Superhost and Long-Term Guests: Airbnb should count current long-term guest days accrued toward Superhost assessment

Paula1433
Level 2
Oakland, CA

Superhost and Long-Term Guests: Airbnb should count current long-term guest days accrued toward Superhost assessment

I am concerned about the impact of hosting long-term stays on my Superhost status. I'm facing a challenge I assume others who have accepted long-term guests during COVID are facing.

 

I am already a Superhost - something we're super proud of, having launched our Airbnb mere weeks before the pandemic hit. We did not previously have long-term guests but decided to start accepting longer-term stays during COVID since that seemed to be where a lot of demand was.

 

Unfortunately, I was just told by customer support that only days of guests who have checked out before July 1 will be counted toward the July 1 Superhost assessment. We have a long-term guest whose days will not be counted because he is staying until August. With his days accrued to date, we would easily meet the number of stays and dates required to retain Superhost status. However without his accrued dates, we do not meet the 3 stays/100 days minimum.

 

I have tried to address this via Customer Support to no avail. I keep getting nonsensical macros with links to Superhost criteria, but not addressing the specific concern I have. I know I could ask the guest to check out and check back in before July 1 so his stay to date "counts" toward Superhost, but he's such an awesome guest and I really hate to have to ask him to do extra work because of Airbnb's policy. I would LOVE to be able to shield the guest from having to think for one second about any of this.

 

This seems like an especially ridiculous outcome since Airbnb is actively promoting longer stays. The "adapt to trends near you" dash specifically recommends "longer stays," and the entire "Live Anywhere" initiative is intended to inform, among other things, "Product changes and resources that could help improve the long-term living experience on Airbnb" (https://www.airbnb.com/d/liveanywhere).

 

Given Airbnb's clear intent to promote longer term stays, I actually think if someone higher-up at Airbnb who has an eye toward product development were aware of this issue, they would build in flexibility to the Superhost assessment to account for this situation - am just sure how to get it on their radar.

 

Has anyone else dealt with this or successfully worked with Airbnb to have current long-term guests' days counted toward Superhost assessments? Any other ideas how we can advocate for Airbnb to update their policy to count existing long-term stays toward Superhost assessments? Thanks for your ideas here!

6 Replies 6
Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Paula1433 the number of stays has been suspended for this year with respect to achieving/maintaining Superhost status so I am not sure what your issue is.

@Mike-And-Jane0 Thanks, I know it was previously suspended during Covid, have you seen something saying it’s still suspended for this upcoming July 1 assessment? I am under the impression from talking with customer success that it now applies starting July 1. Would love for that to be wrong. 

Emilia42
Level 10
Orono, ME

@Emilia42 Thanks so much. I’ll ask customer success to confirm this article’s info is up to date. (When I spoke with them they said we’re not on track b/c of the # of stays/days factor but the people we’ve spoken with thus far may not be aware that the policy is partially suspended for COVID). 

 

The stats still show # of days/stays as a criterion for Superhost, and our current long term guest’s stay isn’t counted. When I spoke with customer success they said it won’t count/show up in stats until the guest checks out. Based on that article, this shouldn’t be an issue for the upcoming assessment.

 

Going forward I suppose the workaround is to have longer term stays broken up into multiple reservations for the purpose of maintaining Superhost stats - which seems silly and cumbersome. From a product perspective it would be a better experience for hosts and guests if that weren’t necessary to do solely in order to maintain stats for Superhost! And especially when Airbnb is trying to move in the direction of longer term stays. Just not sure how to get that feedback to someone high up enough who could really evaluate the concern. 

@Paula1433 Airbnb Customer Service very rarely has correct and updated information. I wouldn't confirm anything with them.