How to get Airbnb to (really) look into a BUG in the platform?

[Josep31]

Some months ago, I detected a bug on the platform. I have been able to confirm and document it from all kind of devices, places and even countries.

Basically, when I set a custom promotion on my listing (for example 40% discount for stays longer than a month) it is successfully applied. If I search for it I can see the original price crossed out and the new price. This is the expected behavior. For example it shows 1000$ crossed out and then the actual price that would be 600$. On the other hand, if I make a general search with another user on the area and, say, look for accommodations for less than 800$ a month I can't see mine. However I can see other listings with the exact same configurations. This is clearly not the expected behavior.

I noticed it while investigating why the number of bookings to the listing felt sharply (since I don't live in the area and try to avoid short term stays, my income was coming from cheap +2-3 months stays).

I have had NEVER an experience like Airbnb support. Although I send detailed explanations and examples with screenshots I don't think most support agents even read it. They just come up with any excuse to quickly close the case. In some occasions, they send me an unrelated article. Sometimes they say it's an expected behavior. I wonder if this "expected behavior" is that all listings appear when setting a filter... except mine. On other occasions they say they'll be speaking with engineering but, meanwhile, they have to close the case and contact me later (which obviously never happens)...

I've tried escalating the case to a manager but I get the same kind of responses.

For what I see in the forum many users can relate. When a problem is not straightforward they just sweep it under the rug.

It's a pity because it's a great community and Airbnb mission of creating a world where anyone can belong anywhere resonates deeply on me.

Do you know how can you really report a bug in the platform? Is there someone in Airbnb who actually cares?

[Paula]

Hello @Josep31, thanks for posting in our community.

Although we are not part of the support team, we can help by forwarding your case to the team that can help. Could you please share a detailed explanation and screenshots of the issue in response to this message?

Thanks so much.

[Josep31]

Hi, Paula,

Thanks for answering to my topic.

First of all, my apologies if somebody think this thread is just about venting my frustration with the support team.

After months presenting the bug in tens of cases, countless calls, explaining it over and over again and getting toyed there is something of this.

However, my main goal is, on one hand, to learn together how to get help in this kind of situations and on the other hand, of course, to resolve the bug.

I’ve found this issue to affect a specific listing of mine but, since this is a huge community, I’m sure other users are affected as well as many opportunities are lost in favour of other platforms.

I’m going to explain the issue as clearly as I can:

Context:

I have an Airbnb listing (https://airbnb.com/h/costa-daurada) with a base monthly price of say 1358€ and a discount for stays longer than a month of 50% which makes the final monthly price 773€.

If you search for it without filters you can find the original price crossed out and the final price after discounts:

Scenario 1:

Let’s search for available listings in the area and filter for those costing less than say 2000€.

Expected behaviour:

All listing costing less than 2000€ after discounts will appear on the search (the original price of some of them is more than 2000€ but, since after discounts, the final price it’s below this number you will be able to find them).

Actual behaviour:

After testing it using different users, different locations and even from different countries the actual behaviour it’s exactly as expected:

Example of listing costing more than 2000€ before discounts but less than 2000€ after discounts:

Scenario 2:

Let’s search for available listings in the area and, this time, filter for those costing less than say 1000€.

Expected behaviour:

All listing costing less than 1000€ after discounts will appear on the search (the original price of some of them, like mine, is more than 1000€ but since, after discounts, the final price it’s below this number you will be able to find them).

Actual behaviour:

After testing it thoroughly using different users, different locations and even from different countries you won’t be able to find my listing.

However, if you zoom out, you will be able to find any other listing that, just as mine, is originally more than 1000€ monthly but less than it after discounts.

This means that for an identical configuration, my listing gets filtered out but other listings are not.

I’ve shown this live sharing my screen to Airbnb Support and they do have acknowledged it’s a bug that needs to be solved.

As a listing catering for long economic stays, you can imagine the impact this is having on me. When a prospective customer filters for cheap stays in the area she won’t be able to get to my listing (she will get other deals though). After the issue started occurring my revenue (and the one Airbnb gets from me) went down sharply a 60%-65%.

This is something that should be easy to solve when looking at the source code or debugging it but we need the technical team for this.

Finding out how to get to the appropriate team in such cases would greatly improve the application and the community.

Best regards

Josep

[Joelle43]

Hello @Josep31 

I understand your frustration!  I did two searches for a place to stay for a month for La Serra d'Almos using a private window each time and used Google and then Safari to double check the results.

I did not use the sliding scale to narrow down the listings under 1000€. I entered 30 days in November and put 4 people staying and tried again using a different browser putting just 2 people this time.  In both searches you came out as #1 on Page 1 - great result!!

Yet, when I went back and put in a maximum price of 1000€ for a monthly stay this time,  you did not come out at all and there were very few listings showing up so yes I get what you're saying!!

So as long as a prospective guest doesn't use that maximum price scale, you will come up in results and as you offer a great value, Airbnb puts you in pole position but that's not ideal obviously and definitely a bug as you say.

Keeping my fingers crossed that this gets sorted but I imagine that there must be many hosts who are in the same situation as you, but are unaware of the problem.

Joëlle