022 Summer Release: What you need to know

[Airbnb]

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?

[Louise1097]

We are going for VRBO and Booking as a minimum. 

[Lisa34]

The categories should have been fully populated before roll out!

[Peggy137]

The bugs should've been taken care of before rollout. 

[Louise1097]

VRBO are offering a Fast Start signup if you are already on another OTA. They will call you back next business day. 

[Louise1097]

Looks like they've set up a team to deal specifically with the Air fall-out. 

[Peggy137]

Trouble is everyone goes to Airbnb to find a place. If there was a way to make it known that this is going on maybe we could drive traffic to Vrbo. 

Anyone have connections with major news outlets?

The only bookings I've gotten this summer is from Vrbo but there are still very few. 

[Katherine815]

I am beachfront but not showing up in that category. My second inquiry resulted in support confirming I’m not there (the first time they made me “turn it off and back on again and wait 48 hours”…that was May 20) and then five days of silence while they looked into it. Today I was contacted by someone who wanted to confirm I was beachfront (and not lying?) and asked for my long/lat coordinates. I supplied them and below was their end response. Makes perfect sense, right? To get into the right category I need more bookings. To get more bookings I need to be in the right category. Catch-22 and a machine is now deciding my future. 

Airbnb Support7:59 PM

Hi Katherine,

As this feature of all homes is recently added and your listing is showing as new on airbnb website, so in this case we need to wait.
Once you get a few more bookings it will be seen under the beach or beachfront.

We cannot make any changes as we don't have any option for this, it will be automatically done by the system.

[Jeremy785]

@Katherine815 -I think the "support" staff is just making things up. My current guy is telling me the exact opposite of the "ambassador" before him. And both of those are completely different than what you were told.  The only thing thy all have in common is that they have no power to do ANYTHING to help. 

[Janet201]

For the life of me (or I should say the livelihood of me, because you're taking it from me and my family), I can't understand how taking away our personalized and informative titles, taking away how many bedrooms and bathrooms, and taking away how many reviews superhosts have can help anyone. 

I've had precisely 2 bookings on 9 properties since your "big rollout." 

As a potential guest, I don't want to look at lots of pictures of "condo in some neighborhood" with 3 beds only to fond out their all in the same room. Let us have our originality back!!!

[Janet201]

I have 5 condos in the same building. Using this new system, 2 say they are "condo in Old Town." This is where they are located, and this is a highly desirable tourist area (and why i bought these condos.) The other three say "condo in Arcadia," which is a small neighborhood in another city!

Airbnb has told me repeatedly they are correct. They are all in the same building!  Since Airbnb couldn't/wouldn't help me, they just closed my work order.

[Jeremy785]

@Janet201-  contact them again and demand that they keep your order open until you are satisfied. Unfortunately, they still won't do anything for you- other than offer hollow apologies. But at least it will keep them declaring your problem solved and patting themselves on the back. Maybe if enough issues remain "unresolved" it will finally get someone's attention. Maybe it will throw off their metrics and throw up a flag somewhere. 

My first three contacts with support, regarding the update, had them abruptly close the case after they told me there was no issue. After that I immediately started another report and told them to not close the case until I was satisfied that they resolved the issue. Even so, they've attempted to close it twice and I had to tell them sternly that the issue was NOT resolved. The current case has been open since May 11 and I've had at least a half dozen support ambassadors in that time. All of their "service" has been atrocious, but I'm hoping that if I stay at it long enough it will come up on someone's radar . 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

I don't understand why all these 50+ categories have to be listed? Who will scroll through all of them on the phone? I was curious to see what categories are offered and gave up somewhere in the middle. I am not gen Z or Millennial, they will give up much earlier. (No offense but they are not patient)

Hosts could get an option to choose and tag the #category and a simple search box would do the trick.

[Louise1097]

Just how many people are looking for a grand piano? Now in primary navigation.

Just how many folks should we be sending to the Arctic? (now in primary navigation) for reasons of sustainability? 

[Helen609]

I have now had 3 views of my property in the last 30 days. Down from 400 before the changes.

The arrogance of their response, or lack of, tells me they don't care one iota.

[Tony-And-Una0]

And City Centre apartments don't even have a category.