Discounts for highly rated guests.

[Ryan845]

I have usually always taken any guest if they had reviews or not.  

However lately I have had issues with guests that have no reviews.  At this point I would prefer to host for guests that have good reviews and I think a nice way to do that would be able to offer discounts for those guests.  

[Elena87]

@Ryan845 

You could consider to activate the option listed below that you can find in your Guest Requirements set up - this means anyone who doesn’t have previous reviews would have to send you a request.

Recommendation from other hosts - Require guests to have recommendations from other Airbnb hosts and no negative reviews

[Ryan845]

I do have that option activated.  Just saying it would be nice for highly rated airbnb users to see discounts while searching for a place.  It would also motivate unrated or low rated guests to get good reviews by leaving the listing in good condition.

[Helen3]

I am not sure it would make any difference to bad guests to know that 'good' guests can get a discount. @Ryan845 

Sadly bad guests, will be bad guests regardless of what they pay.

The best way to minimise the risk of bad guests I would suggest are;

1. Vet your guests (I do this through IB questions and checking their previous reviews )

2. Have CCTV for remote listings 

3. Clear house rules around anti-social behaviour and making it clear additional guests using the property above those on the booking are grounds for cancellation

4. Personally check in guests

5. Watch out for red flags i.e. one local person booking house for six on a Saturday night.

6. Only accepting guests with previous positive reviews on IB.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Ryan845 

Hosts are controlled by the SuperHost programme - so why not guests? Great idea! 

SuperGuests. Any encouragement for those would be a move in the right direction.

[Helen3]

I agree it would be good to have a 'super guests' category - but how would it be structured? @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 

You can't do it on how many trips as you can be a great guest and not travel a lot.

The other issue with reviews is that some hosts lie and provide five star ratings to awful guests. Or they use a cleaning service and just provide a standard five star without actually checking with their cleaning service about how the guest left somewhere.

I know when I have stayed as a guest some hosts leave me a great review when I have barely left the listing.

Happy for guests to receive incentives as we do, but I don't think they should be coming out of hosts bookings in terms of a discount. but from Airbnb.

[Ryan845]

It’s not that you would be giving the incentive out of your booking, the incentive would be to have more guests book your home that have good reviews by offering a optional discount.  Yes the guest would have to get more than let’s say 5 five star reviews but their super guest status wouldn’t expire like super hosts do for a longer period of time.  The only way to lose it would be to get a bad review and then they would need to earn more positive reviews to earn it back.  I think this would also benefit airbnb by encouraging people to book more trips and earn the super guest status.

[Elena87]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 

I had a guest two years ago, booked with a exemplary solid set of reviews, a so called SuperGuest you might say.

They self checked out - place was left like Bournemouth beach after a June weekender.

In a nutshell, I discovered this guest usually travelled with his wife and family however during my booking he journeyed with friends. The whole dynamics changed and I suppose the wife was likely the 'Superguest' all this time and he was the clown school graduate with feral tendencies.

All I'm saying, ain't no guarantees in this game.

[Ryan845]

If this guest had incentive to not lose her super guest status she might of made her husband make his own account.  

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Elena87 

This is such a common occurrence and is a guest identification issue. We have accommodation for 8 and those individual 8 are 'trading' on the rating of just one booking guest. Airbnb do have a booking tool where other guests can be added to an itinerary, it is at the request of the booking guest. I don't think it should be by request, it should be by default and such an easy thing to do.

If all guests are registered through Airbnb, any good review is shared - and likewise, any bad review is too. There is no indication from Airbnb that this group registration will ever be a requirement - but it would solve plenty of problems and relieve many issues.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Helen3 

It's a pretty moot point really, it will never happen as any sort of barriers put in place against guests - for whatever reason - will simply be ignored. Ignored, like pretty much everything else that's discussed on these forms.

With the existence of a Superguest discount the listing base price would just need to be higher and make a listing offer to the lesser desired guests less competitive. I can't see that suggestion going down very well, and there won't be an Airbnb incentive for this, but it would need to be financed somehow. This would depart from the guest centric ways developed by Airbnb and would be beyond their consideration.  This is what this is all about, simply Airbnb not siding with guests at every opportunity and instead delivering fair judgements on resolutions. The inequality in all of the one sided penalty review system, Airbnb controlling damage deposits, not administering hosts booking rules and policies, the non-existent Host Guarantee scheme.. the list could go on. Fundamentally, the system just needs fixing from the roots up.

Utopia would be problem guests not existing. Airbnb do not dissuade these, and do not support hosts in rectifying the problems they cause, so searches for alternative solutions are generally solved like sticking insulation tape over a pipe burst when the whole pipe needs replacing. In so many ways, everything Airbnb do to fix a problem ends up just being another problem to be fixed, and then that again another. Rather than just fixing the real problem that exists in the first place.

Sure, this SuperGuest could work, but everything else in place before it needs to be working first I think.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Ryan845  @Helen3 @Elena87 

Airbnb tried this Superguest initiative before but failed to make it happen. On Feb 22, 2018 it was part of "Brian's Big Global Announcement" video. It was supposed to be launched in summer 2018 but subsequently scrapped with other initiatives which must have cost fortunes...

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/new?locale=en

Feb 22, 2018. Part of "Brian's Big Global Announcement" video

One  "perk" for Superhosts being promoted at the same time was being able to offer "special discounts" to guests to encourage them to stay with hosts again in the future. Maybe this was going to be the basis of the Superguest initiative(?) As  @Helen3 mentioned "but I don't think they should be coming out of hosts bookings in terms of a discount"  It is funny how discounting a listing is a perk for a host, don't you think? 😂 Rightly, as a perk to a loyal guest - a loyalty discount provided BY Airbnb from their service fees would be a great idea too!

It was Later that year Gregg Greeley stated that "research had been made and a pilot had been put together... and the team is waking up every day thinking about how they could have a great Superguest program for those loyal guests that are asking for it"..  ( Not sure here whether the loyal guests were asking for an imposed discount or not...) So maybe it's not yet entirely off the drawing board, and is currently a long term recurring nightmare for that team! At least for the ones who have not been laid off?

The other initiatives were all displayed in the presentation to a cooing audience, only one of those initiatives still actually remains:

Only Superhost remains of the initiatives presented

[Ryan845]

Yeah I think I remember Plus.  Might be a good time to revisit Superguest.

[Sarah977]

@Ryan845  I'm not the least bit interested in giving discounts to anyone. My place is already priced for budget travelers. If i gave discounts, it wouldn't be worthwhile to host.

As far as I'm concerned, being a good guest should be the norm, and expected, not something that needs to be rewarded. 

If Airbnb wants to reward them with a voucher, like they do for Superhost, that would be fine, but hosts giving discounts for someone to behave themselves- no way.

[Ryan845]

So raise the price and the budget travelers will be more conscious of their ratings and low rated or high risk travelers will earn you more money.  Or just don’t give them discounts because it should be optional.