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!

[Michael2815]

New laws and policies by airlines may help with this as well. They are no longer allowing Emotional support animals etc unless the person pays the fees, trained service DOGS are allowed and these are, as mentioned elsewhere, almost never a problem. Maybe if the person can't scam the airlines into a free pet by passing it off as a service animal, it will help.

[Jack70]

Hey Mark, you are not forced to except animals, all you have to do is ,in your listing that you or your spouse is allergic to dogs and cats, that will cover you from excepting animals.

[Dratch0]

Hello, can we talk?

[Mike-And-Helen0]

No custom promotions on my dashboard. Boo hiss.

[Simon384]

Same here

[Evelyn636]

I don’t have as well but I have a lot of bookings last year. Why? Are there other criteria to be covered with custom promotions? I have a bedroom that has been reviewed by several guests and received 5 star unfortunately one guest who smoked inside my bedroom and did not followed my house roles and left the dishes used from the first day of her stay gave me 2 stars. I think reviews are low for those who are not following rules so instead of them counted negative they give it to th host back. Which I find unfair. Airbnb should see other reviews and don’t accept such negative reviews because of guest circumstances.!

[Patricia1017]

I agree completely.  The only negative review i have ever I gotten was from someone that was breaking my house rules. He was smoking and snuck in another guest. When I approached him about it, he denied it.  Not cool! I just wanted him to leave & never come back. I Didn’t think being forthright with him would help in any way. I liked his girlfriend, so I decided not to  make a fuss.  I shared my frustration with AirBnb & blocked him from returning. In my opinion , a guest  that gets 3 or more (confidentially)  bad reviews from the host, should not be allowed to give any host a bad review, until the get on a better standing.  Frankly, guests with 3 or more bad reviews should be red flagged, so the hosts can avoid the potential nightmare. No one should have to deal with anyone that doesn’t show respect for the home owners rules. 

[Gema57]

I agree with that! I have fortunately not come across anyone yet that I know of breaking the rules, but I set the rules very clear in my listing, and I have a no refund policy. 

[Lorraine124]

how do you set a no refund policy?

[Bree30]

It's in your booking settings tab under your listing if you're a mobile user or in the booking settings under your listing. It's under cancellation policy, change it to strict so that guests won't get a refund for canceling during their stay. If the guest trys to cancel 14 days before their booked reservation they will only receive a 50% refund back. If they cancel 7 days before booked reservation they receive no refund. 

[Menavia0]

I agree with you.

[Corné2]

Absolutely!  I also had guests that broke the house rules, had a very loud party, moved my furniture outside, had someone extra stay over, burnt my rug, stole a blanket, left my place a total mess... and overstayed by 2.5 hrs without arrangement resulting in almost losing my next guests!  They gave me a 1 star rating, causing me to lose my Super Host status!!

[Natalie409]

This same thing happened to me and when I asked what Airbnb could do about the review. They did nothing and this horrible guest was allowed to continue to use the platform to abuse other guests. Where is the protection or concern for all us hosts doing our best to provide guests with a great stay while Airbnb makes there fee and does nothing to support us. 

[Atul12]

Almost EXACTLY what happened with me ! 

[Maria1074]

I did lose my superhost rating due to one guest who gave me bad reviews and score though said what a lovely place it was!  he complained that I charged more for a 2nd bedroom having booked it knowing this from the start (all in my houserules) and said I was ok as I had a rich husband (which sadly I dont though he is rather nice)

He then over-stayed by 2 hours even though I had let him in early to be nice. (big mistake) and they left all their rubbish and trashed the place.

I complained to Airbnb who sympathized and agreed with me but they wouldn't change my ranking having had superhost for 5 years non stop as they said it was a computer generated result. 

I sometimes feel they are on the guests side more than ours.