Feedback on your Reservation List

[Lizzie]

Hello everyone,

I hope you are well.

I’ve been sharing a lot of your feedback with Airbnb teams. Some of them are really interested in getting your point of view on certain parts of the product, specifically. The Host Success team is working on ways to support Hosts and provide the tools you need to host successfully.

They are currently evaluating feature changes to the desktop Reservations List (https://www.airbnb.com/my_reservations) and would love to hear from you on how you use it: 

• How do you use the reservations list in your day-to-day, if at all?
• What is useful in your reservations list?
• What is challenging?
• Any suggestion on how to improve it?

I will share the feedback you submit on THIS topic specifically with the Host Success team.

Thank you so much and I look forward to hearing from you.

Lizzie

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[Steve143]

Hello @Lizzie,

I use it every day to check whether both guests' profiles are shown under "print confirmation". When they are, I mention it in the review that they've taken the time to do so.

I like that the phone number and email link are shown in the list without you having to go to the guest's profile. It's also useful that cancellations and rebookings by the same guest are shown in time order.

Please have the reservations list also available in the drop down menu when clicking on "Host". It should be listed together with Inbox, Calendar, Listings etc.  It's good to have it on the hosting dashboard but it should also be accessable with fewer clicks.

A facility to group the reservations by status would be nice so you could quickly see all the canceled ones.

I'm not sure if this is the place to mention the following but here goes.

Can the "House rules" section under "print confirmation" be changed to reflect the house rules as they were at the time that the guest booked. At the moment, if you change the rules, the new ones are shown in the guest confirmation. This isn't right as it's the original ones which form part of the contract with the guest.

Steve.

[Lawrene0]

I really like the reservations list, @Lizzie. I look at mine every day, and use it heavily for both quick checks (that I am right - or wrong - about who is coming next) and getting more details. I agree with everything @Steve143 has said in regard to challenges and improvements. As well, I would love to see it made available on the app.

[Liz342]

Thanks for including the link. I had no idea this existed! I'm sure I will use it now as it looks like a good comprehensive summary.

Liz

[Lizzie]

It is fantastic to hear your feedback on this @Steve143 and @Lawrene0. It sounds like for you it is a go-to tool on a daily basis. I like to hear your suggestions as well on this.

@Liz342 I'm so pleased to hear that you have now discovered this page. I hope it will be a useful tool to you. Once you have played around with it for a few days, feel free to pop back and provide any intial thoughts you have on it. 🙂

Please do continue to share your thoughts on this. 

Thanks again,

Lizzie

[Alexandra316]

@Lizzie I pretty much never use it. I primarily use my calendar and click through to individual reservations if I want the details. I find that view easier, as I can see the dates more clearly laid out that way. I would like to see the information shown on the calendar to be more detailed (including number of guests and payout amount).

Something that I don't like about the list view is that it lumps all properties together. I feel that there should be a way to divide them by property so you can see what's upcoming individually. Perhaps a sorting tool, so you could sort by date, property, filter out cancelled reservations, etc.

[Francisco3]

Never use agree with @Alexandra316

[Lizzie]

Thanks @Alexandra316 and @Francisco3. It is good to hear other the other side of the coin too. Is there a particular reason why you don't use it, do you use another section for this perhaps or is this section something you want, but perhaps it doesn't work as you like for your use?

It would be great to hear more. 

Thank you,

Lizzie

[Alexandra316]

@Lizzie I just find it's easier to wrap my head around the calendar view, because it lays things out more clearly. I like the visual aspect to it.

[Kate2]

I would like to be able to export my bookings calendar within the app on my phone. Right now there is only a way to do so from the mobile site or from my Laptop. 

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

• How do you use the reservations list in your day-to-day, if at all?

I used to use this list a lot more but with the improvements to the navigation with the dashboard, I rarely find myself coming here unless the system navigates me there from another link.  I am a visual user, so the calendar works much better for me and I use this as a launching spot for all my activities.  

• What is useful in your reservations list?

What is useful is that the guest's phone number is right there.  However, I tend to need this information on my mobile, where this feature is not available.  I must resort to a "call the guest" click through to get the phone number I need to set alarm codes and door locks.  This desktop feature, in a lighter version, would be helpful on the mobile application.  

To be fair, this list is mostly useful for seeing how many cancellations you've had for a specific set of dates or months.  I interpret a constant booking and cancelling as guests booking and holding my property while waiting for Smart Pricing to drop the cost somewhere else - they are price hopping.  Right now I have a weekend that was booked and cancelled 3 times by 3 different guests.  I'm not inclined to allow Airbnb to add a 10% discount when I see this because I do not want to encourage price gouging or rewarding people for holding a set of dates until it's close only to be given an extra lower price last minute.  I think some guests are wise to this activity.  We certainly are.  

We will use this list to go back to reservations that were previously held when scrolling back through the calendars will take too long.  So for instance, if I recall having a conversation with someone about "Oh, we should come back to Durham for that." and "that" is happening, I will use this list to reach out to contact the guest quicker than using the Message Board or the Calendar.  

In all it has some useful functions but is no long the most useful way for me to reach or see my guests. 

• What is challenging?

If you have more than one property, these reservations are mixed in together and there is no way to sort them. 

When you first navigate to the page, only future reservations show up in chronological order.  If you navigate away to the history it starts with the reservation farthest from today and works backwards (so all "future" plus all "past) in backwards chronology.  To get back to only current from today to the end, you have to reload the page to go back to only future - there is no toggle for switching between views. 

When you click on a link, it overwrites the page (except for Print Confirmation).  These links should open in new pages, not the current one. And the navigation from each of these links should be the same - why does Print Confirmation do something different? 

OHHH THE SCROLLING AND SCROLLING AND SCROLLING....... this seems so old school and is so very tiresome. A long page full of repetative text isn’t a very engaging UI layout.  I have a BIG screen and the scrolling seems endless.  And then when you finally get to the bottom, there's no navigation from there, so we're scrolling up again.  

• Any suggestion on how to improve it

fixing the challenges above would help.  make it available on mobile. I'd really have to sit with it for a longer period of time to really tell you what to improve since I've almost stopped using it at this point.  

[Tracey---Bryan0]

I really only visit here to get a link to my guests email address so that we can send our property information ahead of their arrival. Would love the email link to be clickable from the individual reservations page as well. Also, a feature for attaching a PDF to our Airbnb message thread would be great and would mostly eliminate the need for email altogether.

[Rachel1058]

Hi Tracey+Bryan,

That's exactly the problem I have now as a host.

It used to be that airbnb provided a name-xxxx@guest.airbnb.com email address that I could send PDF and etc to from my personal email. Now this is not provided and maybe does not exists.

With their new updates, as of today, I only can create a message within Airbnb reservation list on its platform and no attachments allowed. 

I spent 15 min on the phone with customer service, no comprehension. I want to have my guests signing a rental agreement and reading my instructions. I will not be renting through airbnb if this option is not available. VRBO is a much friendlier platform and customer service is knowledgeable.

P.S. I entrust my guests $1M+ house and Airbnb creates all the secrecy around the direct contact of the host and the guests. It is frustrating.

[Ria16]

@Lizzie Have to say I never use it either.  I’m a very visual person. I like looking at the calendar which gives me clear details of whom is arriving and on what day.. It’s important for me to ‘see’ the days of the week as I never know what day is what. 😉 

[Francisco3]

@Lizzie I use calendar view.

I would like to have timed automatic message 4 or so.

1. post booking message that I customize

2. Pre arrival message that I customize

3. Pre checkout message that I customize

4. Reveiew riquest message that I customize

5. One random one tat I can customize to send on special day once a week to tell folks something that happens on that day. ie like take trash out.