@Laura2592
If I am looking to buy a new vacuum cleaner I will go straight to 'Product Review' and I will use all the previous reviews of the product I want to guide me to make a correct decision. Product reviews are great because they relate to genuine past experiences, some will be great, some will be poor, but they are all genuine and they do highlight potential issues.
Airbnb reviews and star ratings are essentially useless because Airbnb can't differentiate between what is good and what is excellent. For the guest, a 3 star is a satisfactory review, Airbnb tell them it is .....'The stay met their expectations'! But for the host that 3 star puts them in dangerous territory and they need to pull their socks up, 5 stars is the default review!
For this reason as hosts and guests we all live in LaLa land where provided nothing got trashed the guest was a wonderful human being, and provided the host gave in to all the guests demands he was worth 5 stars.
As a reference system Laura, it is completely useless and I do not look at the guests past reviews or their star rating, I know its not going to tell me anything meaningful. I base my decision to host around the initial message. Sometimes the guest doesn't have any past reviews, or maybe just one....that doesn't tell me anything, but that first communication with them tells me a lot.
@Elaine701
Almost all my business is IB and I prefer IB. IB guests don't want to ask questions, haggle about something or other, they like what they have seen and just want to stay....they are good guests.
Reservation requests invariably come with a question or two ...."I know you say not pets but we have a cute Pomeranian who is adorable and will be no trouble, do you mind if we bring him"?
Or.......
Every time a reservation request comes to me I can bet it will come with a question for something I do not include in my listing description. I far prefer IB, a lot less hassles!
Every booking this month was/is an IB
Cheers.......Rob