Updated amenities list - what do you think?

[Huma0]

Hello, @Robin4 brought this to my attention in another thread.

Were you aware that the amenities list has been greatly expanded to include a lot more detail? I wasn't and I updated the amenities on my listings not very long ago.

So much stuff has been added that I can't begin to list it but, for example,  you can now specify:

- Your WiFi speed

- What kind of TV you have, including size, and what services you offer on it (Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.)

- What kind of heating you have

And here's where it gets a bit over-the-top in my opinion, but also:

- Which brands of shampoo and conditioner you supply

- What type of bedlinen, is it 100% cotton? Eygptian cotton? Silk?

- Not only what brands your fridge, stove etc. are, but whether the stove is stainless steel or not

And on and on.

What does everyone else think about it? Is it a good thing, e.g. more cover for a host if a guest complains about amenities when they were very clearly listed? Or, is this just too much detail to give? I can't put brand of shampoo as it varies and I have different sets of linens consisting of different types of cotton as well as silk and non-silk bedspreads, so I don't want to be that specific. Of course, it is optional which details you fill in.

Personally, I don't mind providing detail. What I do mind is that Airbnb keeps changing the amenities list without notification and, when it does, a lot of your previous settings disappear. Yes, I provide shampoo, and I have ticked this numerous times, but every time Airbnb makes one of these updates, the box (along with many others) becomes unchecked. You find out by accident and then have to check all that stuff again, on every listing. Yawn.

[Cormac0]

@Cathie19 

Thanks for that LOL moment...

[Cathie19]

You’re most welcome @Cormac0. Always think a laugh is good medicine, especially during an Airbnb session or a sh1##y global health pandemic. 🤒😷😬😞😒😏🤔😐😌🙂😇😁🤪

Nice to hear from you. #StaySafe. 

[Huma0]

@Cathie19 

Loving the cheeky seal of approval. Now, if only I could figure out where to get some of these cuties. I could promise them a good home but I am not sure my cats would be amused.

[Marit-Anne0]

When editing my listings, they show in Norwegian by default and I noticed when updating for the new amenities specification that things are lost in translation, showing the same amenities twice. I had to change to the English version for the correct specifications. I do remember one was the various ways of making coffee, do not remember the second.

And the type of aircon common in Europe is not even listed it seems. Saw them in Japan too. Not portable, not central and not window, but and indoor/outdoor wall mounted units, sometimes  split with several indoor units that can be operated individually. Usually reversible heating/cooling. Anyone who can tell what those are called ?

[Cormac0]

@Huma0 

What they've done is created a scoundrel's charter for example,

Do a random speed check on you internet over Wi-Fi and from one day to the next it differs, how many times have we seen report of people looking for full refunds because of Wi-Fi speeds.

Egyptian cotton sheets, who'll know or invest energy in arguing about the sheets other than a scoundrel. 

I'm sure the sheet quality is the first thing that spring to mind when you're booking accommodation unless of course your neurotic.

The shampoo, reminds me of the shop where I had my dry cleaning done,  Bob (not his real name) had a side line of home brew which he used to sell to local restaurants, Bob was always petitioning his confidence for premium empty wine bottles that he could fill and recap with his own hooch, apparently those unsuspecting restaurant customer that that thought they were drinking Nuits-Saint-Georges were drinking a wine from one of bob's minor vintages, nobody complained surprisingly!

so save all those Redkin & Aveda shampoo bottles and fill them with the cheapest shampoo you can find.

I said it before and I say it again, its time for a change of management at the top of Airbnb, its gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Please note I did not condone or participate in Bob's activity, but there are plenty that will given the right circumstances!

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

This is what it has arrived at !

I described my Airbnb as 'Onerus' in a recent 'one word' thread. Universally apt, it seems.

[Alexandra316]

@Huma0 I like it in theory, but I totally agree with not adding brands. For one thing, how high-maintenance does a guest have to be that they're going to care about your refrigerator brand?

"Oh, it's Sub Zero or nothing for me, I'm afraid. If that oven isn't a Bertazzoni, I'm not coming." 

But maybe having the option to check Netflix-only will stop people from getting to my listing then freaking out when they can't watch CNN. However, if the guest isn't able to comprehend that detail in the three places it's currently listed, I'm not convinced the fourth time is the charm. 

One thing that I find funny is that they ask you to choose the type of heating and cooling, but don't give you the option to specify who controls it. That's of key importance to me: most people seem to set the AC way too cold for my liking, and especially tends to be an issue in basement suites. There are also some really odd appliance choices: why a breadmaker, but no toaster or blender, for example? 

I can also totally see the potential for guests abusing this. What happens if brands change between the time the guest books and their arrival? I had to switch out a fridge in the middle of a guest's stay last year: could that be grounds for a refund? ("They said the fridge was a Liebherr, but it was actually a Whirlpool! I booked because they said it was a Liebherr! Give me my money back!"). I can see some foolishness like that happening. 

[Huma0]

@Alexandra316 

I reckon a guest would have to be super high maintenance to want to know the brand of the fridge. A lot of guests comment on my fridge/freezer because it's pretty impressive (retail price is £thousands, but of course, that's not what I paid for it):

Still, no one has EVER asked me about the brand.

RE heating/cooling, no I don't want my guests fiddling with the controls at all. They will turn the heating up to full blast and then open all the windows because it's too hot. I've even had some leaks and damage to ceilings and furniture below after guests manhandled radiator valves after I specifically told them not to. They then got very angry when I mentioned the damage and left low star ratings. Go figure.

Yes, what is the breadmaker thing about? I know that a lot of people have suddenly gotten into baking bread because of lock downs, but really? Surely that is not top of people's kitchen amenities lists? Like you say, wouldn't a kettle or toaster be more important?

[Alexandra316]

@Huma0 That fridge is stunning. Not surprised you get compliments. 

In a shared house, I definitely wouldn't want guests fooling with my heating and cooling settings. However, even though it's part of my house, my flat has its own furnace, which I think is a selling feature. Guests can have it as warm or cool as they like. 

A kettle! That's another really basic one that's not covered: good call!

Who goes to Berlin, or Tokyo, or London, and thinks "I know what I've got to do in this Airbnb rather than going out and seeing the sites! Use a breadmaker to bake some bread!" 

[Huma0]

@Alexandra316 

Thank you! I wasn't trying to show off (well, maybe a little as I am proud of my bargain hunting skills) but my point was that even then, no one asks about the brand of the fridge.

I wonder who came up with this list of what most guests find important. If surveyed and asked if they would prefer and kettle and toaster in the listing, or a piano instead, I wonder what most would say? Maybe the kettle and toaster is a given, while a piano is definitely not, but by that theory, Airbnb aren't really verifying amenities, are they? Not some of the important ones anyway.

Yes, my house is centrally heated, I live here and, in better times, normally have three guests staying. I can't have one guest dictating the temperature for the rest of us. However, I can adjust things if people ask and it's a reasonable request. They absolutely are not allowed to touch the boiler. Besides anything else, I don't want to risk the damage and guests do frequently damage stuff because it's different to what they are used to at home. Even though they are not supposed to fiddle with the radiator valves in their rooms, they often do and sometimes this has caused not insignificant damage.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Alexandra316 @Huma0 

The absence of, or breakdown of an amenity - or even the mis-description of that amenity can lead to payout deductions. The only way to avoid those is to not be specific.

There is another possible reason for all this detail, and that's data mining. This has been going on for years and there's already a whole thread on here on the CC. Two people can want to book the same apartment on different devices and depending on their 'profile' based on their usage, preferences and the device being used, each can be provided different individual prices. 

Here's the thread:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Guests-seeing-different-prices/td-p/125396

The use of this kind of data mining, or in layman's terms.. just keeping details on users, can lead to discriminate pricing. 

The thread links to some interesting information, here it is to save looking:

Posted by @Susan17 :

OECD REPORT NOV 29, 2018

Personalised Pricing In The Digital Era

"As data analytics and pricing algorithms become common business practice in the digital era, there are growing concerns about the possibility that companies use such tools to engage in personalised pricing, a form of price discrimination that involves char ging different prices to consumers according to their willingness to pay.

Moreover, if these practices are conducted using non transparent or deceptive means, there is also a risk that they reduce market trust and create a perception of unfairness, potentially dampening consumer participation in digital markets"

Web Use Can Give Vendors Clues About Which Customers To Charge More.

"Various online retailers are occasionally caught charging different prices to different customers, including Amazon.com Inc., which said it abandoned the practice back in 2000. Researchers found in 2014 that human shoppers got worse bargains on a number of websites, compared to an automated browser that didn’t reveal its identity.

There are a bunch of ways companies can figure out how much each consumer is willing and able to pay. Some are easy -- charge more to people using an expensive Apple Inc. computer, or to people using certain types of email accounts. An online retailer can also look at people’s product search histories to steer them toward higher-priced products.

But the real money would come from big data. The more data a merchant gets about a customer -- where they live, what they buy, what websites they visit, etc. -- the better they can predict how much they’d be willing to pay for a certain product. Conceivably, with enough data, merchants could figure out the maximum amount each customer is willing to pay, and then charge them that. 

And price discrimination is especially bad when combined with monopoly power -- if large, dominant online retailers get into differential pricing, consumers could suffer a great deal"

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2018-03-09/big-data-might-tell-retailers-which-consum...

The conclusion of the thread had no Airbnb representation, so nobody disputed this. Now, the likes of Amazon collect verbal data via their Alexa App, purchases, historical data etc... Data is big business. Even on this Community Centre you have the option to fill in personal details about your hobbies, it collects what devices you connect with, where you connect from etc..

You may have all had notifications in your dashboards along the lines of "Do you have a coffee maker" - we don't. Our guests would have informed Airbnb of that amongst their 13 page review process whilst collecting data. You might have had other amenities to confirm or deny which are more specific to your listings? If you haven't - you could go into extreme detail on the amenities section and help profile your guests as well as your own purchase preferences. 

[Huma0]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 

That's a good point and data collection certainly seems like a reason that Airbnb might be doing this. I wonder if they will send out any messaging to hosts explaining their reasons?

I've always assumed (until I recently read the thread you mentioned) that guests will get charged the same across the board as our prices are already set out, but it seems that Airbnb may be using those variable guest fees as a way to squeeze more money out of some than others. I never really understood why they had a fixed percentage for hosts but a variable one for guests, yet this makes it a little clearer.

Those little prompts asking you to confirm this stuff every time you go to your listing are starting to get annoying though as they have been happening for some time, and it seems you have to keep ticking the same boxes over and over.

[Ann72]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  Sorry to be dense but in your last two sentences you're being sarcastic, right?  🙂

I'm ignoring all suggestions to give more detail.  Everything that I set up whenever ago is correct and upon checking has not been altered or removed.  I would advise everyone to ignore those questions that you know have already been answered in your listing details.

I missed that post about how many people saw different prices for the same details.  Interesting that more frequent users got the higher prices.  Might partially explain why so many newly created accounts book...

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Ann72 

Profiling ourselves and guests? Yep. The data works both ways as what we provide is probably what what we like, and must go - some - way towards what our guests like.

I wouldn't want to use that sort of data for profiling, as it all seems rather presumptuous unless budget appears in the equation. Differentiating listings by bedding type would just never make the comparison list. I wonder how effectively it would work when a guest is booking for a group of eight when the decision to book is not entirely the responsibility of one?

I'm not adding more detail either. 

[Basha0]

@Mark116 @Huma0 i have house info and agreement that guests have to sign. If they sign and don’t read it there’s not much more I can do