Superhost Status - A LOAD OF BULL!!

Marius-And-Rochelle0
Level 2
Cape Town, South Africa

Superhost Status - A LOAD OF BULL!!

We just received our Superhost status and so I did a search for our place expecting it to be higher up in the rankings. Not only was it LOWER in the rankings for our area, BUT THE VERY LAST LISTING ON THE LIST!! I know Airbnb will tell me that its because we only just got Superhost status, blah blah, but there were many other Superhosts who were also lower in listing rankings than some places who didn;t even have a review yet or very few stars that had a higher listing ranking. WhAT A LOAD OF BULL! After all our hard work to get a higher ranking, we end up with THE LAST LISTING ON THE PAGE!

 

Also, there is no longer ANY PLACE ON THE SITE to actually contact airbnb. Even the "contact us" link which states you can contact airbnb by... AND i QUOTE... "phone, email or chat" goes absolutely nowhere (except back to pre-programmed questions and replies)!! 

 

Am I the only one who feels like maybe the entire airnbnb is just a huge big scam and that (Although we may have been paid out for previous bookings) that one day  NO-ONE will get paid for their reservations and airbnb will walk away with billions of dollars for all booked reservations!!

30 Replies 30

@Marius-And-Rochelle0

Airbnb has never stated that Superhost status gives your listing a boost in the search rankings.

In fact, Airbnb has explicity said that Superhost status does *not* in and of itself give your listing a boost.

What gives your listing a boost is all the work you have done to become a SuperHost: being responsive, getting good ratings, having a terrific listing.

Here is what Airbnb says:

If I’m a Superhost, will my listing get a boost in search results?

Although we don’t give an explicit boost to Superhosts in search, the factors required to become a Superhost do help your listing rank higher. Moreover, we give guests the option to filter their search results to only display Superhosts and occasionally showcase Superhosts on the results page.

 

This can be found here:

https://blog.atairbnb.com/search/

 

So Matthew, What then do they AirBnB mean by.... (and I quote from the SUPERHOST REWARS email I received as I can't attach a screenshot here)....

"INCREASED VISIBILITY - Priority Placement - Featured to guests across Airbnb in search, emails and more"

 

Here is the link to that as well but as airbnb disable links you probably won't be able to see it... https://www.airbnb.com/hosting/rewards?euid=104df8ae-34e4-4f0a-8c60-1cd9e08736cb

 

@Marius-And-Rochelle0 what they mean by being featured to guests is that Airbnb will promote that Superhosts are desirable hosts to stay with... in general.

They also feature Superhosts in search by having the "Superhost only" filter in the guest search, so that only listings from Superhosts appear.

Yes, it is thin compensation for the hard work people do to be a Superhost.

 

My philosophy is this: Superhost status is recognition for being a great host... a goal that hosts should be striving for even if the Superhost program did not exist.

Are you working hard to provide a great experience to your guests just because you want that badge?

Or do you provide a great experience because you want your guests to have a wonderful stay with you?

 

If you are just working for the badge, then I can totally understand being upset at the rewards that go with it.

 

But if you do all the extra things because you want your guests to have an amazing vacation, then the badge really is secondary. Just a cherry on top of the cake.

 

I am happy if my guests are happy. I am happy if I get good bookings at a good rate. Having a lot of happy guests is the number one way to get a good search rank and more good bookings.

 

The badge is just a badge.

 

@Matthew285

 

Hi Matthew,

 

Yes, I agree it isn't just about a badge, and the experience we wish to give our guests has nothing to do with a badge. There are no real benefits for being a Superhost to us as most of the other benefits that would interest us are "coming soon" and the only real benefit was the priority placement. The reason why priority placement was important to us is obvious (hopefully more bookings, especially as we are going into winter and get virtually no bookings during winter) and I was upset that:

a.  I literally spent hours trying to find out how to phone, email or chat with someone at airbnb but was unsuccessful

b. Expecting to find our listing higher in the rankings, I found our listing stone-last

 

I also expected that by posting on the airbnb community forum, someone at airbnb would be monitoring it and get back to me and then I could delete the post. But they haven't and it doesn't seem like I can delete the post either. I did see somewhere that you could edit your post within 48 hours but I wasn't even given 24 hours and it said the time to edit it had expired.

 

In terms of the description of Superhost placement priority, thank you for your explanation. If you are correct then perhaps they should change the wording of "priority placement" to "superhost promotion" as the "superhost filter" is covered as a separate item. 

 

Anyway thanks Matthew. I do still hope that someone at airbnb will contact me and then delete the post.

 

@Marius-And-Rochelle0 I don't think there is any reason to delete the post;

it was how you felt about the topic, and I'll bet you aren't the only person to feel the same way.

 

I thought being a Superhost got you all those cool things too... until it didn't. If a lot of hosts are feeling the same way, then Airbnb needs to do a better job of explaining what hosts actually get.

 

Maybe seeing that it is very upsetting to hosts is the only thing that will get Airbnb to improve the explanation and promotion of the program.

 

In reading that quote you included about "Increased visibility": of course a lot of hosts are going to read that and feel they are going to get a search boost. It is a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the words.

 

In this discussion board, in a way we are just trying to talk hosts off the ledge once they find out what the words really mean.

Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom

What a shame when you have such a lovely place and great reviews, that you come across in this post as rather unreasonable,

@Marius-And-Rochelle0 . As  @Matthew285 mentions Superhost status doesn't lead to an automatic increase in your search rankings.

 

There are three places for you to find contact information about Airbnb:

 

1. When you got your superhost status you will have been given a customer services number for superhosts

2. There is a Contact Airbnb post at the top of the forum you are actually posting in which lists all the ways of contacting them.

3. If you go on the Airbnb Help Centre and search Contact Airnbnb you can request a call.

 

You are clearly upset with Airbnb, but there is little point taking this out on your fellow hosts by shouting at them (using capitals). I wouldn't work with the platform if I thought they were going to walk away with my money.

 

Certainly there are many other platforms if you don't like how Airbnb operates or of course you can set up your own website and invest in marketing it.

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Helen,

 

As I stated to Matthew - 

What then do they AirBnB mean by.... (and I quote from the SUPERHOST REWARS email I received as I can't attach a screenshot here)....

"INCREASED VISIBILITY - Priority Placement - Featured to guests across Airbnb in search, emails and more"

 

Here is the link to that as well but as airbnb disable links you probably won't be able to see it... https://www.airbnb.com/hosting/rewards?euid=104df8ae-34e4-4f0a-8c60-1cd9e08736cb

 

Also, I was not given a customer services number when I received superhost status. All I received was a link to twitter.

There is a list of ways but they lead to nowhere except pre-programmed replies and this forum.

Please tell me where I can request a call as I do not see this anywhere.

Thank you.

Hi Helen,

 

I am very reasonable... as my guests will attest to. But when one has spent over 2.5 hours going around in circles just to try to find out how I can contact airbnb - clicking on all the buttons where they say you should to contact them by phone, email or chat, only to go back into pre-programmed questions and answers, then one does get very frustrated. If I could get hold of them, then I never would have had to go the route I did - ie. on the community forum. 

 

My frustrated expressions were not aimed at my fellow airbnb hosts. They were aimed at airbnb for not being able to contact them - which I hoped they would read and respond. I had a query before and it was relatively easy to contact them and the representative who replied was very helpful. But I could no longer reply to her previous threads and it seems that all other avenues no longer exist. The help contre only has pre-programmed questions and answers. Please try to go there yourself and see if you are able to find a phone number, email address or chat option. Maybe in your country it is different. Although it says to click on the link for those options, it does not give me those options when I click on it. 

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply though 🙂

Priority placement.JPG

@Marius-And-Rochelle0

 

You are right, this is misleading and actually downright dishonest. Why does it say priority placement in search, when on these forums, Airbnb has confirmed that Superhost status has no effect on your search placement? Having a Superhost filter is not the same as priority placement in search as most guests have no idea about it so will never use that filter.

 

As for contacting Airbnb, I use a UK number as I am based in London. I have never had a separate Superhost number to my knowledge. Before being a Superhost, I would call the number and be put through to a call centre in Ireland. Now, once I plug in my details, I get a message like "Welcome Superhost!" and am diverted to a call centre somewhere in the US. Either way, I have always got through very quickly.

 

However, from comments I've seen on the forums, this is not the case in every country. It seems that it's much harder to get through in the US for example than it is here.

 

Also, you are right that it is frustratingly difficult to find the contact numbers on the website. Yes, they are here on the forums, but that is not good enough. People shouldn't have to hunt around for ages looking for the contacts and many people would not know to go to the forums looking for them. It's a deliberate strategy to cut down the number of people who call Airbnb CS.

 

Frustrating as all of this is, I don't think any of it should lead one to believe it is a scam and that Airbnb is going to run off with our money!

 

I share your disappointment that Superhosts are not adequately promoted/rewarded (I also used to think I would get a higher search placement when I first achieved the status), but I try now not to stress as much about it. I'm happy to receive the badge and I use it as a selling point on my listings and profile.

 

It would be great though if Airbnb did a better job of educating guests about Superhosts so that more of them would actually use the filter in their searches. 

@Marius-And-Rochelle0 also, on the contact page: if you want to actually reach the support people, when you get to the page with the topics, choose "It's something else".

 

That will get you to the page where you choose to contact them via Message or Phone call.

 

Also, the Airbnb phone number for 

South Africa: +1-855-424-7262 (toll-free)

 

The "South African number" in your reply is not a South African number and is not toll free. It is an international number which from South Africa is far from toll free. And could you tell me where you got this number from please because I can;t find numbers anywhere.

 

Thank you anyway for taking the time to respond. 

@Marius-And-Rochelle0 I did not realize the phone number was not toll free!

(I have never had the opportunity to call it).

 

I found that phone number (along with the number for many other countries here:

 

https://all-about-airbnb.com/post/138799279996/airbnb-support-resources-local-phone-numbers-and-emai...

 

I also really want to figure out how to get you to the page that lets you send a message or ask for a phone call back, so that you know how to reliably reach Airbnb. My help page is not like your help page, and I would love to learn how to make the instructions work for everybody.

 

PS: if you use the '@' to tag me in the messages, then I will be notified that you replied. I woud have responded much sooner if I had known you had posted a reply.

 (I only saw your reply message by chance.)

@Marius-And-Rochelle0 also, can you tell me if you get the button with "It's something else" if you use this link:

 

https://www.airbnb.com/help/contact_us/channel

 

and if that takes you to the page with the option for Messages or a Phone Call.

 

I wonder if this is a country-specific issue.