During COVID-19 Fellow Hosts are an embarrassment!!

[Ginny30]

I am embarrassed by the entitlement some of my fellow hosts are having during COVID-19 epidemic.  The world does not revolve around your rental property or mine!  Airbnb has my full support in issuing 100% refunds during this time. 
This entitlement to thinking Airbnb should pay you according to your cancellation policy is absurd.  All of us are “self employed” with Airbnb, we pay them a small percentage to advertise, showcase and handle our bookings.

There is nothing more important to me then my health, the health of others in my community and the health of my guests!  Welcoming guests to my property right now could potentially expose them, myself and my community to this daily growing virus.  We don’t know if they have been exposed to the virus and they don’t know if I have!  
I have a feeling you would still be complaining even if they would go with your cancellation policy.  This is a global problem and their are people out there financially suffering much more than you are!  Airbnb or any other rental company should never be considered your main source of income period!  There...rant over

[Patricia2604]

@Anne783 

Hi Anne,

It may be the right thing to do in the long run for airbnb.  There is another way we can look at this.

If airbnb gives a full refund to guests they save face with them for future bookings.

Now airbnb may say that they have done this with the best intentions towards the host, keep guests happy and they will return and book again. 

Now as hosts we may think well that makes sense but you also have to ask where does airbnb make the majority of it money from? A host at 3% or the guest at up to 15% per booking, so is it really the host they are looking after?

Where they may have miss judged this choice is by not realising just how much backlash they would  receive from hosts and by how many hosts they may lose because of this decision.

There are other platforms available where we as hosts can make the same if not slightly more for our accommodation and is still a bit cheaper for the guests.

The other thing to consider is this Global Pandemic is not going to go away overnight, which gives hosts time to re access their business options, and the booking platforms they wish to work with in the future. The booking platforms will be noticing all the new property listings they may be getting and will be going all out with campaigns to gain bookings when all this is over.

So airbnb may hold the biggest part of the market going into this but doesn't mean it will keep it especially if the amount of hosts do take their properties to other platforms like they are saying they will.

[Trudi15]

all of the fees get paid by guests. the split as to who gets what (host versus platform) is the apples to apples. Booking takes more than 16% but the guest never sees the final number- that is a percent of the service value that is rendered (provided by) the host- so yes, all of the % are from services provided by the host.  

[Sky13]

Good lord! So contentious! Black and white thinking abounds! 
The “gig” economy exists. For some, thank the heavens; for others, money for a vacation.

Pull it together people.

The current crisis calls the obvious into question: What responsibility does a 31 billion dollar company have toward the people who it depends upon for its very existence??

[Juan63]

@Sky13  Short, sweet and true! love it.

[Patricia2604]

@Sky13 

Hi Sky,

Great Point. Not sure what your answer is. 

I would think a responsibility to both its hosts and its guests, it needs both to exist. But also it need to look at how it is going to do the right thing  by both, whilst ensuring it has strong business practices to stay in business.

It would have to address questions such as:

How many properties do we have on our Platform and how do we keep them and how easy is it to get new ones?

If the booking platform does wrong by these Property Owners are they able to go elsewhere?

Property Owners will stay if the booking platform is loyal , offers a good service and has their backs. 

How many future Guests are there out there?  

Are guests loyal to one booking platform?  

Guests will swap and change to whoever offers the best deal and that normally means best price is paramount and property inclusions comes a close second.

So who does airbnb make most of its money from ?  

Under my listing it is the guest.

But I did read somewhere and not sure of the validity of it,  but new property listings the full service fee is now billed to the property and no service fees to the guest.

[Mark116]

It is also worth noting that as a global TRAVEL company, they should already have a crisis management plan for natural disasters that disrupt travel, since this is the exact type of event that would hit airbnb the hardest.  There should already have been plans, procedures and protocols for how to handle something like this, at least at the baseline.  So the fact that they still rolled it out in their usual haphazard random manner is another testament to how badly managed this company is. 

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Mark116 

Completely agree.... especially about how badly managed this company is.

But regarding crisis management, imo, the same applies to any small business owner, independent contractor, household or individual. 

Weren't we all taught to keep a rainy day fund and to never live beyond our means? 

[Susan17]

@Jessica-and-Henry0 

Most small business owners, independent contractors, households or individuals d'on't have a bunch of super-rich investors, venture capatalists, speculators and property magnates throwing billions in funding at them to shore them up while they run at a loss for over a decade. Nor do they have the option to purchase Catastrophe Insurance to cover for any and all unforeseen disasters, as global corporations do.

Also, it's very easy for those with double-income households, and no families to support - other than perhaps a "fur-baby" or two - to moralise to others about "living beyond their means", when most of those they're moralising to, have already been struggling to make a living for some time, due entirely to Airbnb's deliberate and intentional gross over-saturation of their markets, and blatant promotion and prioritisation of new listers and "professional" and commercial operators in search placement. I can tell you now, those rainy day funds that have been carefully built up over many years, get depleted pretty rapidly when Airbnb's algorithms start funnelling all the business to their "professional partners" instead of those loyal, hard-working, long-term hosts, each and every one of whom has, in their own small way, helped build this platform form the ground up - right from the critical time when nobody had even heard of Airbnb and they were struggling to even get anyone to use it.

[Sarah977]

@Susan17 These are two separate issues. You know that I have been quite vocal here over time in calling Airbnb out over their corporate BS and their terrible attitude towards hosts. Even though I've never had a bad guest or a bad review, I've called out their fatally flawed review system even though it has never personally affected me. Same for lots of other things hosts go through where Airbnb shafts them, even though I've never had experienced that shafting myself. I hate hypocrisy, unfairness, corporate greed, lies and PR BS.

But Airbnb didn't force anyone to decide to become an Airbnb host. They didn't guarantee anyone a steady income capable of supporting themselves solely on. The issue of people managing their finances so that one month or even 3 without Airbnb rental income isn't going to devastate their lives is separate from Airbnb's abyssmal treatment of their hosts.

People managed to work and survive long before there was any such thing as online booking platforms. They even managed to sock away a little something for a rainy day. 

[Susan17]

@Sarah977 

"Airbnb didn't force anyone to decide to become an Airbnb host"

Nobody forces anyone to marry an abusive partner either. But sometimes, a person is already deep into a marriage, with no realistic or feasible options for escape, before it becomes clear that they're trapped in a situation they would never, ever have put themselves in, had they known the abuses and exploitation that lay ahead.

Very easy to be wise, after the fact. HIndsight is 20/20 vision, but unfortunately, hindsight is a pretty useless perspective, in the present moment

[Mark116]

@Sarah977  That's true as far as at goes, but it is also true that once you become accustomed to a certain income,  your spending changes.  We never rented our first floor until 2016, when we started w/airbnb, we had used the whole house for ourselves,  and for the most part have used the $ on large home improvement items--new furnace, exterior painting, brick pointing, etc. as well as using it to cover the house fixed expenses eletric/gas/water..... but losing possibly $20K or more is a big hit, especially when it is happening in tandem with a stock market meltdown.

Also worth remembering that airbnb has been encouraging hosts to take out home improvement loans to 'upgrade' their units.  Which to me is pretty despicable, even without a pandemic.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Susan17 @Mark116 @Sarah977 

Yes - once we become accustomed to a certain income, spending patterns change. And agree that encouraging people to get loans to expand or upgrade Airbnb units is despicable.

But this is what I mean about becoming a small business owner and living beyond your means. Instead of using the pay bump or extra income to build that rainy day fund you really couldn't afford before or focus on an early loan payoff most people choose to either increase spending or borrow (more) money assuming future potential income or the additional money will continue to come in stably.

Student loans and credit cards have made it so easy for people to be in debt before they even understand what *personal finance* even means. I'd like to quote @Sarah977 here that "This is what the world of living on borrowed money looks like when it all starts to fall apart." It's not even about the latest iphone or the nice car or nice dinners out. 

And on a separate note,  ".....one in four families making $150,000 a year or more are living paycheck-to-paycheck" 

Honestly...... I feel little empathy for people who have a 6-figure income and can't manage their finances well enough to build up a rainy day fund for themselves or have some sort of financial backup plan. People who are suffering due to unexpected medical bills are a completely different story and do deserve our support and empathy. 

Like my maternal grandpa always used to say...... being rich or even financially stable has very little to do with how much money you make but rather it's about HOW you spend your money and that people could be earning upwards of $150,000 a year and still be up to their eyeballs in debt. 

[Susan17]

I give up. The lights are on, but there's no one at home.

[Juan63]

@Ginny30 @Lizzie  Guests, HOSTS, and Airbnb was the right way to handle this.

[Juan63]

I refunded over 50% and offered a discount.