Improvements to guest reviews, house rules, cancellations & more in the latest Host Update

[Airbnb]

*Post shared October, 20th

In the latest Host Update, Catherine Powell shares how Airbnb is addressing your top concerns from the past few months and provides detailed answers to several direct questions from hosts. Thanks to host feedback voiced in workshops and here in the Community Center, there are several features being put into action. 

*To add or change subtitles to the video, hover over the video and click on the little 'Settings' wheel in the bottom right corner. Then select your language. 

Airbnb is improving the guest review process to make it feel more fair. This includes rewriting the majority of review questions that guests answer after a stay. For example, instead of asking guests if the description of a listing was inaccurate, we’re now asking if it was accurate instead. These changes will help guests leave reviews that feel more impartial and truly reflect the quality of your hospitality. 

Unauthorized parties are another top host concern, and we’re launching several new features to help protect you against them. For example, by the end of this month you’ll be able to immediately cancel a reservation without contacting support if you have valid reason to believe it will lead to a party. As long as your reason is upheld by our review team, you won’t receive financial penalties or have your Superhost status affected. 

When our team reviews a cancellation, they’ll search for evidence of a potential party from message threads or previous guest reviews. As always, these cancellations must adhere to Airbnb’s nondiscrimination policy and we’ll carefully monitor them for unfair treatment that violates that policy.

Many hosts have also asked that house rules be more prominent on listing pages so guests can both read and understand them before booking. By next month, your house rules will be visible in four different places when a guest books a stay:

1. Key house rules—like not allowing smoking or pets—will be visible at the top of your listing page so that they’re more prominent as guests search
2. All the house rules you’ve listed, including important safety disclosures, will be visible in the details of your listing page
3. House rules will be displayed again on the booking confirmation page to help better ensure that guests understand and agree to them before completing a reservation
4. They’ll also be included in the booking confirmation email to remind guests of your expectations before they arrive
   
   

All house rules must be in line with Airbnb’s policies and terms—including our terms of service and nondiscrimination policy.

To read a full overview of all the updates being put into place, visit this Resource Center article. As always, thank you for sharing the topics that matter to you and providing feedback that helps elevate the hosting community. Please let us know what you’d like us to cover in future Host Updates with Catherine.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Don-and-Sandy0 

If you reviewed them and they didn't review you. then your review will be visible after 14 days.

You have 14 days after check-out to review them

[Steve245]

We still can't see the number of times a guest has cancelled reservations.  If guests knew that hosts could see their cancellations they might take their bookings more seriously.

[Shannon417]

@Catherine-Powell thank you for your commitment to listen and make changes where possible. I have two requests.

First, with pets. We accept pets with a fee. Often guests are surprised by the fee even though it is in our House Rules. I'm hopeful this is one of the areas being looked at for highlighting.

Second, the platform does not easily support us working with our guests who are requesting return visits. Once their recent reservation is complete the Special Offer tool in activates. SUGGESTION add a button to completed reservation. The new button, Future Booking Offer would act just like the Special Offer button currently works with the one difference...it will allow us to offer future dates for our guests.

The current system requires both Hosts & Guests to jump through communication hoops to book future dates & stays for guests.

This feature is extremely important for guests who return regularly for special events in our area.

Thank You again for listening,

Shannon Keating

Super Host

[Evelyn192]

Making the house rules more prominent will hopefully avoid unnecessary phone calls from guests. Even though we have a list with information and requests on the refrigerator, we still get calls asking what to do with the trash, where to put the keys when they leave, what is the WiFi password, etc. We will look forward to more solutions. Thank you Airbnb!

[Pat114]

It is the age of Click and Agree - even when you never read what you are agreeing to.

[Paola1480]

This is great news I have one suggestion, there is not an option to allow smoking on the balcony or terrace and there should be because I want to make my property available to everyone including smokers also  so long as they only smoke in the designated area outside on the balcony.  I saying no smoking is allowed when I do permit smoking outside on the balcony  eliminates  my property from anyone who smokes and sees that highlighted on my property, obviously I don’t want smoking inside my house there should be a drop-down option for smoking in designated area such as a balcony or backyard 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Paola1480  in this case you allow smoking but just add " smoking is allowed on the balcony only"

[Jerry160]

I can not block the day that the guests start their stay and so another guests can book their stay all the way till the first day of the next guests.

That don't leave the property empty for one day due Covid-19

[Jerry160]

Have Airbnb make the first day of guests stay blocked to other guests

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Jerry160  yes you can, use "rule sets"

[Nico-And-Kiersten0]

I may be missing it here but will Airbnb be changing how we see potential guests i.e. will we go back to seeing guests full names prior to booking? @Catherine-Powell

We had a guest request to book and only saw his first name, and allowed him to book. There were a number of indications that he wasn't going to be a great guest. We looked him up online and found that he was being investigated for murder, was a known drug dealer, gang member, and sex trafficker. We of course cancelled, though it would have been nice to have had his full name prior to booking as we would not have allowed him to book and after booking he was given the house manual and my phone number. 

We looked him up after the dates he requested with us and it turns out he and his crew trashed another local Airbnb. 

Thank you for hearing me out. 

Best, Kiersten

[Nancy1422]

I want to see pictures of our guests...we live on the edge of a forest and if someone were to post a picture of themselves with a semi machine gun or   gun clip; I don't want them in my cabin; the same goes for flashing gang signs.  I just don't feel comfortable not being able to see what someone looks like when they are going to be staying in my cabin. 

[Susan468]

Helpful post.  I am wondering why Guests are not being asked to provide contact details for each guest with them as a COVID protocol. The cleaning standards are excellent but contract tracing would add another level of comfort.  

[Leanne201]

@Catherine-Powell

i have always used the alias email to send guests a short term rental contract.  That option has been removed.  I read that it is to be replaced with the ability to send a pdf through the messaging system. But that has not been implemented.  Do you know when we will be able to send PDFs?  I also agree that there should be a damage deposit collected set by the Host and it should include extra cleaning fees.  It doesn’t happen often but when you have to spent an extra 6 hours cleaning it isn’t fair that the guest is not penalized.  Also, as other hosts might do, I’ve purchased extras of many items in case of breakage- so that I don’t have to rush out to buy something when I have a tight turnover.  But you can’t then claim damage because you don’t have a properly dated receipt. 🤦‍♀️  A note to other Hosts:  please be truthful about guest behavior.  The extra 6 hour clean was for a guest with 3 - 5 star reviews.  All of my worst guests had excellent reviews. I agree with a Host view only type review if retaliation is a factor.  I think there would be more honesty.  I’m now suspect of some guests even with good reviews.

[Paul1875]

@ Catherine Powell  This is pretty much, far too little as well as being too late, although I appreciate you at least trying. 

However I am not sure if this is in anyway enough, because we hosts are still unable to protect ourselves, and far more importantly get little if any support from airbnb, who seem to always fall on the side of the guest.  I have even been basically told, if you don't like it feel free to leave.  

The comments in this thread  typify just how many hosts feel let down by Airbnb.

Sadly in the last 8 months, since COVID 19 we have seen some of the less pleasant characters renting our homes, for a variety of reasons.

As hosts we are in reality unable to check the guests, the verification process is easily circumvented with false IDs and  in my experience there is constant subletting, (and yes I have shown this to Airbnb, sadly to no avail).  Yet Airbnb are still letting this happen. 

When I have tried measures, such as getting the guests e  mail to send the arrivals info and trying to verify that mail with Airbnb. The response from you is inconsistent varying  between  " oh no we do not do that, it is against our policy". to "The guests e mail is..." .

This attitude has caused a great many problems for many hosts and in my case costing me and you a lot of money and problems.  The usual reply is an asinine copy paste reply, basically saying,  "I am sure you will understand, but it is airbnb policy not to......"   

I see a number of hosts have gone through the same thing I have with regards to revenge reviews.  As well as experiencing this personally and talking to other hosts it appears that these are often posted within minutes of the guest leaving, as some sort of pre emptive attack. 

For this reason I do not look at or write a review until the house has been checked, and the all clear given. 

In the last 10 months when I have experienced a problem, thankfully in only 10% to 15% of my guests, ( up from about 1% a year ago) there has been the same pattern every time.     

Problems regarding check in, they never seem to have the door codes, despite being sent an extensive arrivals pack. If it is not that, it is something else, like not having the address, all of which are in my arrivals letter, which they never seem to have got.

The guest checks the house at my request for any issues that may need attending to, they then highlight a set of imaginary issues such as not enough towels, because their party is so big and they did not check the laundry room for the extras. 

Then something strange always seem to happen, during the stay.   Subsequently  a review almost immediately on checking out. 

On inspection,  the house has been left in a disgusting state, usually damaged, and a number of house rule broken and when I finally sort out the security deposit claim, I am met with a refusal, denial then threats. 

The guest then tries a counter complaint, which involves Airbnb, my so called partner then sending me one of its template responses with veiled threats and limiting my account.  I then have to spend hours putting together a response.

When I finally do write a neutral review, and check the guests review, guess what, a revenge review or lower grading.

May I respectfully suggest that you, Airbnb

1) Overhaul your policy to one of more equanimity and less of  being in favour of the guest,  believe me you are not doing this, we hosts have to jump through hoops to get any satisfaction.

2) Change the way the grading is weighted, and judged, so it cannot so easily affect superhost status.  I lost mine on account of one bad review.   This is a good example of how things are weighted in favour of the guest.  

3) Be more open to remove bad reviews, currently you will not remove them, even when we prove things are not true.

4) Work with us your partners far more closely, it is our properties that are keeping you employed, and support us properly. 

5) Make the contact process easier, more transparent, and stop with these silly copy paste e mails.  Some of them are so badly done it is laughable.

6) Find a way that we can work together to verify guests, this system is not good enough.

7) Seriously address the problem with sub letting, you may think you are doing something, but you are not,  I am 98% certain my house has been sublet at least 5 times in the last year and in each case, problems have occurred, once costing you thousands of dollars.

I appreciate some of the efforts you are making to minimize the problems, but things need to be much more deeply addressed regarding how hosts are treated.