What would you wish on your Airbnb shooting stars?

[Debra300]

I read a great conversation started by @Cassandra176, where she requested that search filters for the nightly rate include all fees and taxes, and the total price be displayed in all search results (app, desktop and mobile browser, map display).  https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Feature-Request-Filter-and-sort-by-TOTAL-price-including....

I think she has a legitimate gripe and request, and it made me think about the things I'd like to see implemented as a traveler and host.  

1.  Most guests and hosts are unaware that the only way a special offer can be sent to a guest is in response to a booking request.  Let's give guests the ability to submit a formal special offer as an inquiry or request to book. Also, allow hosts to send a special offer in response to an inquiry similar to how they can send special offers as a response to booking requests.  With these features, the reservation is automatically confirmed when the offer is accepted by the propositioned party.  Right now, a guest can send an inquiry message with a suggested special offer, and the host can pre-approve/decline the inquirer to make a reservation at the listed rate.  

2.  If there is an agreement on a special offer, the host can only change the nightly rate in the reservation, and has to do extra calculations to reduce/eliminate any fees to determine the final price.  For example, they agree upon a 10% discount on a $60 nightly rate for a three night stay, and elimination of the $20 cleaning fee.  The host has to calculate the nightly discount ($60 x .10 = $6), then divide the cleaning fee among the number of nights of the stay ($20 + 3 = $6.67), add the two discounts ($6 + $6.67 = $12.67), reduce the nightly rate by the total nightly discount ($60 - $12.67 = $47.33), and then multiple the reduced rate by the number of nights and enter that that number as the new nightly rate ($47.33 x 3 = $141.99).  It would be clearer and easier if the host could adjust the nightly rate and fees separately, and have fields for discount amount or discount percentage.

3.  Another item is enable guests and hosts to extend a reservation within X hours after checkout ends, if the extension doesn't conflict with the booking buffer of the next reservation.  For example, guests send a message to the host that they want to stay two additional nights.  The host updates the reservation dates, but the guest doesn't see the message before checkout ends.  The reservation preference is set up with a two day booking buffer before and after each reservation, and the next reservation is scheduled a week away.  The guest are unable to reserve the two days immediately after their initial reservation unless the host temporarily removes the booking buffer.  During this time other guests would be able to make reservations that require a turn over faster than the host can support.

What would you wish for other than not having your bookings canceled due to bogus EC claims, and being able to get CS before your phone battery dies?

[Anonymous]

@Debra300  Personally, I would not want to waste time fielding inquiries from guests making an "offer" below the listed price. A feature like this would basically turn Airbnb into Priceline. I much prefer guests who choose listings that fit their budget, rather than encourages them to treat prices as malleable.

The pricing feature that I would like to see is the ability for hosts to offer a drop-down menu of optional add-on costs to build into the booking in the same way that you can currently charge for extra guests. Currently, if there's an additional fee for pets, parking, airport transfer, or other services, the host has to send a separate payment request after booking confirmation. The matter becomes needlessly complicated if the guest neglects to respond to the request or their payment method fails. 

I'd also like an expanded range of search filters aimed at guests looking more for a certain type of experience rather than a specific city or town. The CEO himself has emphasized to the press that Corona-era guests tend to be choosing nearby rural getaways over long-distance holidays and city breaks, but Search has done nothing to rise to their needs. VRBO has filters for "Nearby activities" (e.g. watersports, thermal baths, museums) and "Location type" (e.g. waterfront, rural, mountains) that make it easier to find suitable spots within a broad search radius, whereas Airbnb only has "Property type" for people who insist on staying in a treehouse or a yurt. Come on, guys, it can't be that hard to update this one.

[Emilia42]

@Anonymous So true on your second point about searching nearby locations. When I search in eastern Maine I have to weed through multiple listings that are actually in Canada. Also, the coast of Maine stretches out like a finger so where you may have two locations that are across the bay (10 minutes if you have a boat,) the driving time can be over an hour. It is rather archaic that you cannot search listing within an X miles radius of your destination. 

[Debra300]

@Anonymous,

You make a good point about enabling guests to submit special offer, and the analogy with Priceline is on point. 

I think you have a great idea with regards to selecting add-ons while making the reservation.  My personal website has this feature, and it is helpful to both the guest and host.  However, I don't recall any of the other OTAs that we list with offering this feature, but it's been a while since I checked.

Hopefully, the email that I received recently from Airbnb soliciting US hosts to share some of the outdoor activities that are close by to their properties is the ground work for a new search filter.  Airbnb will need to make these types of changes to remain competitive with other vacation rental OTAs and large traditional OTAs that are delving into the vacation rental/home share market, because hosts are listing on multiple platforms. In addition to our own website and Airbnb, our place is also listed with five other OTAs.  This requires more work to manage each site's content, but I think it essential to use various channels to reach a large audience, and limit reliability on just one source to the marketplace.

[Huma0]

I agree with the add ons. As I host long-term guests, it's not uncommon for them to have a partner/friend/relative stay for part, but not all, of their stay. Currently, there is no way to change the booking from one to two people for only part of a stay so I always have to send them a separate request. That is fine, but I've noticed that often some sort of 'technical' hitch happens, e.g. several times, the guest paid, but the money didn't reach me. I've had to spend up to 1.5 years (I am not joking) chasing Airbnb for some of these payments. Also, it would be better if you could just adjust the booking for part of the stay because then at least the additional guest is covered by the Host Guarantee (in theory).

What I would really like to see though is some way to encourage guests to actually read the listing/ house rules. Either that, or some reminder to guests of what is generally acceptable behaviour in an Airbnb and to respect the space and their hosts/not treat it like a hotel.

When the pandemic started and all the Airbnb guests cancelled, I started looking at other avenues to explore once it was safe again to restart hosting. One of the companies I came across organised homestays for foreign students. They had an EXCELLENT list of guidelines/etiquette that all the students had to agree to, which pretty much were in line with my house rules. I would post it, but I'm pretty sure it would be removed!

Guests can tick that box agreeing to the house rules without having to read them at all. Instead, they should be automatically directed to them BEFORE they can complete the booking, with the check box somewhere towards the end of the rules. Of course, the guests could just skim through (as many of us do with lengthy T&Cs), especially if they are experienced Airbnb users, but it would be a start...

[Debra300]

@Huma0,

Go ahead and post the link or the guidelines/etiquette list, and let's see if it gets removed.

[Huma0]

@Debra300  Ok, I will! I just have to find it again as this was a few months ago, but I did make a note of it somewhere...

It is rather long, but what I liked was that the organisation was telling the guests they needed to abide by these rules (which were all very reasonable in my opinion). I truly believe that if a guest hears it from Airbnb, they are more likely to abide by the rules than if they hear it from the host.

Early on in my hosting experience, I had a couple of guys stay who just didn't get the idea of house rules. They wanted to throw parties, bring random 'pick ups' back to my house (where I live and where there are other guests), would either be partying or arguing at full volume at 3 or 4am, left the toilet covered in excrement and ate all my food.

I tried to reason with them and remind them that this behaviour was not okay. They would always apologise profusely but then continue with the bad behaviour. I called Airbnb and asked them to relocate the guests. The rep was very clued up. She asked if she could reason with them first before cancelling the reservation.

As soon as she called them and told them that they would need to follow my rules or vacate without a refund, they sat up and took notice. Problem solved. They wouldn't listen to me, but as soon as they heard it from Airbnb, that was a different story!

[Debra300]

@Huma0,

Have you found that link yet?

[Huma0]

@Debra300 

Here it is: http://londonhomestays.com/homestay-information/student-guidelines/

It is very detailed and a lot of it will be specific to some Airbnbs and not others (although I found most of it applied to mine).

What I like though is that it is the booking agency that is setting out these guidelines rather than the individual hosts. I still think hosts should be able to specify guidelines/rules that are particular to their listings, and it would not be possible for Airbnb to have its own set of guest guidelines this detailed, but it would be great if they could have basic ones that all guests have to sign up for.

I know there is or was something like this on the website, i.e. a very short outline on behaving yourself in a listing, which I saw years ago but I believe it's something the guest would very rarely come across. I certainly never sew it when I booked an Airbnb. I think there should be a page of the basic stuff that a guest has to agree to, like T&Cs, when booking, not just a box saying they agree to house rules they probably haven't even read. I honestly believe that if it is AIRBNB telling them what is/isn't acceptable behaviour, they would take it far more seriously.

[Anonymous]

@Huma0  This is a bit of a digression from the topic at hand so please feel free to ignore it, but there's something in this bit that has always given me a big sad:

"Either that, or some reminder to guests of what is generally acceptable behaviour in an Airbnb and to respect the space and their hosts/not treat it like a hotel."

Another thing I'd wish on my shooting stars - not from Airbnb so much as from the hosting community - is a little more consideration for hotel workers. The executives of chain hotels may not care if a guest trashes a room and leaves excrement everywhere, but invariably, human beings are forced to turn that room over. Those workers receive far less compensation for each changeover than an Airbnb host, and don't have the privilege of writing a public review. The volume of people they serve exposes them to a far greater range of dangers than an Airbnb host can expect to experience, but their safety and well-being is largely neglected by their employers. In NYC alone, dozens of hotel workers have been killed by Coronavirus exposure that likely occurred on the job, while hundreds more were hospitalized with symptoms that may indicate permanent tissue damage. 

A culture that deems disrespectful treatment of someone's work environment "suitable to a hotel" is a culture that denies the humanity of these workers. Uncoincidentally, they are disproportionately women of color and immigrant background and not homeowners blessed with a surplus of space. As hospitality workers, they're our peers and deserve to be respected as such. There are many times when a guest's attitudes and needs genuinely are better suited to a hotel, and I'm all for calling them out as such, but behavior that makes life miserable for a hotel worker should not be considered acceptable anywhere.

*folding up soapbox*

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

You make very valid points, as usual. 

Sorry, I absolutely didn't mean any disrespect to hotel workers. Before this pandemic, I travelled frequently for work (2-3 times a month) and always stayed in hotels on these trips. I would absolutely never disrespect the housekeeping or other staff. In fact, colleagues think I am a bit mad because I always tidy the room before housekeeping comes. I would never leave hair in the drain, let alone excrement anywhere!

My reference was more to do with stuff like check in for example. While a hotel also has specified check in/out times (and I have set mine in line with these), guests can also rock up anytime and leave bags, for example. They don't have to arrange a check in time with the hotel, but can arrive anytime within that window without notice. They can usually call reception for any little reason in the early hours of the morning. They expect daily housekeeping and not to have to clean up after themselves at all. But all these things come at a price.

These are not things that I offer in my Airbnb because I am not charging hotel prices and the guests are not paying enough for me to hire a full time receptionist/concierge/porter/housekeeping. Yet, some inexperienced guests seem to expect this. I have had guests who came to me every day with a pile of used towels, expecting a whole set of new ones. No. Even 5* hotels encourage you to reduce the amount of laundry you create for the sake of the environment. 

Can I wait up to 12 hours by my front door waiting for a guest to arrive? No. I have a job and a life and the guest is not paying for that 12 hours of my time. I am always happy to offer advice on anything to guests who ask, but should I be expected to plan their entire trip for them because they can't be bothered to go on google? Should I organise their car rental because they think that is MY job, not theirs? There are limits. If they want a full time concierge, they should pay for one.

[Anonymous]

@Huma0  Totally agree with you on  all this and did not suspect for a minute that you were any less as impeccable of a guest as you are a host. 

The expectations you describe must be a downside of having such exquisitely furnished listings as yours. It's especially tricky at a time when many hotels are dropping rates below the baseline of Airbnb hosts while still offering all the extra services that come with economics of scale and underpaid labor. 

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

PS I'm not "a homeowner blessed with a surplus of space". When I bought this house it was always with the intention of renting out the rooms one way or another. I absolutely cannot afford to pay for it by myself and I certainly don't 'hang out' in those now vacant rooms enjoying them. They are closed up and unused and, frankly, sad.

That being said, of course, I am much more fortunate than the hotel workers you describe (as well as many others severely affected by this situation) and appreciate that. That doesn't mean that we are all rolling in the muck, eating strawberries and drinking champagne with no care in the world while our rooms are unoccupied!

[Debra300]

@Anonymous,

Move over, I'd like to stand on that soapbox, also.  However, I inferred @Huma0's comment exactly as she stated in her follow up message.  Guest do things that may not hinder the operations of a larger accommodation with a full complement of staff, but these actions/attitudes have a significant impact on hosts. 

We recently hosted guests who took the USB power cable from one of the Rokus; maybe to charge their phones.  In their minds, the reservation entitled them to taking something from my home.

[Sarah977]

@Debra300  Yes, they might have helped themselves to it, but sometimes it can just be an oversight. A friend of my daughter's stayed at my place for a couple of days, not as a paying guest. She made off with my high quality USB cube, which she was using to charge her phone and laptop. I know she didn't do it on purpose- she must have just packed it up with her laptop and the rest of her stuff.