many hosting problems since the pandemic

[S14]

Hello. We host two bnb's upstairs in our house, where we live downstairs, in Brooklyn, NY.  During normal times (i.e., pre-Covid), we're booked pretty solid, back to back. We price competitively; we do our best to keep it really nice inside; we carefully walk that balance between always being available for guests and leaving them private time and space, not to interfere. We’re a SuperHost. It's worked great for the 5-6 years we've been Airbnb Hosts. Now, of course, everything has changed -- and I don't know if we can continue like this. I dearly hope we won't have to stop with the bnb business entirely, but we well might be forced to do that.

Airbnb needs to understand that these are not normal times -- with the Coronavirus. No one is traveling now -- obviously. So the only bookings are people who are local who just need a break from quarantine with the people they live with. Apparently Airbnb now flags local guests who book the same day – and blocks them. Which kinda makes sense in normal times -- but things are different now. It’s the only potential business. Period. (Read further below about our foiled efforts to host Covid Frontline Responders.)

This is the second time (both times during this pandemic period) that Airbnb has prevented guests from booking with us.  There is no transparency -- we have exactly zero information from Airbnb. After spending many many hours with Airbnb Support (wasting Airbnb's limited support resources and certainly wasting my time) I finally figured out what seems to be their new UNWRITTEN policy.  You see, if it's a guest's first time completing a reservation on Airbnb, no prior good reviews AND they're local AND the booking is for the same day, they are suddenly putting some kind of hold on. At least that's what I THINK they are doing. When pressed, Airbnb tells us they are doing it to protect hosts because guests who fit that profile have a high rate of damaging hosts' property. Well, that's probably true under normal circumstances (i.e. not when we're in a pandemic). I sure WISH Airbnb had protected us in the past when we had horrible guests who violated just about every house rule. When those past problems happened, Airbnb did not help us AT ALL (despite countless hours on the phone with Airbnb Support and many calls for help). I was shocked to discover that Airbnb did not have our backs and very disappointed. OK, so good that they finally, after all these years figured out that they need to help a bit with the screening process. However, the formulas they figured out for calculating risks don't work in today’s Pandemic environment.

Obviously, all tourism is dead. Completely dead. There is nothing open in NYC except grocery stores and pharmacies. Everyone is officially urged to stay home as much as possible – by our mayor and our state governor. And traveling itself is not deemed to be safe by anyone I know. I spend hours every day answering questions from the guests who are cancelling – and they are all cancelling, every single one of them. Many of our reservations were booked like a year or more in advance and our livelihood is simply melting away – and rapidly.

So, the ONLY bookings we can possibly get at this point are from local residents who need a break from their home environment during this lengthy extended quarantine. This is a known phenomenon which has been written about in the national news. And that is a circumstance that no one plans for – so all of those types of bookings will be at the last minute.  Well, Airbnb is blocking these people from booking based on their outdated (albeit new) policy. We did manage to get a couple of these types of reservations but that was with guests who were not new to Airbnb and who had positive past reviews. IMHO, Airbnb needs to find some other way to verify that local people (who book same day) are OK, under the current circumstances, like checking references or something. Hello? Different procedures for different times?

BTW, on my end, the system does not show any problem when a guest is blocked, does not even show that the guest is being blocked. And the guest can't tell either. There is no transparency at all. That’s why I spent so very many hours with Airbnb Support to try to find out what was wrong, why people can’t book. The guest, in at least one case, was given a message from Airbnb which clearly implied there was a problem with my listing, that it may not be safe! Airbnb never told the guest that they were the ones who were blocked – so then the guest tried booking with three other listings, wasting the time of the guests and also of all of the hosts, all of whom are scrambling to find out why they can’t book.

Oh, we signed up for the Frontline Responders program on Airbnb right away – months ago – and got no bookings at all for almost all that time. I finally saw in the news that the City of NY was providing FREE hotel rooms to all the many Covid responders coming in from other places. And it seems that Airbnb had some investment in at least some of those hotels too. Shame on Airbnb for not ensuring that its many home-sharing listings were included in the City program. Well, now we finally got ONE short booking from a Covid responder who said that for the week (next month) that he is coming, there were no more free places left. Thanks, Airbnb.

We're making very little from this now, almost nothing. We lowered our (already low) prices to HALF. And, you see, because of the virus, we have to leave the bnb empty for a week between each guest -- no income (Airbnb suggests 3 days, but our housekeeper and I don't feel comfortable with less than a week.) So, even when we get a measly booking, we make almost nothing. Frankly, a big reason we're taking such bookings is to keep our housekeeper employed.

These are hard times for everyone and we all need to help each other out IMO. Airbnb needs to work with us, not in a vacuum.

Sigh, Airbnb used to be really great. The corona crisis is messing everything up. I feel this could be handled a lot better on their end. From the beginning of the Corona crisis, Airbnb has been implementing knee-jerk policies which are simply not well thought out. Then they try to cover up with glossy PR when they realize they are getting bad press. Lots of sudden policy changes without any communication of said policy changes to the community that needs to know.

As with most Airbnb hosts, we rely on this income to survive. It’s not “extra” income. I cringe every time Airbnb puts that tired and incorrect line in their PR -- that home sharing gives hosts "extra" income. Extra? Are they nuts?

And adding insult to injury, despite all the glossy PR about SuperHosts Relief Fund, we mysteriously have not gotten an “invitation to apply.” Why can’t we simply apply? An invitation? Really? Like inviting  your favorite friends to a party?? Why aren’t there clear and uniform policies about who is eligible and let us apply if we believe we meet the criteria? Obviously, the PR on that was just fluff. Not honest. Not equitable.

Oh and that other Host Relief Fund cheated us out of more than half of what we were officially entitled to. You see, for about a month and a half, Airbnb sent hosts many messages insisting there would be absolutely no penalty to hosts for cancelling reservations during a specified period of time. Airbnb (wrongly IMO) promised full refunds to all guests during that period (only) and forced the hosts to pay the full cost. But when the guests tried to cancel they couldn’t find any way to get the full refund that had been publicly advertised. (I found out way too late that they needed to click on “Learn more” – really? They wanted to get their refund, not to “learn” something. How poorly written is that? So, of course the guests asked us for help. Since Airbnb promised (in writing, over and over) that hosts would not be penalized for cancelling this specific slice of reservations, we helped our guests by cancelling for them. But we sure did get penalized! All those reservations were disqualified from the Host Relief Bonus program for the petty reason that we pushed the button when the guests couldn’t figure it out. Airbnb Support was totally slammed. This is the appreciation we get for helping out with an administrative problem.

Disappointed. And frantic about how to make a living, despite the huge investment in our beautiful BnB spaces -- furnishings, art, supplies, specialized renovations to cater to the needs of bnb guests, utilities, and more. Even now, we can't heat our own living space without heating the whole house even though the bnb half is vacant. And property taxes, oh the list goes on.

Since Airbnb categorically ignores anything we take the time to write to that “Feedback” link and since none of the support people are empowered to do anything, I’m writing here in the off chance that maybe someone who actually has influence in Airbnb might try to help improve their internal management. Meanwhile, I’m reaching out to lawyers to see if I can sell my space instead of doing the bnb. Very disappointed.­­­­­­­­­­­­­ But still hoping for better times…

Thank you to anyone who read this far. There are quite a few separate issues in this long post. (And the system keeps crashing. This is the fourth time I"m trying to post this. I had to re-type the whole thing in Word so could save it when the system here crashes.) I doubt many hosts will see this because there is no link in any menu for the Community Forum. (Why is that????) I don't have time to organize this into many separate posts. I'm not getting paid to help manage AIrbnb. If I were, a lot of things would be different LOL. Before I retired, I worked in corporate management for like 35 years. From that perspective, I am repeatedly shocked by the mismanagement of Airbnb. There are rumors that Airbnb will go down because of it. If that happens, we all lose even more.

Good luck to all of us. Obviously, the pandemic is no one's fault -- not the hosts, not the guests, not Airbnb. So the sharing of the resultant losses should be shared on a fair and equitable basis, and in a manner which protects the continuity of Airbnb and of the hosts. Otherwise, this will all simply end. Very sad.

[Beverly33]

Interesting "error" when I tried to reply to this post. I wonder if others have tried to comment on your well-written and very familiar post, and not gotten through.