Robert here a fellow host from NY, you text really touched me because is describing a lot the frustration that I am felling.
here is low season and with low season prices drop and you get the worst type of guest that you can get. You can’t imagine how many weird situations I am facing but the worst one is with the support team, because gives no support at all.
it always put first a guest with no reviews and inpolite from the very beginning that you are forced to host if you don’t want to suffer the consequences of cancelling a reservation from someone that you know from the very begging is going to be a nightmare.
then either you get a bad experience by hosting them and a bad review wich is going to afect your possition on the platform.
Then the email saying that you are not a good host because you are having less stars than the average in your area (I would love to see if this is not based on fake reviews)
or if you decide to cancel.... welllllll then be ready.... because even tough you have the right to do so, your guest can make a review based on a stay that never happened and of course with no good intention at all ( of course you cancelled on him/her is not going to give you five stars or mention how amazing host you are)..... and then you will have to call to the support spend one hour explaining your situation and the reason why they need to take that review down....
omg!!!!!! This used to be easy, simple, profitable..... funny!!!! Get to know people, share!!!
Not anymore....
also the quality of the people that used to travel is different.... future? Not sure. But is not going good. Mayor cities around the world and the most profitable for the company are against the platform. So you don’t only fight about all what I had mention (and being a host) then you also need to be scarred about your neighbors and community. Maybe at some point they are starting to be Right.
there is a host meeting next week. I don’t got invited (not sure why, maybe my more that four hundred reviews is not enough) but Ian going with a friend and I am going to speak out loud! The need to take us under consideration, we are the core of this bussines. We give the experience.