Get guests you can trust— every time

[Lizzie]

Hello everyone,

I hope you are having a good day.

I wanted to let you know that we have updated the booking process to make sure you don’t have to host repeat guests if you don’t want to. Now, anytime you give a guest 3 stars or less, that guest will not be able to instantly book any of your spaces, even if you have Instant Book turned on.

Find out more in our Help Center.

What do you think about these changes? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks,

Lizzie

[Helga0]

@Viviana62 You are welcome ! I came to the forum with my own cry for help and found the shared experiences very encouraging too! 

A wonderful summer to you as well!

[Dianne61]

As a host I am not happy that Airbnb is allowing guests to post pictures of themselves as flowers or a dog.  I want to know who the person is that I am letting into my home.  I want to be certain that the person that shows up at my door is someone I recognize.  I declined a person who was a flower and yesterday, only because the former host reviews were positive, did I accept a person with a picture of a dog.

Please tell me what you will do about this to protect me, your superhost, Dianne Wilkens

[Zephyr0]

I agree. I tell my guests when they arrive that they need to get a better picture. And i have comlained that some guests do not look like their picture.

[Dianne61]

Thank you.  I am glad it's not just me that is concerned.  It's a matter of trust.  If a guest is misrepresenting themself without a picture I am not going to take the chance of having them in my home.  Thanks for the support.  Dianne

[Pat114]

I have asked people to upload a full face photo before booking. Usually, they do. If they don't - I don't book them.

I do explain we need to know who is in our home and on our property at all times for security reasons. A good guest will understand - and appreciate - this consideration.

I noticed one person reverted to an avatar photo after their stay was over.

Now I am remembering - when I was in Peru - taking high security buses - the security people would go down the aisle taking a full face recording of each and every passenger before we left the terminal. This process was recorded for each stop enroute. That is after our official IDs (passports) had all been checked and recorded.

Photo ID is pretty much standard everywhere - where I would want to travel.

[Dianne61]

Thank you I think I will take your advice and do the same.  Afterall if we are going to open our homes to strangers we need to lower the risks that we have control over....Dianne

[Helga0]

@Dianne61, I was fighting for real pictures 2 years ago, when flowers and dogs and sunsets were very common. Now they are rare and I realised that the symbolic pictures were rather telling in the end, a perfect stereotyping done by the guests themselves. You were in no danger by the flower. These are rather fearful guests, who may get on your nerves over time, as they will ask how to use and if tgey are really permitted to use any element of your offer. Typically washing dishes by hand as they don't trust dishwashers. But no mess ever ;-))

[Clara116]

@Dianne0 Hello all: when I get a request for booking - and they have anything like dog, flower or NO picture. I just message immediately that it is MANDATORY from Airbnb that they put a selfie on their profile and once they do that I will continue with their request. It has worked everytime!!! Why wait for anything - we are the hosts and it is our place and I wanna know who is coming.

I had a guy asking about bringing his 20 yr old girlfriend and his profile pic had 3 guys - I wrote and asked him which one of the 3 guys is YOU? And what's your girlfriends name and where is she coming from? He declined the request like a hot potatoe! I had a funny feeling from his request and it proved correct!

Happy Hosting all. Clara

[Ron102]

Hi All,

I don't think I have ever given a 3 star overall rating.  This might be helpful if it was triggered by any single 3 star rating.

I would find it more helpful if guests that gave me a low rating (say 2 or lower) in the past would not be allowed to instant book or maybe even book.  There are some guests who like the location convenience a lot so rebook but will never be satisified with the premesis.   I would prefer not to have to deal with them again.

Thanks for listening

Ron

[Pat114]

My 1, 2 and 3 star ratings were all either people who booked at the last minute and/or were new to airbnb or only had 1 few word review.

I used to give new or unvetted people the benefit of the doubt. No more - as airbnb duns your ratings when you get a troll outlier rating.

Airbnb does not give added weight to the many 5 star reviewers who repeat book. Shame - as this policy gives a lopsided skewed average.

I think it would benefit all - hosts and guests - IF airbnb would explain what the stars mean as people are clicking. Right now, the system is potluck roulette.

[Viviana62]

I agreed with you Pat. I wonder if guests are penalized the same way hosts are when they receive bad ratings. When a guest rates a host I don't think they realize that they may be putting someone out of business and how it would affect other people from reserving. The concept of a Airbnb needs to be explained clearly to all guests and host: what is expected from both sides. We are not hotels. We are family homes offering a more convenient and affordable way to travel for everyone. 

[Irina94]

Would these guests withhold from booking instantly with other hosts? 

[Carl12]

Not sure I understand, is that RETURNING guests only? Might be good for business guests but most people who write me are people who never visited Madrid before. It would be great though to see other hosts gradings, for example, if someone else puts 2 stars overall on a guest, I would not accept them. Repeat customers for certain locations I think is very unlikely, even though I was a superhost once! Feels like it depends more on the destination than anything else. I would probably not go to Dubrovnik several times but you know, Los angeles that has business connections + holiday would be another type of destination.

[Ange2]

@Lizzie  Would be better if there was an Overall rating and that was used as the measure of whether you wanted them back.

[Pat114]

Alas - right now our guest rating allows us to "recommend" or not a guest.

BUT - sometimes you don't know how off-the-wall they can be til you read their off-the-wall review.

Then, the current system doesn't allow you to revise your original vote to recommend them - or not.

And another host may have to suffer the consequences of an off-the-wall guest.

I had a guest I thought was OK. Then I read their totally off-the-wall troll review. Then, I found they had refolded the wet towels and mixed them in with the clean towels. Then they put the dishes and pots and pans DIRTY back on the shelf with the clean dishes and pots and pans! Yikes, luckily I discovered that weird behavior before the next guest arrived.

But it was too late to change my review to DO NOT RECOMMEND this guest. That guest is still out there - at large 😞

Then there are guests who take one profile - and put up another one. I wonder why they do that? Off-the-wall reviews?

It would be good if airbnb does not allow any one person to put up a 2nd profile without including stuff from their original profile. 

With ID verified identy in place, it should be possible to prevent a guest from hiding bad reviews and putting up a 2nd profile.