As superhosts who love the airbnb platform, we wanted to inform others of how frustrated and disappointed we are with the airbnb plus on boarding process. We have now been dealing with this for over 4 months, and every stage of this the process (as well as the communication) seems to be more prone to errors than than the last. Please see my abbreviated timeline, we may not even bother at this stage as the whole thing is obviously a poorly run program.
Late October 2018: Invited to join plus at no charge.
Nov 5: Initial visit scheduled, then rescheduled at airbnb request.
Nov 14: Home visit. Took over 5 and a half hours for a 1050 sq foot house. While this should be its own email, suffice to say that the photographer was unhappy, unprofessional, crude, and made it extremely apparent how much he disliked airbnb and his job. Horrible experience.
Nov 26: Told of our “fixes.” Realized that all fixes were in fact, never an issue and were simply related to the photographer doing his job incorrectly. Dealt with airbnb support, who tried to help as much as possible while we waited for the plus team.
Dec 4th: Fixes approved.
Dec 11th: First response from plus team about fixes, two weeks after it had already been resolved.
Dec 22/Jan 2/17 2019: Follow up with Plus team. Told at each interval that our listing is great, they are backed up, please be patient, etc. At each timeline we are told a few more weeks, at each few week follow up from us the timeline is still “a couple of weeks from now!)
Feb 12th: Follow up and ask for supervisor. Response is “You have reached the plus department, how can we help?” So apparently at this stage we are starting over, and also won’t be directed to a supervisor even when directly asking.
Feb 15th: Write email regarding timeline and upset to plus team, and CC numerous airbnb executives.
Feb 18th: Receive 2 responses. One from plus stating that we are "only days away", and another from a prior follow up to support that they will not process us as plus due to our less than 95% acceptance rate.
++At this point, I should note that our acceptance rate is 85%, due to having to turn down numerous requests such as double the amount of maximum legal guests, scams asking for our address delivery services, and other items that are against our rules (ie no parties)++ We have already spoken to support in a separate email about our acceptance rate, as we were worried about being punished for turning down unsuitable requests. While we were assured that would not happen, it clearly is. Note we had no response from any of the airbnb executives.
Clearly our latest update is in conflict, as even support and plus are telling us different items. Just wanted to put this all out there for other hosts, as if we had known any of this in the beginning we absolutely would not have bothered ith such a waste of time, especially as we may never see a benefit (or even be a plus listing due to scam requests!)
