Brian you don't need to 'ideate' for 3 weeks: Just stop refunding 100%. That's the right thing to do.

[James207]

The message Brian Chesky sent out was just massive insult on top of massive injury. You've totally screwed your hosts. We're not partners. Unless you consider getting mugged 'partnering' with the thief.

The only 'big idea' you need is: stop bankrupting your hosts by refunding 100% to travelers that accepted the terms of the rental and couldn't be bothered to take out travelers insurance. If they didn't like terms, they didn't need to book it and Airbnb shouldn't be bailing them out at the hosts expense. And of course, Airbnb isn't refunding their fees. Guests just get a travel voucher. So the hosts get screwed but Airbnb gets to keep their money.

But of course, Brian doesn't actually want to do the right thing. So he's going to 'ideate' for a few weeks and think up big ideas that kind of sort of sound like the right thing, but aren't. Well, aren't the right thing for hosts. The big ideas, of course, will either cost Airbnb nothing or make them money. And if you want the few pennies they're willing to toss to you for screwing you, you'll only get them on future bookings. So, they'll be useless to you in the short term when you need them and tie you to the platform. 

Here are my predictions of the types of the 'Big Ideas' that will get presented:

(and these are just guesses from having been in the tech industry forever and having listened to many founders BS to stakeholders)

- Loans that you can repay with your Airbnb income. Except the loans come with credit card interest rates, so it's a huge money making thing for them (PayPal and others do this kind of thing). They bankrupt the hosts and then give them a predatory loan. So awesome. So socially conscious. Probably the only thing holding this up is confirming with the lawyers that this can be a 'business' loan and not subject to consumer finance legal requirements.

- Reduce the host fee to 2% instead of 3% until the end of the year. I've lost $7600 in bookings and counting. A 1% reduction in service fee would take me NINETEEN YEARS to make up what I've lost. And it costs Airbnb nothing as the rate they pay on credit cards is probably well below 2%. (although they lose a tiny bit of revenue)

- Let hosts take a couple trips without paying the service fee. I just burned through a good chunk of my savings trying to make the mortgage because of your policy. I'm not taking a trip any time soon.

So expect to see completely meaningless things like the above when they come out with their 'big ideas'. Painless for them, virtually useless for hosts. And, again, like the hypothetical service fee reduction, you only get it in the future and only if you keep using Airbnb.

(and for those of you who are like... you shouldn't rely on Airbnb for income... great, then Airbnb shouldn't accept the bookings. I'll get bookings through other sites. Don't accept the bookings and then completely disregard your hosts' well being)

Those of us that host, and especially the Superhosts and those that are close to it, go to great lengths to take care of our mutual customers. If we were actually 'partners' you would acknowledge the financial stress you're putting hosts through and back off the 100% refund policy. The fact that you're going to announce your big ideas in a few weeks, while bleeding most of us into serious financial distress in the meantime, just really illustrates how much they don't care.

btw... and, yes, my posts here seem to have gotten my listings buried in the search results. Much further back than they usually are. You call them out to do better and get punished for it.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

Are there NO other platforms doing home-shares? I was planning to take my listings elsewhere, but that kind of scuppers my plans!  

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  Not that I'm aware of. I know Homeaway/VRBO doesn't, not sure about b dot com,  but I've heard awful stories about never getting paid on that platform, and I once looked at th Homestay site, but it seemed to be set up more for long-term, like student housing for a semester type thing, like Jessica and Henry do. There may be some that cater to European travel, though, but I don't know about them.

[Huma0]

Thanks @Sarah977 

I might look into homestay then, as I mostly host long-term guests these days, or rather I did! 

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

Having a look at homestay right now. It seems to cater for precisely the kind of guest I target. Not sure how likely I am to get any bookings in the next few months, but it's worth a try!

A few friends have suggested I go it alone with my own website. That sounds daunting to me and I don't expect bookings for some time to come, but other hosts seem to have had success with it in the past. 

That may be an option as a long-term plan. Out of principle, I'm becoming more and more reluctant to stay with Airbnb after how they have treated me. In a matter of days, CS has gone from saying, "Thank you so much for being such a great host. We really value what you are doing," to "Yeah, adios. Screw you."

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  Good, I'm glad Homestay might work for you. It seemed like a nice site, but I have no idea if users are pleased with them, or how much business they generate- I imagine you could find reviews of their services online apart from their site. I've also heard GB hosts mention Spareroom dot com.

Setting up one's own wesite sounds daunting to me, as well. And I would wonder how people find it. They'd have to type in appropriate key words in a Google search. But it might be worthwhile to pay someone who sets up websites for a living to either set it up completely or give pertinent advice on how to do so yourself.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977  I have no idea if you can get a fair amount of bookings on homestay even during normal times, let alone now, but I will need to cast the net wide I think if I am going to get through this.

Yes, I know spareroom well. That is what I used to use before Airbnb when I had long-term lodgers. It is definitely a good option for that. I always had a great response and easily filled rooms, but it was super time consuming doing the correspondence (as usual, people don't read the listing properly, ask for ridiculous discounts etc.), viewings, reference checks etc. and you have to be very careful with long-term renters. Sometimes I got it right, sometimes wrong.

Over time, I switched my rooms from that to Airbnb. It was a little bit more money, but not really much once you factor in bills, Council Tax, cleaning, all the extra stuff you need to buy, let alone your time (endless laundry and admin, anyone?). 

It was largely because I thought I was at least covered. The verification and review system seemed to go some way towards vetting guests and there were the cancellation policies, deposit and Host Guarantee in case anything went wrong.

How naïve I was when I first started with this! Now I realise how meaningless those things were. At least when I was renting the rooms myself, I had a deposit that I could actually access if things went wrong and I could refer to the law if necessary, rather than being at the mercy of a corporation that does not uphold the law.

I might try the middle ground with spareroom, i.e. advertise short lets. For the time being, it is impossible to go back to the long term lodgers as the rooms have Airbnb bookings months ahead. I am assuming most of these will be cancelled (the ones that already have been have left me with massive gaps in the calendar), but by the time they are, Airbnb may have changed their extenuating circumstances again so that I don't even get the portion I am due. 

[Mary419]

@Sarah977 I am sorry I am not good with these message boards but I tried to tell you it is not daunting, there are companies with templates just like Shopify and the one I use is One Rooftop and they will help you. It will not replace third party sites altogether unless your unit is super unique in a high traffic area but having your own site gives you some power to book directly with a smooth professional receipt, etc. so go ahead and get that done while you are thinking about it. 

[Sarah977]

@Mary419  Thanks for the tips.

[Huma0]

Thanks @Mary419 . That definitely sounds like it’s worth a try, I don’t know if my listings (three private rooms in my own home) qualify as super unique, but I think it is a high traffic area (under normal circumstances) and guests often rely me they booked because the listing is kind of unique. It’s not a treehouse or castle or anything, so not sure what unique would mean?

[Mary419]

@Huma0 if your rooms are a better deal than most of the competition, people may find your website organically by searching. Unique can just mean few direct competitors in your exact category in your location. Using the right key words on your home page, and including local information on your site so that you will rise in organic search results without spending will help too. But the ongoing benefit is having a way to book directly to repeat customers, friends, neighbors and anyone smart enough to contact you directly.  Try to find a cute easy URL and buy it from Go Daddy.

Also note, One Rooftop does not take a percent of your bookings (unless they started offering that) but they do charge an annual fee to host the website and make it function which is well worth it in my opinion for the website, tools and service they give you. It is based on how many properties you have so it should be affordable for just 3 rooms. Their templates are beautiful. I used it for years from 2012 until about 2016 just to showcase my properties without even activating the online checkout system which I can hardly believe now. I only activated Stripe processor and online checkout feature about 4 years ago when Home Away started charging the service fee to guests. Now I can't believe I waited so long because it is truly wonderful to have that control over the receipt line items, and guess what you can add optional fees like pet fees if you want! Unlike some other sites LOL

[Huma0]

@Mary419 

That's all very useful to know. Once work slows down (or rather grinds to a halt) in a week or so, I'm going to start exploring these options...

[Helen3]

There's quite a few @Huma0 .

https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=0sl2Xu2sIMaca57UoKAB&q=short+term+rentals+websites+Lond...

Would be worth using the time while we need to put our listings on hold looking at other options. I think your place could do really well on FB with a Linked Instagram page to cross promote.

You could  set up your own FB pages and invest in targeted social media ads to direct people to your page.

[Huma0]

@Helen3  @Mary419 

Thank you for the tips. Yes, I will give it a go. I never had the time to look into these things before and also didn’t need to as I had enough bookings.

i also great t some great suggestions from other hosts on the forum about marketing when I first decided to focus on long term guests. I will try to find that thread and post the link in case others are thinking of doing the same.

[Piotr48]

@Huma0 Booking allows home-sharing.

[Huma0]

Thanks @Piotr48 -  will certainly look into it. 

I am just waiting for some more guest cancellations. One guest said she would cancel yesterday and hasn't. Once she, hopefully, does cancel, at least then one of my rooms is completely freed up and I can list it elsewhere. I would really have liked to host her though as she seems lovely, but there is no chance of that as her internship has been cancelled.

The other guest is not cancelling, even though she knows she is not coming on those dates, because Airbnb told her to sit tight, wait for the extenuating circumstances policy to be extended, and then cancel at the last minute for a full refund. She cannot understand why I don't think that's reasonable and is now angry at me.