Overall Rating & Category Rating

[Nic21]

My guest personally claimed that he gave me all 5 stars, but it ends up the 'Overall Rating' is only 4 stars.

I'm wondering how it works? Because I thought the Overall Rating shall be calculated by a formula based on all Category Rating, for example like: 30/6 = 5 stars.

Overall Rating shall not be rated by Guest anymore, because the mistake they've done during rating it, they cannot undo it & it affects the Host's listing rating unreasonably. 

Anyone knows or experience this before?

[Marzena4]

That overall rating is, or at least used to be, set manually by the guest, @Nic21. Where did you find this: "Overall Rating shall not be rated by Guest anymore, because the mistake they've done during rating it, they cannot undo it & it affects the Host's listing rating unreasonably."?

[Nic21]

Hi. That's my words. Im saying Airbnb shall not allow guest to rate Overall Rating manually after rating each category. Because the overall rating shall be coming from the average rating based on categories. 

[Helen3 · Accepted solution]

Your guest will have rated you 4 stars overall. Perhaps they made a mistake.

Where the guest has admitted on messaging they made a mistake then Airbnb will sometimes alter the rating.

Call them.

[Nic21]

thanks. Meaning the host message the guest in airbnb messaging platform, so that Airbnb will monitor & check and then alter the rating based on guest's admit in the platform? great. Will try.

[Alice595]

It depends who you talk to in the customer service. Normally they will not change anything of the reviews being written. This thread is about the issue with AirBnb review system. Since the reviews are so important to keep superhost status,  in the searching, and first impression of guests when they book. I have the following suggestions and hope all hosts agree to provide feedback to AirBnb through their feedback link

1. Overall star does not reflect stars given in the individual categories.
My suggestion is to average the stars given in each category for the overall star. Or at least provide a prompt to the guest about the contradict of stars given in the overal.

2. Any terminated staying due to various reasons should not be provided a chance for both host and guest writing a review. The termination always involves some types of causes such as emergency situations, hosts and guests conflict due to violation of rules etc. In such a case, the review definitely is biased.

3. Any stay invovles AirBnb for resolution afterward for example the damaged and missing items claims should not have a chance for both host and guest to write a review.

4.  Provide a 48 hours period for both hosts and guests to be able to revise their reviews. If a review is so important to both guests and hosts, a very short time and one click of submit could not really reflect the real experience.

Feedback link is https://www.airbnb.com/help/feedback

[Luciano365]

that means i have to call each guest to talk about this topic? its insane....many host have this problem me included, this is an issue that must be correct at the source from AIRBNB, in you rating page that the guest fill, you must include that IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO MAKE OVERALL RATE LOWER THAN THE LOWEST RATE, example...if guest put 5 stars in each tag, he cannot put 4 star in overall....strange i have to explain this point, semm to me quite logic !!!

AIRBNB please do something... too many host are complaining this point !!!

actually i am suffering from low overall rate when i have almost all 5 starts on each point...!!  tragic!!

[Breighana0]

Call airbnb.  It's a "ghost" category we can't see called "respects house rules."  If the guest leaves it blank, airbnb  lowers your rating to 4.

[Breighana0]

Wow what an odd problem to have.  If only we knew someone else this has happened to!

[Erjon1]

I have the same problem with a recent guest. Category rating was all 5 stars whilst the overall rating was 4 stars. I asked the guest how come and what happened. The answer was he'd rate 5 stars apartments with jacuzzi andlocated in the center. Some people have just **bleep** for brains I guess.

[Breighana0]

Did you call airbnb?  I did and they said it was because the guest left "respects house rules" category blank.  Then they tried to justify how a guest rating a host on respecting their own house rules makes sense.

[Ange2]

@Nic21    I got the same recently 5 stars in all categories but 4 stars next to name of guest. Airbnb told me that this overall rating is used for rating the listing, which must mean that something was amiss that was not included in the rating section, but there is no way of knowing what that is. I wrote to my guest because they were great and I thought something is amiss here, they did not seem duplicitous i.e. giving 5 stars in all categories, saying how much they loved the place and would definitely come back and then dinging me on "overall".

IN FACT:  The question the guest answered and  the ony 5 stars they gave was :  LOCATION: How appealing is the neighborhood"?   

LOCATION !  A category that Airbnb had said they had nixed !

He gave 4 stars as he thought it may be overwhelming for the average traveler because it is a diverse neighborhood.  He wasn't even replying for himself, he was perfectly comfortable here and enjoyed his stay so much he is planning to come back.

[Ange2]

EDIT: Meant the only 4 stars they gave was for LOCATION. (All others were 5)

IN FACT:  The question the guest answered and  the ony 4 stars they gave was :  LOCATION: How appealing is the neighborhood"?   

[Huma0]

@Ange0 is correct. Just because it is showing that the guest rated five stars in each subcategory, it doesn't mean that they did. When a guest doesn't rate the subcategories, or only rates some, which often happens, the ones they don't rate show up as five stars, even when they are not.

This is an Airbnb glitch that Airbnb need to fix but don't seem to be fussed about. It's very confusing to hosts.

[Thomas387]

I'm not understanding why my overall rating as a host is 4.9 but is followed by only one star? Can anyone explain? Thanks