Airbnb Directed Share Program – confusing email – are we in or not?

[Katie---Sean0]

I just received a confusing email that begins “Thanks for your interest in Airbnb’s Directed Share Program” but doesn’t state anywhere whether we’re in the program or not.

We applied/signed up the day that the program was first announced and hosts were invited.

I replied to the email asking for clarification, but it comes back undeliverable.

How do I find out if we’re in… or not?

Katie

(apologies if this is posted/covered elsewhere, I couldn’t find anything on this)

@Catherine-Powell 

[Aubrey45]

If tenure was required besides being a super host and current reservation, how many years was required? My apartments were registered under my property manager/broker since 2016 and only in 2019 I took over. Does it mean they qualified and not me the actual owner of the property?

This is a nightmare, we all had high hopes when that first email arrived  that we are finally recognized and appreciated for using our homes to share with others, but it didn't turn out that way.

Very disappointed!! An opportunity to save money for kids college fund or my retirement is all gone!

[Keren19]

This is so disappointing! I also responded immediately upon receiving the email and was able to register.  I received the 'thank you for your interest' email just yesterday and was also confused as to whether I was in or not. If they knew that stocks were limited then why allow hosts to purchase up to 2000 shares,  as one person noted, instead of spreading the wealth? This is incredibly disheartening and so very disappointing! Hindsight is 20/20, had i known this before at least i would have purchased the stocks on my own...instead we were waiting to hear back from an administrator...in this case, many of us didn't even realize that was what we were waiting for! Airbnb's communication on this was absolutely horrible...

[Katie---Sean0]

@Keren19  – yep this was 100% my issue with how the whole thing was handled, you articulate it well. Have we missed the chance to purchase as regular investors, I don't even know? Because I assumed Airbnb would communicate with Hosts either way about whether they were "in" I haven't followed other news about the shares.

[Keren19]

@Katie---Sean0 I don't think we have missed the chance to purchase as regular investors, but at the time when this rolled out and Airbnb sent us the email, their initial offer price was more than half of what it is currently.  So I can only assume that this was the price offered to the hosts who were accepted into the program...that's my guess, since that would make it more reasonable to purchase up to 2000 shares! As regular investors now, we are looking at a cost price of almost $150/share!  At the very least, I would have expected them to send me a clearer email indicating that we were not accepted into the program.  "Thank you for your interest" tells me nothing.  Additionally, telling us that not all who register will be accepted also tells me nothing.  At the very least send a proper email that says, "we regret to inform you..." like everybody else does.  Thing is, it's now been over a week, do we still wait and see, or move on?

[Sarah977]

It wasn't up to 2000 shares, it was 200. And many of those who indicated they would buy 200 shares were in fact only allowed to buy less than that. @Keren19

[Katie---Sean0]

@Keren19  – I think at this point we move on? I tagged Global Head of Hosting @Catherine-Powell in my original post hoping for clarification but there hasn't been any, only a lot of guessing. So it looks like we're SOL and paying the regular investor price, given there's no way of finding out if we're included in the program, and nobody to contact.