Changes to Super Host Benefits

[Susan990]

Priority Placement in search results   has been removed and replaced with an obtuse  Welcome More Guests  message which reads " Attention from guests can lead to more bookings".  Can any please explain to me what that statement means ? 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

No 😄

[Louise0]

Haven't seen this yet.  Is it perhaps followed by some checkboxes with helpful choices,  e.g. 'Thanks, got it!', 'More information please', 'No **bleep** Sherlock' ?

[Susan990]

@Louise0 

u cannot miss it.  Go to the Super Host page where it displays your status and then presents the Benefits, the 3 benefits.  Before the first Benefit was the Priority Placement in search results, that is gone and it displays this phony benefit titled as I described word for word.

[Louise0]

@Susan990 I never even bother clicking through on the Superhost quarterly notifications anymore.  The purported benefits are garbage.

[Gillian166]

@Susan990  I could have sworn in the fireworks pink "woo yay" animation that came up on my phone, it did say something about better placement. no way to check now it's gone. also that animation froze and crashed the app, haha. 

[Ann72]

Like @Louise0 I never click through either @Susan990 but that is some serious Iron Curtain era verbiage.  What the actual.  

[Mark116]

I feel kind of sad for the people who just made super host and are on the other thread talking about what an honor it is...sweet summer children who don't know it's purely a tactic of manipulation to keep hosts going all out to placate guests.

Supposedly Airbnb is going to eventually roll out a plan where you pay for placement, I would suspect that eliminating the super host 'bounce' is part of that, or it could be that the new summer release program can't account for SH.  Who knows.  Either way, it is consistent with their policy of asking hosts to do always more and get less.

[Suzanne302]

@Mark116 

Don't they already have a plan where you pay for placement?

And it's no coincidence the first listings that come up when I search as a guest are all obviously "management companies" and not individual hosts....

[Huma0]

@Suzanne302 

Yes, I never quite bought that 'priority placement' in search results. There was a thread here on the CC where a bunch of hosts did an identical search to see what would happen. The results were telling. Most of the listings that came up on the first page were not Superhosts and many of them, including top three results were below the 4.7* that is supposed to be a 'basic requirement'. Some even had 3.something stars.

I think that the wording is (was?) deliberately misleading. The priority placement only exists if the guest chooses to filter for Superhosts only. 

[Huma0]

PS as you can see, my Superhost badge has gone (after a 5.5 year straight run). Oh, well. I shouldn't think it will make a bit of difference to bookings as I have been getting virtually no views since the Summer Release anyway. Being Superhost certainly didn't help with that...

[Helen744]

@Huma 0 Sorry to hear that Huma I have been climbing the greasy pole like a frantic racoon for months now and after some contemplation cannot see why ' places 'hosted by the owner', where people are greeted and /or actually have owner/host contact are not in a separate category. As someone who is always 'on the ground and around during 'the whole of my guests stay , then why do I not qualify as 'going over and above' those other hosts,supposedly, who live in another state or have ten condos  or five different bed sits  or own eight houses and counting and pretend to be ' hands on hosts. ?Where are the extra stars for that?Guests know we provide more. We cannot continue competing for diminishing market share if what we offer, which is more than a sterile room, is devalued by this crap star system . Give us a category and extra stars to cover extra services we provide.Let people know 'there is a difference.' in a host based 'home stay H

[Laurelle3]

I agree with you @Helen744 that hosts who live on premises give more that an off site owner(in another state or city kms away or managed by a realestate.) 

Personal touch rewards you with reviews and any problems or issues are sorted out within a short time and prevents complaints. 

@Susan990  Competition is not only with Airbnb management and the presentation of their booking/search page and allowing hotels and motels to use Airbnb for bookings. Hotels/motels don't offer the homely touch but a bare room with next to nothing as extras. At the same time lowering the price all the time to undercut owners of Airbnb who live in the local area. 

[Huma0]

@Helen744 

Sorry, just saw your comment as the tag hadn't worked. 

There is only a 'shared homes' category, but that doesn't differentiate between an HMO type situation and a homeshare. Some listings are houses split into dorm style rooms with as many beds as possible, no living room and one kitchen and one bathroom shared between nine or more complete strangers and an off site host. That would still qualify as a 'shared home'.

I have hosted guests who inadvertently found themselves in the above situation and were not happy about it at all because they were looking for a homeshare set up like mine, with a live in host.  

Unless the host is very upfront about it in the listing (e.g. I write that I have other guest rooms and other guests will most likely be staying), it's not actually clear from the way listings are set up. There are actually guests out there who specifically want to stay with a host. Most of my guests are young, solo females who want the security and some (often female) companionship of living with a host while they are away from home. 

Why does Airbnb make us so invisible?

[Jenny]

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to let you all know that while the wording on that page has been updated, nothing’s changed in regards to how Superhost works in relation to searches nor the benefits the status brings

Hope this clears things up!

Jenny