Does anybody else get frustrated with the rating system and feel it is heavily weighted in the guests favour?!
i have just had 2 stays and reviews giving 5 star in all areas but then giving 4 stars overall. One has fed back saying they rarely give 5 and only when it’s ‘above and beyond’ but she made no other requests, no advice wanted for their stay on top of what is already given, and also made an issue of not being able to connect to the internet but didn’t contact me to be able to rectify it (never had an issue before but could have solved it I’m sure!) just fed it back after as a reason. The other one was for New Years and we have a bottle of wine and Prosecco and some chocolates FOC, they said they loved the place and stay but marked me down for value 😡 and on overall rating.
When reviewing them, as long as they have communicated and left everything clean and tidy, you don’t feel you can give anything other than a 5 star. But as a host, the overall rating seems to be one that is down to how they feel they want to grade it. I don’t see why it’s just not a rounded average of the 5 areas they rate individually which should be based on the listing/description and the main areas that would give the overall enjoyment of their stay. Or there should be clear descriptors where they have to give good reason to drop down on stars. It’s just too open to such a wide interpretation!
I do get frustrated with the ‘location’ one as well as I think there should be a criteria to rate the location based on what was booked and described. I have been marked down too many times just because I’m not in the town centre, but otherwise they love it, even though my description, location and information shows I’m not town centre (and the price they pay reflects it also).
It just feels that it’s not just what you provide, respond to and how you help that allows you to try and hold onto your 5 star rating. It feels like it is too lose for people to just haphazardly mark you down for no good reason which they don’t see any significance to.
Does anyone else have this trouble/frustration? Is there any way to get Airbnb to rethink it?
