Acceptance Rate below target...now what?

[Ann489]

Well, I finally managed to tank my acceptance rate.   Shame on me for not blindly accepting every reservation request that did not meet my requirements(go ahead, bring your three dogs, my cats may not like it and my hubby is allergic, but so what!

You want to host a reception for 50 people in my 720 sq ft guesthouse? Why not? Gotta keep that acceptance rate up, etc, etc)

  I suspect the shaming messages from Airbnb are now going to continue until I bring it back up, sigh.   Did this ever happen to anyone else? 

PS: why is adding a picture always throwing the formatting off?????

[David-And-Frances0]

@Susan17 Great point you are making!!

Huh!  Had no idea they were offering preferential treatment to the absentee landlords that are giving airbnb a terrible name in various communities!

[Lisa723]

@Ann489 @Susan17  @Yadira22  @Emilia42 

I find this very easy to subvert. I accept all requests, with the provision that the unallowed thing will not occur. Here is a real example. "Dear x, thanks so much for your interest in our property. We would love to host you, however, landing a sea-plane on the lake is illegal and would make us very unpopular in the neighborhood. Because Airbnb penalizes hosts for declining booking requests, I'm accepting your request with the provision that you will arrive by land. If this is not acceptable, you can cancel your reservation penalty-free in the next 48 hours."

Or, if you want to be gentler, you can give them a short time to withdraw the request before you provisionally accept it.

I don't understand why all hosts don't do this... I suppose it is a bit of a game of chicken, but I've never lost.  🙂

[Susan17]

Great strategy @Lisa723, but the point is, we shouldn't have to spend our lives trying to find workarounds and ways to subvert all the ridiculous nonsense Airbnb imposes on us day in, day out. It's time-consuming, energy-sapping and utterly head-wrecking. We're hosts, just trying our best to make a living - not some sort of lab rats for Airbnb to play with or experiment on, in their relentlesz pursuit of global dominance and unimaginable riches for the elite few at the top of the pyramid. 

In and of itself, the Acceptance Rate is not the biggest deal really, but taken in conjunction with all the rest of the demeaning,  punitive sh*t we have foisted on us on a daily basis, it's gone way beyond tenable. The more we accept, the more they subjugate us.  

[Lisa723]

@Susan17 Eh, that’s one way to see it I guess. I don’t feel subjugated. To me it’s just a mildly interesting game with a financial upside. Of course if I get summarily delisted I’ll probably be singing a different tune.

[Helen56]

@Ann489   Don't worry too much about it.  For most of this year mine was around 83% to 87%.  Now it has suddenly gone up to 89%.  I also hated all the condescending messages about making people feel welcome... Airbnb should just read my reviews to see proof that I make people feel really welcome!  So i declined some smokers, some rude people and a few with bad reviews and it went down.

When my rate was down in the low 80% range I still got plenty of bookings and nothing bad happened. But it was a constant worry.