Building and Improving the Superhost Program

[Airbnb]

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.

[Nannette8]

I find the key access to be a problem when people book for 3rd parties.  I live near a large university  where the majority of the students are from overseas.  They book for their relatives and then want to check in before the actual guest arrives.  I am becoming  very firm that the reservation needs to be made for the number of people who have access to the key.  For example, the student registers for 2 people but the student is in and out with the parents or coming over to pick things up when the parents are not in the house.  I now make them change the reservation to 3 people and state the names in an email to me for insurance purposes, both my own and Airbnb's liability policy.  

We all need to be flexable with our guest  AND protect our  business at the same time.

[Catherine969]

reservations for third parties are against Airbnb policies

[Sally209]

@Catherine969  I agree and I have asked previous guests to cancel their bookings when it has become apparent that they are booking on behalf of someone else. They have always done this straight away when I explain that it is policy and never had a problem with guests or Airbnb about this

[Catherine969]

there are some good policies on Airbnb which we sometimes are not aware of.  Things get very complicated when a person books for others.

[Arline3]

Possible. I get people with accounts booking for others quite regularly. You now have more than one person to manage which defeats the Airbnb purpose because it begins to feel like more than one tenant instead of a guest. I am blessed that only one went awry.

[Jill88]

Yes, it's also impossible to review the guest if the reservation is made in the name of another person. 

[Easy1]

You are correct Hugh!!!

[Ginza0]

Yes. Tackling retaliatory reviews is very important. Some travellers are so bad they're not fit to stay in someone else's house. Civic sense is zero. It doesn't make sense to keep pleasing these travellers in order to avert a negative review and it's also important they're shown a mirror reflection of their character by stating the facts in host review of them.

[Stacey23]

In my experience even if you try to please people like that they'll still give the bad review even if given unmerited partial refund. I had a guy who wanted a full refund because he saw a spider in the house. His review ruined my review rating for a year. 

[Rebecca65]

I feel air bnb needs to have a better review policy.  I was called a racist in a recent review, from guests I had to evict.  Air bnb found nothing wrong with it. Absolutely unacceptable 

[Hope11]

I just got marked down on cleanliness because a little beetle was in their room.  Me who bleached the bathroom twice a day.  I have to say now that I went full out theme AirBnB every thing is sooooo much better.  Seriously I wonder if specialized Air BnBs is the way to go.  I have an unfair advantage being in Salem the witch city though

[Scott398]

Marking down on 'cleanliness' because you found a bug, of any sort, dead or alive, in house is very typical of 'modern' travellers who live ordinarily in cities and sterile A/C'd environments where they spray Baygon in every corner.

We live on this planet WITH other living creatures! They are not dirt. Should we start killing the bees, butterflies and moths too lest they enter once in a blue moon?

[Colette18]

My listing is in Costa Rica. If guests complain about bugs...they are not meant to stay nor even visit a country that values its wilderness and flora and fauna. Indeed I agree that a bug is not dirty it's a living guest!  Please educate our guests on this issue. 

[Juan340]

😞

[Jen-and-Garrett0]

No worries. When people see all the other reviews it's obvious that guy is a tool. When there's only him complaining. It's all bs.