Superhost assessment to be postponed due to pandemic

[AandM56]

Hello Airbnb hosts,

After years of hard work, I will lose my Superhost status because of the lack of chances to boost my ratings. I want to formally ask Airbnb to postpone the Superhost assessment during the covid pandemic. Who's with me?

[AandM56]

Snd I was happy to get as many booking as I could to get back on track. I had a very long booking this year, that’s why I don’t have many reviews either.

again, in general I think that because everything is stuck the assessment should be blocked too.

[Helen350]

@AandM56 I counted 46 reviews in the last year! That should keep you your SH status, unless the ones in the last 3 months were bad. I see you had one outlier stinker - like many of us! - But the other45 should make up for  the bad one!

[AandM56]

Unfortunately no. 
I have all 5 stars besides a few 4 stars and 1 with 1 star that destroyed everything :(. So I am st 4.72. Just for one review of someone that didn’t end up staying. Believe it or not. 

I only needed 6 more review to make it but had 8 cancellations because of covid.

Anyway, this is not just for me. If things are in standby, I think the Superhost assessment should be as well. We are not going to get any booking anyway so what is the point if keeping the assessment for these three months? I think it should be postponed to July. Also, the new grant they made available is only for Superhosts. I don’t think I qualify to apply necessarily, but some people might.

if everything stops they should stop that too. What if someone got penalized for a cancellation in early January that was due to covid? Some countries were already shut in January. In that case they will not be part of the new cancellation policies and will end up loosing the status. Furthermore, the situation doesn’t really help. Are you getting any booking? The government in the UK urged all hosts to block their calendar till May. At least those that rent a room in a shared place. This is affecting a lot of people. Having to care about the Superhost status or losing it because of this is unfair, in my opinion. 

[Helen350]

@AandM56 You had 46 reviews in the last year! That's enough to balance out ONE 1* review! Your problem in only having 4.72 (- if that's correct; with 2 listings I don't know how you can calculate it) - is your 4* reviews! It's too many 4*s that have dragged your average down!

But you can't say that loss of bookings has ruined your chance of SH.... We're only talking part of March; people were still travelling in Feb, as your reviews show....

- And you don't know that the bookings that cancelled would have given you 5*, thus upping your rating.... Some perfectly satisfied guests give 4*, cos they think 4* is good, & only luxury hotel standard gets 5*..... Not the Airbnb way, we know, but guests get it wrong.... (I had my last guest but one give me 4* cos his experience was blighted by his house being burgled 200 miles away! Nothing to do with my hospitality! - And after I bent over backwards to sympathize!) So you might have got a LOWER average if the cancelled/lost bookings had materialised?!!! 

Airbnb have taken steps to make this quarter's SH assessment fairer..... Stop moaning! : )

[AandM56]

Hi Helen,

I am a statistician ;). 36 5star reviews, 8 4star reviews and 1star reviews. Not enough. Just a little far behind. 

Surely, I cannot know whether the bookings I had were going to be 5 star ones; however, I can predict the trend on the basis of 5 years of bookings. It's easy maths.

I had over 10 cancelations in a month, around 2/3 of the calendar empty in the past two months, and a lot of people not going ahead with their bookings. This is more than double what I experienced in 5 years. On average I used to have 3-4 days free in a month. All that started in January. Bear in mind that last minute cancelations affect my chance of getting other potential bookings. 

More importantly, I am not simply talking for myself. There are people (from Italy or China, for instance) who saw their business drastically disrupted for four months. Some hosts had to cancel some bookings in early January. Either because they got stuck when traveling themselves, or because they were at risk, or because the government wasn't allowing them to host. Airbnb's policy was applied only two weeks retroactively, penalising all other SHs! We must think about the whole Airbnb community around the globe and not just within your specific context.

Airnbnb's measures are not fair enough. Allowing free cancelations is in fact always a loss for us hosts. Indeed, either we lose our income at the last minute, or we lose the chance to get reviews, or the chance to get other bookings. Rather, guests have nothing to lose in this process. Here is why it'd be much fairer to freeze any assignment and procedure related to this period, as well as our calendars, which will be blocked for a while. I can understand that you do not see the point, cause this is not affecting you directly, but it is affecting a lot of other hosts, I imagine. Being assessed while your capability of running a business are strongly affected is not fair. Again, think about what is fair for the world community and not just for yourself. 

Hopefully, they will understand that freezing everything is the only best option for everyone.

A.

[Sarah977]

@AandM56  I think you are getting much too upset about losing Superhost status. It's just a carrot Airbnb dangles to keep hosts hopping around trying to do anything to avoid a bad review and never cancel even an inappropriate reservation. It's a calculated behavior modification tool, not necessarily a reflection of being good host. Hosts who've had Superhost status and lost it said it didn't make one bit of difference to their bookings.

Relax, stay healthy- there's more important issues to concern ourselves with right now.

[AandM56]

Sure thing, it's a tool they use. Yet, if you consider it a business (some people live out of this income, don't forget that!) it's a KPI system that provides quite useful information about your performance. For instance, I managed to get a good house for my current field work permanence in the States without any legal reference in the country thanks to my Airbnb's SH badge. This without mentioning both the SH rewards in terms of listing price, services, prompt assistance, booking rates, and the reward of being noted for the hard work done through the years. 

If we apply this 'there are more important issues to concern ourselves with right now' to everything I wouldn't be conducting research at the moment, probably wouldn't even carry out any basic activity in my life. I believe keeping our minds busy with what we care about, with our resources, our work, our activities is definitely a way to try to get through this difficult time maintaining a relatively fine psychological well-being. 

Keep safe 😉

[Sarah977]

@AandM56  I wasn't suggesting for a moment that we apply the "there are more important things to be concerned about " to everything. I just don't think it's worth getting upset about something one has zero control over and which isn't really all that important. My work has pretty much gone on uninterrupted- I'm an upholsterer and work from home, so I can just continue with that and I don't need to get into close physical contact with my clients. I think this is going to be a time when a lot of people either devote more time to things they enjoy doing, but don't normally have the time, or even decide to use the enforced isolation to learn a new language or other skill. It might, in the long run, lead to some people reexamining their life choices and changing careers to something that brings them more fulfillment than what they have been doing. Some people may even find they have interests and skills they never knew about because they were too busy on the day-to-day grind. I could see people spending more time at a hobby they normally have little time for, and parlaying it into an online business. There's all kinds of positive scenarios that will come out of this crisis.

BTW, I do agree with you that they should just suspend the whole Superhost assessment until several months after the pandemic abates. It doesn't make any sense to assess hosts on criteria they can't possibly attain if there aren't any bookings possible and it's not something hosts should have to stress about.

[Sharon480]

I have guests leave 1 star review all the way across after I filed damage claim 

[AandM56]

Thanks for boosting the mood up! We all need to think positive.

I am glad to see that your life and business went on unaffected. Yet, there are people that are in serious despair, as they were relying on this income. Also, the UK situation is very different from the rest of the world. You will see a huge booking decrease in the upcoming months (given you rent a whole house as rooms are now all blocked). Airbnb is giving out grants of 5k to those SH that have this unique source of income. I am sure you have seen the details. For the record, this doesn’t apply to me, I rent my whole house now that I am doing a postdoc away and have given up on the other room I was renting before coming to the States. However, this applies to a lot of other hosts.Very tricky indeed to keep the SH assessment going on then, don’t you think so? I am not angry for my particular situation, but for the fact that instead of helping each other people look at their own situation and don’t care much if others are affected. I get even angrier when I see big companies that do not support those in need in this case. The UK government just released a ban for those renting a room in a shared house for months. A lot of us won’t be able to host anymore for a while. On top, you cannot rent a whole property for over three months in London. How can people not care about the fact that there is an assessment going on in these conditions? Let’s all be honest, we might not necessarily rely on this opportunity as a unique source of income but it was definitely a good chance to earn the extra money you might have needed to get to the end of the month.

Anyway, wish you the best of luck.

[Huma0]

@AandM56 

I understand why you are upset, but Airbnb has gone ahead with the Superhost review, so they're not going to change that now I think. Maybe it might be considered in three months time.

However, they did announce some time ago that they were introducing tools to detect 'outlier' reviews: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-Updates/Airbnb-Answers-Protecting-you-from-one-off-bad-re...

While the details here talk more about a guest leaving 5 stars in most categories and then a low score overall, if all of your hundreds of reviews are 4 and 5 star, then surely that guest that gave you 1 star qualifies as an outlier? The fact that he never stayed should support that assertion. Also, if you have evidence in the message thread that the guest was trying to get a refund and the review was retaliatory, that should booster your case.

I would therefore contact Airbnb and ask them to examine this review as an outlier and have it, and the associated ratings, removed. If they are willing to do that, it should push you back to Superhost level and you should also ask them to reinstate your status.

The problem is, right now, dealing with Airbnb CS is a nightmare due to all the cancellations and confusing policies about them.  So, this might take a while, but I would definitely give it a go.

The only upshot is that, not being a Superhost, you don't get through to the 'Superhost Hotline'. Why might that be an advantage? Well, because you are in the UK, so if you call during office hours, you are quite likely to get through to the Irish call centre where the staff are very helpful and clued up.

Now, last time I called, you could not get through at all via the phone, and I don't know if the Irish call centre is even operating right now, so you might have to send a message instead, in which case it's the luck of the drawer whether you will get a sympathetic CS rep or not.

[AandM56]

Hi Huma,

thank you for your support! 🙂

I tried many times to debate that review, but they don’t care. Honestly, I don’t mind for myself. It’s just bad for all of us. They clearly showed a lack of empathy, lack of understanding, and only cared about their reputation with guests. Sadly, I don’t trust Airbnb anymore.

I am in the States, so I get to talk to the Chinese CS. No idea why... my number is a UK number.

best of luck and keep safe!

Alex

[Derek157]

Hopefully, your first paragraph will come to pass and AirBnB will defer the July review until the dust has settled on the virus.  That will give Hosts like myself and @AandM56  a breathing space to work on improving ratings which have been artificially or maliciously deflated and which we have had no chance to recover from.

[AandM56]

Finally someone that understands that this is an issue!

And it will be like this for a long time!

I am really sorry to hear that you had to cancel so many :(. it’s hard to repair to a review when you can’t work! And it’s unfair to assess your work in times like these!

Derek I was recommended to leave a feedback - the more the better. I left mine yesterday.  It works if a lot of people complain. Like it did work last week when they put off the grant of 5K to help hosts in need. 

good luck with that! 
Alex

[AandM56]

They might remove the assessment in July and I doubt it will retroactively apply to people like me. But at least they will do it!

i find it sad that they focus on certain areas of the world (like Western world) and keep on thinking the virus arrived only recently! This us because some people did not pay attention till they were forced to lockdown. It’s horrible that those that were paying attention to what was happening got penalized!