A new way for guests to show you appreciation and encouragement

[Airbnb]

Hello everyone,

During this challenging time, we want to rekindle connections within our community and evoke memories of travel. Many guests have also asked for ways to support their favorite hosts. We’re delighted to share a new way for eligible guests to show appreciation or encouragement by sending personalized cards to past hosts who provided excellent hospitality during a stay or an Airbnb Experience. There is also an option to add a financial contribution that goes entirely to the host; Airbnb will not charge any fees.

How does this work?

There will be two parts to this program. 

The main part will be giving past guests the ability to send a virtual card with a personal message to prior hosts from stays or Airbnb Experiences they've rated 4 or 5 stars. In the coming weeks, eligible guests will receive an email from Airbnb informing them the feature is available. We hope these cards will make hosts smile, and bring a little joy to the guests, too. Here’s an example of a few cards hosts may receive.

The second part is that guests can attach an optional financial contribution to their card. 100% of the guests’ contribution goes directly to the host. Please note that the guests will not see any personal or financial information about the host other than their name, location, and dates of the past stay or experience. 

We heard from some hosts that they were concerned about the financial contribution element, so we've updated the program so hosts can opt-out of future contributions by going to their payments settings and turning the ‘allow contributions’ toggle to ‘off’. If a host receives a contribution they do not wish to keep, they have the option to donate an equal value to nonprofits, including those that are supporting COVID-19 responders. If hosts choose to decline future contributions, they may still receive cards if guests choose to send them. 

For more information - including how to automatically opt-out of future contributions, refer to our Help page. 

- Airbnb

*Have you received a card from a past guest? Share your story below!*

[Susan17]

@Stephanie

HI Steph, 

I've read that link about 10 times and all it says is that I can opt out from receiving contributions, which I already know. Nowhere does it give me the option of opting out from my guests being approached by Airbnb in my name, in the first place. Nowhere does it say that the email that goes out to guests asking if they'd like to send a "kindness card", won't also still include the blurb about the "voluntary contributions", just with a little addendum to say, "Oh Susan doesn't want your money, but you can still make a donation to our other collection scheme to help house first responders" 

Or are there two different emails that will get sent out to guests, one mentioning the charitable contributions to the host, and the other with no mention of charitable contributions at all, depending on whether the host has declined to receive the donations or not? If so, please post the templates of both emails, because that really hasn't been made clear. 

You can choose to automatically allow or decline all future contributions from guests. The default for receiving guest contributions is set to On. If you want to automatically decline to receive any future contributions:

• In Account Settings, click or tap Payments and payouts
• Under Guest contributions, set the toggle to Off

If you decline future contributions, any payments you've already received will remain in your payout account—they will not be returned to the guest. Note that if you decline to receive contributions, you may still receive cards if your guests choose to send them to you.

[Robin4]

@Susan17 

I regard begging for contributions to be the most crass thing I have heard of for the best part of my 75 years and there is no way I would for a second be in that.

But....Last year we had Laura and Chris, two environmental scientists from Helsinki stay here for  3 weeks.

They are the most awesome couple, and we had a wonderful few weeks with their company.

They booked to come back here again but alas, Covid-19 put a stop to that......

We were all looking forward to getting back together again, so when they cancelled I sent them one of those cards of mine!

I don't give a sh*t about Airbnb's tacky way of handling this but I care about the people I care about.....and my feeling is, exchanging cards is just a cool thing to do right now and if Airbnb are promoting that I will go along with it......I will just distance myself from the gratuity thing...

Passing around the soup bowl doesn't sit well with me! 

Cheers.......Rob

[Katrina79]

This is just a fun activity that builds brand loyalty! Simple. I agree with everyone else that asking for a monetary donation is weird, perhaps ditch that aspect. 

[Donald28]

I agree. I want NOTHING to do with this nonsense. My guests sign my guest book and once in a blue moon, leave me a tip. That's good enough. 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

I agree with @Susan17  The obvious time for begging from guests who were gifted our cancellation fees would have been at the time they were being gifted. Obviously that would have been inappropriate as it wasn’t OUR cancellation fee being provided to guests it was the ‘AirBnb guest refund’ not from our cancellation fees but ‘their’ pot, reserved entirely for their own PR purposes.

It can be seen from previous posts that real grown up guests and hosts are quite capable of sending each other ‘best wishes’ without interference, and I for one wouldn’t include any begging option with those wishes.

[Suzanne302]

I think the cards are an absolutely adorable idea. As @Robin4 pointed out, good customer service is making sure you "touch" those past customers every now and then. That's why real estate agents send out Christmas cards and birthday cards and "happy whatever" cards every few months to past clients. It's just good business. This is kind of that in reverse, but still thoughtful.

As far as asking for contributions, it does seem pretty tacky. I suppose if it were worded in a way that makes it clear Airbnb, the COMPANY, is offering guests a way to show support for hosts and the hosts in no way were asking for this or were not even aware of this optional surprise "gift", MAYBE, maybe. But I'm still on the fence.

100% think the virtual cards are amazing though! Perhaps a way for us hosts to send well wishes to past guests would be a good option too!

[Stephanie]

Hiya @Suzanne302 ,

Thanks for your comments! The focus of this initiative is the cards themselves, and as @Robin4 has shared the screenshot of, the contributions option is right at the end and a very small element of the process.

We've had a lot of positive asks from both hosts and guests for the option just to let each other know they are thinking of each other during this awful time so we build the tool to support that but that's not to say that hosts/guest have to use it by any means. You are welcome to do what you see appropriate. 

Thanks,

Stephanie

[Susan17]

@Suzanne302

The thing is though, many of us who had formed any sort of real connections with our guests, and who have a genuine interest in how they're doing, have already been in touch with them weeks ago to see how they're doing. I've been in contact with scores of past guests through WhatsApp messages, and spoken with probably around 30 of them on the phone. 

Those that I haven't been in touch with, I've either forgotten about them, or had no particular close bond with them in the first place, so contacting them now, would be fake and superficial. And a few, quite frankly, I never want to be reminded of their existence again - or they of mine, most probably. (That doesn't mean they didn't leave me a high rating for their stay though) So it's wholly inappropriate that Airbnb should go over my head, and take that decision out of my hands by contacting them on my behalf. 

Also, I've had probably around 40-50 stays over the years as an Airbnb guest, but rarely ever even met my hosts, and many I barely even spoke with, as they were instant book, and we may have just exchanged a few pleasantries. I did leave almost every single one of them 4 or 5 stars though, so I guess I can expect a barrage of begging letters to my own inbox shortly, despite the fact I, like many others, am in no position to make charitable donations to anyone right at this moment. 

[Suzanne302]

Wow, @Susan17  you obviously have a lot more free time than I do. Good for you!

[Susan17]

Not necessarily @Suzanne302 - that's over 10 years and many of my stays in the earlier years were just smaller cheaper places I rented, while I had bigger groups of guests staying in my own house for the weekend. 

As for now, nothing but free time unfortunately. Heading into the 6th week on lockdown, and no work, tends to leave a person with a lot more time on their hands than they'd ever wish for 😏

[Alon1]

Time to write your book!

@Susan17

[Susan17]

You can be sure I'm still writing @Alon1, every darn lockdown day! Have got more written in the past 6 weeks, than in the previous 6 months. Only problem is, I've amassed enough material now for about 10 books, let alone one! It's looking more and more like a docu-series than a book every day though.. 😉

[Stephanie]

Thanks everyone for sharing your feedback. 

The intention and main focus of the Kindness Cards program is in the title of the program - the Kindness Cards. The contribution is a small and optional part of this program.

We understand the proof is in the pudding, so we will be hosting a listening session next week to provide an overview of the program and share a demo of what a host sees and what a guest sees. I will follow up with more details shortly.

I highly encourage those of you who are vocal and passionate about this program to attend to better understand how the program works and our intention to connect those strong relationships you all have built with your hosts and guests.

Thanks again for your comments,

Stephanie

@Suzanne302 @Robin4 @Susan17 @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 @Helen427 @Louise0 

[Susan17]

@Stephanie

Why not just post the templates of what the host sees and what the guest sees here now on this dedicated thread, for the benefit of everyone, not just the few who'll attend the listening session?

It appears the programme is already well up and ready to go, so pop up the templates there for us and we can all have a look. Easiest and quickest way to dispel any confusion or misunderstandings, right here, right now. 

[Stephanie]

Hiya @Susan17 ,

Thanks for the suggestion! The initiative isn't fully live just yet so I'll be checking in with the team for updates. 

We wanted the full experience to be a nice surprise when it's globally fully live but also want to address all of your concerns by giving a listening call of the user flows (guest and host). I hope that makes sense!

I'll share more details on next week's Listening Session walking you through Kindness cards, as soon as I have them - keep an eye out.

Thanks,

Stephanie