Host Advisory Board - Top 3 Suggestions

[Mike-And-Jane0]

As The host advisory board members appear to have been instructed to engage with the official Airbnb Community Centre perhaps we could suggest the top 3 concerns for them to take forward to Airbnb. Not an ideal method but it may encourage them/Airbnb to actually do something more efficient to canvass hosts.

My top 3 are:

Reviews - Allow hosts to remove the star rating of 1 review per year. Comments would stay.

Cancellation policy - Apply the hosts cancellation policy EXCEPT where it is inconsistent with the law in the host's country.

Payment - Take responsibility (ie pay) if a guest is introduced to a host but their payment method falls over at a later date.

[Sarah977]

@Liv  So is there now a new rule that humor or sarcasm, as long as it's not a personal attack, is not allowed on this forum?

This is a discussion forum. When people discuss things, they often go off on tangents, interject humor, etc. It's the natural course of human interaction. 

If there were no humor or slightly off-topic banter here, I wouldn't be inclined to participate in this forum at all. We need a little levity to balance the ongoing reports of the horrible situations hosts have to deal with.

I appreciate the mods stepping in when posters get nasty towards each other, and removing spam, but please refrain from dictatorial removal of posts which digress a bit from the original topic.

[Nick]

Thanks for your previous comments here @Sharon1014  and @Sarah977  

I think this thread is an excellent opportunity for hosts to work together with our Host Advisory Board members, and staying on topic here will benefit everyone involved. Although humour is appreciated at the appropriate times, it stops being such when it is targeting other members or having a negative effect upon the productive conversations taking place. It’s also sometimes difficult to judge a joke or sarcastic tone in written word, so please be mindful that newer members on CC may not understand your sense of humour or personality just yet. 

As Sharon said, we are all adults here, and our ultimate goal is to see members having healthy conversations without us having to intervene. Our job is to reinforce the CC Guidelines and make sure this remains a safe and supportive environment for all. Being encouraging and respectful of others is our Community’s number one rule, and unfortunately, we have seen some members forget this in recent times. Keeping respect as a guiding principle will help make our discussions even better and more productive. 

We want to ensure that the conversation doesn’t spiral and remains true to the original topic, but if this cannot be achieved and things devolve, it would be a shame to have to close the thread, given that there is great opportunity to make progress here. 

You are all hosts and have similar worries and goals. Why not welcome everyone, whether new to the Community or an established member, and the different points of view each bring to the discussion? Let’s show each other some genuine hospitality; this is a hosting board after all 😊

As always, you are more than welcome to send me or any other team member, a DM if you have any questions.

[Nathalie-Et-Gilles0]

@Bez8   @Anonymous 

When i started as a host and traveller, i thought it was a great idea to have Airbnb managing the deposit because it was a neutral third party.
As many of brilliant Airbnb ideas, it was totally spoiled to become a lie.
Airbnb does not manage the deposit.

This fact is important because Airbnb forbids hosts to ask a deposit to the guest.
Except that in my country (and maybe yours), a deposit for a rental is lawful.

So if Airbnb does not hold the deposit, host has the right to ask for one directly to the guest and if Airbnb "punishes" in any way the host for doing it, it can be sued for not applying the contract and the deposit.

They cannot pretend to manage a deposit which does not exist.

And obviously, senior hosts prefer other websites to list their home because they are more professional.

[Mary996]

@Nathalie-Et-Gilles0 ... you were saying......."Airbnb does not manage the deposit.

This fact is important because Airbnb forbids hosts to ask a deposit to the guest.
Except that in my country (and maybe yours), a deposit for a rental is lawful.

So if Airbnb does not hold the deposit, host has the right to ask for one directly to the guest and if Airbnb "punishes" in any way the host for doing it, it can be sued for not applying the contract and the deposit."               END QUOTE

Helpful info and a solution to various difficulties eg Large groups and Pets. Require an upfront deposit!! Thank you

[Sharon1014]

Hey @Bez8 here's another thing for the HAB agenda.  Can you please ask the company for a full break- down of what happened to the missing $50 million they were supposed to distribute to hosts in the wake of the EC refunds debacle, and ask them if now that they've kept that money for themselves to prop up their miraculous profit bottom line just prior to the IPO after 7 consecutive years of enormous losses, they're going to distribute the rest to those hosts around the globe who are still suffering horribly because of the company's failure to look after its own?  

I'd also like to know just how much of the $200 million that they did distribute actually went to hosts, and how much instead went into guest refunds, given the wording of this in their S-1 filings was exceedingly dubious, buried in the financials appendix on page F57 of a 400 page document, since guests are "customers" of the company too, just like hosts?  How much of this $250m actually did go to hosts?  Just a shade over $100m?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Sharon1014 Airbnb didn't have to give hosts anything so I think it is a bit irrelevant asking exactly how much money went where.

[Sharon1014]

@Mike-And-Jane0   Seriously??? The company does a huge PR exercise to blast out to the universe how they're fixing up the colossal mess they made by unilaterally over-riding every hosts own cancellation policy (when other platforms upheld these without exception), and then just doesn't pay up, causes immeasurable financial hardship to so many smaller hosts around the globe and you think this is ok because the company didn't have to give hosts anything????

And then the company lies about how much money it did actually distribute or to which cohort of their "customer" base, and this also doesn't matter?

And this lets them off the hook?  I think not, not by a long shot.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Sharon1014 In the UK (and many other countries including I suspect Australia) Airbnb had to override cancellation policies as it would have been illegal to enforce them.

[Sarah977]

@Mike-And-Jane0  What are talking about? You still don't get it. No one is arguing here about Airbnb giving COVID refunds overriding the cancellation policy.  Sharon is addressing transparency in where the money went that was earmarked to give hosts some financial relief from those cancellations.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Sarah977 I think you will find @Sharon1014 said 'how they're fixing up the colossal mess they made by unilaterally over-riding every hosts own cancellation policy (when other platforms upheld these without exception),' So there is someone arguing here about giving refunds overriding. the cancellation policy.

[Sarah977]

@Mike-And-Jane0  But that isn't Sharon's main point here. That ship has already sailed. The main point is transparency in disbursement of funds.

[Sarah977]

@Mike-And-Jane0  That's totally beside the point. That money was said to be set aside to assist hosts. If it wasn't, that's fraudulent.

[Sharon1014]

@Sarah977  is correct.  @Mike-And-Jane0  and here's @Brian still lying his head off about how much they did actually pay to hosts in this clip from January 14 this year at the 2021 Reuters Next Summit.  How can anyone think this appropriate behaviour for a CEO when they have utterly contradicted this themselves in the fine print in the IPO S-1 filings?

Nowthis: "Airbnb CEO Speaks on Travel Amid COVID-19" (pscp.tv)  Fast Fwd to about 22 mins in and there it is in black and white, Brian lying about how much they refunded to hosts.  The truth is in the S-1 filing.

Hosts (especially the smaller hosts, not the property conglomerate mates they court at the expense of small authentic local hosts), have suffered terribly and continue to suffer terribly because Airbnb did not keep or honour their undertaking.  I want to know where the money really went and whether the company is now going to make full recompense to those hosts it treated so badly.  It would also be rather refreshing if the company would stop lying about it.

[Sarah977]

@Sharon1014  It's no wonder guest reviews filled with lies are allowed to stand. Lies are told with impunity and zero conscience from the top down.

[Sharon1014]

@Sarah977   Oh don't get me started on that one.  The evidence list is waaayyyyyyyyy too long to post here!!! 😂😂