In Case You Missed It: Review update, Host Guarantee & more

[Airbnb]

We’re excited to share what we’ve been working on over the past few months, from expanding our efforts to tackle inconsistent reviews (we heard your feedback!) to offering new promotional tools that can help your listing stand out. Read on to learn more.

A review update inspired by your feedback

Late last year, we announced a new tool to help address inconsistent reviews. Here’s how it worked: If a guest gave you a 5-star rating in each category (cleanliness, value, etc.) but 1, 2, or 3 stars overall, they’d get a prompt asking them if they wanted to correct that inconsistency.

We got lots of great feedback from hosts on the new tool, and some of you asked why we set the threshold at 3 stars or less—in other words, why wouldn’t a 4-star overall rating trigger the prompt if the guest gave 5 stars everywhere else? We heard you, and we’ve changed the system so that now, even a 4-star overall rating will trigger a prompt if the guest has given 5 stars in each of the specific categories.

With this update, we’re continuing our work to make reviews more relevant and useful for hosts and guests, and we look forward to sharing more changes later in the year.

New custom promotions to get your listing noticed

We recently rolled out our new custom promotions feature, which lets hosts choose their own date range and discount amount. Hosts who set custom promotions can get access to special perks, including:

• An eye-catching strikethrough price in search pages and on their listing (e.g. $100 $85/night)
• Special callouts on their listing page, and the discount clearly detailed in the price breakdown
• A spot in the emails that go out to guests who browsed their listing

If your dashboard doesn't currently show custom promotions as an option, it may be because you're in a location that isn't supported or because you've had fewer than three bookings in the past year. In the meantime, you can still offer deals to guests by setting a lower price for specific dates, or setting up weekly and monthly discounts.

Host Guarantee will soon cover damage by assistance animals

We know that assistance animals (which include service and emotional support animals) play a crucial role in the lives of many of our guests, and we appreciate your willingness to accommodate them. We also know that there are rare cases where an assistance animal causes damage to a host’s property, so in the coming months, we’ll be expanding our $1,000,000 USD Host Guarantee to cover those incidents. (Keep in mind that the Airbnb Host Guarantee is subject to certain terms, conditions, and exclusions—you can learn more about it here.) We hope this update helps bring peace of mind as you continue to welcome guests with different needs into your spaces.

As always, we’d love to hear your feedback on these changes in the comments below. We’ll continue to work on updates that help make hosting easier and more enjoyable for you, so stay tuned for more to come!

[Larry339]

Custom promotions have been a useful feature that increased my bookings.

[Lizzie]

That's great to hear @Larry339.  Your home looks lovely, I can see why your guests would snap your listing up. I hope you are having a great start to the year. 

Lizzie

[Alison679]

Hi Larry,

My apologies maybe I missed something in the thread - what are custom promotions?

[Michelle2237]

How do the custom promotions work? I do not see it on the dashboard. Thank you!

[Christi34]

Me either, did you ever figure out why? 

[Mark116]

I also like the custom promotion feature.  And its about time that airbnb stepped up to the plate and at least technically agrees to pay for animal damage from animals that they force hosts to take into their properties.

[Susan17]

@Mark116 

The irony is though Mark - genuine service animals are properly trained, exceptionally well-behaved, and would never cause damage, so theoretically,, Airbnb should have zero claims on the Host Guarantee for damage caused by assistance animals, which makes the inclusion of this "improvement" rather perplexing (unless of course, you count all the damage and destruction caused by pets that are passed off as "assistance animals" by wily guests trying to avoid paying pet fees, courtesy of Airbnb's lax policies)

Considering that getting recompensed from the HG for damage caused by two-legged guests is like getting blood from a stone, it's difficult to imagine the situation will be any different with the 4-legged vandals!

[Kim-and-Bob0]

Susan, I agree that service animals are well behaved. However, damages should be treated the same regardless who caused it. Airbnb had been super unfair to host regarding damages. They do not Reimbusment host for their own time for repair or excessive cleaning cost. My house were trashed a couple times with extensive damages. We felt that we were treated unfairly and they had unreasonable time frame to get quotes and working it out with the guests. Too bad that most of our experience had been so positive but some of the damages were so excessive that we are considering stop hosting.

[Tracy595]

I am no longer pet friendly....I do have one paid guest already booked that has one little dog. Keeping my fingers crossed 

[Katie---Sean0]

@Tracy595 – not sure if you're aware but even if you're now "no longer pet-friendly"... you do have to accept service animals, there is absolutely no choice in the matter. Somebody can show up with a service or emotional support animal without even letting you know in advance – and you must accept the situation by law, although Airbnb does advise guests to at least be courteous enough to give you a heads up. We are also "no pets" and had a guest book 5 months in advance, however they only gave us 2 days notice about their service dog. In the end the booking went well, the dog was no trouble, and they are returning again this year, however before they arrived it was off-putting and stressful... wish folks could be more straightforward.

[Bree30]

Emotional support animals, comfort animals, and therapy dogs are not service animals under Title II and Title III of the ADA. Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not considered service animals either. A doctor's letter does not turn an animal into a service animal. Even though some states have laws defining therapy animals, these animals are not limited to working with people with disabilities and therefore are not covered by federal laws protecting the use of service animals. According to the website you are allowed to ask for documentation for emotional support animals.

If this is the case we should be allowed to do the same as host when guests are staying in our home.

[Frank-and-Moonyean0]

As a host that has a "no pet" policy even service animals due to my space is part of my primary residence and I have severe allergies so in order for the law to work both ways it needs to be fair to those of us who don't allow pets not because we hate animals but because we can't be around them or risk our own health.

[Claire565]

I allow guests with well behaved dogs, although I ask people to ask me first. I have had no trouble from guests with a dog. In fact, I find they are always nice people and I have increased my bookings as most hosts in my area won't allow dogs. 

[Carmen1477]

This is ridiculous and another example of the unfair AirBnB policiies to the very people who provide the lodgings that are indispensable for AirBnB to make profit.  Makes one think