After receiving an invitation to join the Airbnb Plus program, a financial and a large personal investment was made to prepare the apartment according to the program's check-list.
After the inspection and the photo shoot, I received an email informing me that unfortunately at the moment they could not help new ads in my region to be part of the Airbnb Plus program. I confess that I was disappointed with the email. Well, if they couldn't help new ads to be part of the program, I don't think it was right: firstly, to send the invitation to make part of it, and secondly, not to warn in advance that they couldn't help new ads to be part of the program.
This way the result was for me a loss in terms of money, energy and time to prepare the apartment that wouldn't be part of the program anyway.
I was hoping to be compensated in some way: sending for example the inspection report (I would like to know what was being done well and what should be improved) and/or sending the photos from the photo shoot to update the ad.
After reporting my dissatisfaction through Airbnb Customer Support, it was explained to me that the responsible team unfortunately decided that my advertisement did not meet all Airbnb Plus standards (different explanation than the one that was given to me earlier). It was also explained to me that, at the time they were discontinuing invitations to host ads that did not meet the deadlines set to complete the Plus process stages (I was not informed about any deadlines). Regarding the photos it was explained to me that they do not provide them to the hosts because the Plus program has a specific style and design (this explanation seemed correct to me as the photos are part of the specificity of the Plus program and providing them to the hosts would give them the possibility to use on other platforms for example).
After the explanations from Airbnb Customer Support, I sent another message reminding that in the the Airbnb Plus process program, the next step following the inspection and photo shoot was to create a report to be sent to the host. I also informed that I would like to receive the report to understand the reasons why the accommodation does not meet the standards of the Airbnb Plus program.
Airbnb Customer Support responded by saying, among other things, that they were not in a position to provide further details.
I thanked Airbnb Customer Support for clarifications (in this case, minor) and said, and I repeat here, that this procedure was disappointing and I did not expect it from Airbnb at all. As I said before, I made a great effort to prepare the accommodation according to the Airbnb Plus checklist and I was expecting to at least receive the report that was scheduled to be sent after the inspection.
By not sending me the report, Airbnb is not complying with what was planned and is not being correct in the procedure. In addition, it also shows a lack of consideration for the effort made by the host to respond to the check-list. And all this came after being Airbnb who made the invitation to participate in the program.
Without the report the host is not even able to know what could be improved to provide better stays for guests (whether becoming part of the Airbnb Plus program or not).
