Overall review 4.8? Don't be fooled

[Brian68]

Just finished a bit of a sparring match with Airbnb support, as usual they throw in the towel and refer back to the T&C's

The totalling misleading "Progress" page says I have a 4.8* rating.

Now apparently this is not progress, this your entire history on Airbnb for me that is 4 years.

I have had my superhost status removed yet again for the sake of 0.1pt. (Probably one salty guest, that's enough to have an impact)

Yet on another page your rating for the last 12 months is 4.7*

How can it be that someone mantains an average of 4.8* over 4 years which isn't that easy I  might add.

Then gets punished becase heaven forbid his standards have slipped by a whole 0.1pt over 1 year in 4?

Yes the good old "bots" are busy delivering ther judge and jury verdicts on humans who  really go above and beyond for their guest and I know I do a good job.

In fact Superhost doenst make the slightest bit of difference to my bookings but I object to the way Airbnb patronise hosts with this system and apply unnecesary pressure onto the host with it.

It's all a bit Orwellian for me, this be a good citizen and "hey you're dong great" which I just find all a but patronising , especailly when no one from Airbnb has ever actually experienced it as a guest hands on.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Brian68

yes, I also noticed progress and overall doesn't match.

[Susan17]

@Brian68

Pass no heed, you'll only drive yourself demented. Bottom line - the entire system is banjaxed. 

I had a 5.0 overall rating for most of last year, and only 4 bookings and 4 reviews for Sept - end December - all 5 star reviews. Yet somehow, my rating dropped to 4.9

The number of reviews Airbnb says I have changes on a whim, even when I've had no guests! I've had superhost status consistently every single time since it was introduced - so 18 times now. However, in July, Airbnb sent me the "Congratulations! You're a Superhost" message telling me I'd been made Superhost 8 times, along with the €100 credit, which subsequently vanished into thin air). Then in September, the "Congratulations" message informed me I'd made superhost 5 times. And the latest one from a few days ago told me I've now made Superhost 4 times, and I received another €100 voucher (which no doubt will disappear at some point too)

Apparently, I do  have a €27 credit on my account though,  and I have absolutely no idea where it came from, or why it's there. Annoyingly, Airbnb spams me on an almost daily basis, urging me to use my €27 to book a place. They can keep it. I haven't used Airbnb as a guest since the summer of 2016, following 3 host cancellations in a row (one from a Superhost on the night before I was due to arrive in Paris with my two sons, to see Ireland play in the European Football Championships) Never again. 

[Paul154]

@Susan17

Your tale of 3 cancellations is damning. I have never had that upset.

I too would think twice about using Airbnb.

Unscrupulous hosts like this do not belong on Airbnb. .

[Gordon0]

I was abandoned in NYC a few years ago as the (super)host ‘forgot’ I was coming. 10pm on a rainy night in Harlem after a transatlantic flight...

Took some time to get over that one, but Airbnb to their credit (at least the Dublin team) made things better.

[Susan17]

@Paul154

What many hosts don't realise, is that host cancellations are out of control on the Airbnb platform (just have a look at consumer review website Trustpilot - where Airbnb has a 1.4/10 satisfaction rating - for confirmation).

This very damaging practice has been hugely exacerbated over the past 18 - 24 months by the proliferation of "professional" and commercial operators on the platform, the vast majority of whom couldn't give two hoots about 5 star reviews or gaining/losing superhost status, and have no qualms whatsoever about cancelling a guest's booking at a moment's notice, should it suit their agenda/bottom line. (What's a paltry little €100 fine to them, when they may have received a longer, more lucrative booking from another source, at many times the value of the booking they've just cancelled?)

For example, in my case, I've had only 4 bookings since September. All except one of those bookings were last-minute bookings (day/night before arrival), all large groups of between 8 and 12 guests, whose reservations had been cancelled at the 11th hour - without apology or explanation - by the "professionals" that they'd originally booked with. 

Unfortunately, as always, it's the small, regular hosts who will suffer the consequences most. In several markets, the option for hosts to cancel 3 instant bookings per year, penalty-free, has now been reduced to 1 cancellation per year, and that policy is being rolled out incrementally across all markets, with the aim of subsequently abolishing the penalty-free cancellation option for hosts altogether. (The policy was only ever intended by Airbnb to be a short-term measure anyway, to serve as a sweetener in enticing as many hosts as possible over to IB, as quickly as possible)

[Susan17]

@Gordon0

I clearly remember you posting about that rainy night in Harlem! (I think on either the London group, or NHF?) Understandably, you weren't a happy bunny! 🙂

To be fair, the Dublin team used to be pretty helpful, but by the time I called them about the Paris cancellation, (June 2016), the service had already started to deteriorate badly. With less than 18 hours to go until my sons and I were due to fly, and nowhere to stay in a city that was already bursting at the seams with tens of thousands of Euros fans, I frantically asked the CX agent what she could do to help me. 

Lovely girl, really chatty and sweet, told me her boyfriend and his mates were all over in Paris already for the footie, having a blast, sympathised with me on my "tricky situation", and told me I'd be very lucky to find anywhere to stay in Paris at that late stage. (Like I didn't know that already!) She advised me that the only assistance she could give me was to credit my account with 10% of the original booking value, and that I could search the website for alternative accommodation. I asked her to look at my listings for confirmation that I had two large groups of Airbnb guests arriving the next morning, shortly before our departure, and told her I was currently running around like a blue-arsed fly trying to prepare both houses for them. I genuinely didn't have time to start trawling through Airbnb searches, and practically begged her for some assistance. 

She apologised profusely, and said she wasn't permitted to do that as CX are only allotted a certain (very short) timeframe to deal with each ticket. She did relent in the end though, and sent me a few available - if substandard - listings to look through. All for 2 guests max. But there were 3 of us... 

By some miracle, I did eventually manage to get a place booked for us (20 minutes before boarding our flight) but the extreme stress and frustration of the whole debacle are still firmly imprinted on my memory. Not an experience I'd like to re-live anytime soon 🙂

[Pete28]

I will mention 80% 5* since it was a far more fair target for SH. Airbnb seems driven to destroy itself by constantly tinkering with what worked...

[Alex-and-Vaughan0]

I had this same discussion with CS a week or so ago. We'd lost SH status last round, was granted it again just last week.

What comes by itself goes away by itself.

[Brad172]

Just wondering if their is a separate overall star review? I  received 5 stars for everything on last visit from guest but my overall was rating was only 4star.  I know when I leave a guest review it is calculated from my overall review??

[Peter818]

Thanks for this. Saves me an identical sparring match.  4.8 star with almost 350 reviews over 4 years with 100% response rate.  Had a few guests recently who reviewed me (cheapest per head accommodation in town) like I was the ritz. Presuming that's why is says I am 4.7 on the things to work on bit when it says I am 4.8 overall. Never cancelled a guest ever. Bit annoying when I know how poor the big operators are.  Still, thanks for saving me one of those insufferable happy anodyne conversations with some operator and their disingenuous script.