@Belinda55
Belinda I am really sorry you posted that link!
I had thought....well hoped, with the host backlash that the management surely must be patently aware of by now, that they would stop all this 'smoke and mirrors' stuff and actually make some attempt to help the people who built this business for them!
I belatedly watched the last episode a couple of weeks ago, so, lets just have a look at what came out of that.
1. We’re investing $250 million USD to share in the cost of COVID-19 cancellations.
“We’re providing updated coverage under our ECP for accommodation reservations booked on or before March 14 and with a check-in between March 14 and May 31, 2020. If a guest cancels an eligible reservation in this window, we’ll pay you 25% of what you would normally receive through your cancellation policy. For example, if you would’ve received $400 USD for a normal cancellation, we'll pay you 25% of that—or $100 USD. This cost will be covered entirely by Airbnb, with no impact to the guest. We view this as an investment in our future together.”
Sounds good doesn’t it? But look at that line in the middle ”we’ll pay you 25% of what you would normally receive through your cancellation policy”.
Oh yeah, 80% of us hosts have a Flexible or Moderate cancellation policy as we have been told we should by Airbnb, which means, none of us are eligible! We instruct Airbnb to fully refund our guests in the even of cancellation on their part!….What a wonderful bit of marketing blurb is that!
And to add insult to injury most of the hosts who have a ‘Strict’ cancellation policy and could possibly be eligible are hosts who have a number of listing properties....their professionals, and they are also not eligible because Airbnb have set an upper limit of 2 listings per host to be able to claim.
No more than a handful of hosts will actually be able to lodge a claim on that wonderful ‘Gift’ of $250m. But, oh boy, it sounded good as Mr Chesky passionately put it across from his den, at home in San Francisco!
And the second point is equally outrageous!!!
2. We’re creating a $10 million USD relief fund for Superhosts and Airbnb Experiences hosts.
We know some of you are facing serious financial hardships, and we want to help. This fund will offer grants to Superhosts and Experiences hosts who need money to stay in the homes they live in.
Our employees started the fund by raising the first $1 million USD, and our founders contributed the additional $9 million USD. Learn more about who is eligible at Airbnb. com superfund relief!
Guess what, it's not coming around till May and you can’t apply for it…..Airbnb will invite you, we don't even have a hint on what terms and conditions will apply to it! But other past attempts to get some form of compensation out of Airbnb have been met with such a wall impediments we just give up and realise it is just not worth the effort!
I am lead to believe by many hosts, not just here, but on other sites where Airbnb is discussed, that what they are now doing is cancelling a one on one host/guest existing reservation leaving the host with nothing, but, giving the guest who has requested the cancellation a credit to use with any Airbnb host up until December 31 2021….and still hanging onto the guests payment! Can you possibly think of anything more un-ethical than that? Those reservations came to us, us hosts! Those funds were not just donated by guests to float around in some sort of Airbnb slush fund indefinitely!
This grandstanding by the CEO has only been done after considerable time with the number crunchers who have systematically gone through all the available scenarios to make sure that Airbnb limit their exposure to any host compensation.
Well here we go again, another session where we will all walk away scratching our heads and wondering what in actual fact just got said.
As I said Belinda, I wish you hadn't posted that......
What th!!!!!....... does that say what it looks like it says? They are going to use what ever they can lay their hands on to attract yet more of us to the platform, when they can't even support the masses they already have!
I really can't see anything changing here, I have flogged my guts out for Airbnb for the last 4 years. Airbnb guests have had first pickings at my listing, ahead of every other platform. Everyone else has to submit a reservation request.....airbnb's can just instant book.
I built up a great guest base and heaps of great reviews averaging more than 320 hosting nights for each of those years past.......for what.....to be talked down to like some child....
Smile at my face while you pi*s in my pocket!
Nah, watched and listened to enough of these 'smoke and mirrors' sessions!
They say a leopard doesn't change its spots.
Cheers.....Rob
@Sharon1014 @Fred13 @Ute42 @Airbnb