Website/app, superhost, smartpricing on weekends, and other mounting problems

[Brandon-And-Abby0]

Hi everyone, my name is Brandon and I co-host with my fiance Abby! We've been experiencing a lot of problems with the platform that have begun to multiply as of late. Most recently, with smart pricing and its many shortcomings. I've tried to reach out multiple times, and spent hours on the phone but no one can or will give us straight answers or help us address the problems. They include, but are not limited to:

1. Superhost - I know that this literally does nothing other than show a badge, but we have met and far exceeded the requirements for Superhost for at least the last 4 hosting periods and never received the badge. Every time I have tried to call they have either said "We'll reach out to that department and get back to you" and never did, or they have said "I can't tell you that information" when I asked what I was missing.

2. Every single month on the first day I'll log in to check my 'stats' and the total is wrong. Then, when we get a new booking, the total actually goes down. This has been happening for about 6 months now, and happens on BOTH the website and app. To get a sense of what we're actually making I have to go through and add up reservation costs for 7 listings manually. The total is incorrect for upwards of two weeks.

3. This isn't a bug, but the smart-pricing algorithm has been awful in terms of getting anything close to what the listings will be booked for almost 100% of the time. It's suggesting my two bedroom, 2 bathroom beautiful modern apartment should be listed at $38, despite being occupied more than 90% of the time at $79. Smart pricing should take into account our 4.9 star guest rating and 600 reviews AND the fact that it's consistently booked at double the price. I want to host "as often as possible" to make the most money, not because I want to be paid $1500 less per month to book 28 instead of 27 days. This one is really frustrating, particularly with how often it auto adjusts to the minimum, even on days like New Years Eve!

4. On the host page of the website it will often just be unable to list any or some of the people arriving on a given day, even after refreshing the page. Several times we have had to rush back to the house when a guest messages us that they'll be arriving soon and we didn't see that there were any turnovers to do.

5. On the app, I find it quite silly that the front page doesn't show you who's checking in on that day FIRST. Why are guest arrivals listed chronologically based on their arrival? I know 'Steve' or 'Jim' has been here for two weeks, I'm checking the app to see whose arrival I need to prepare for, and it often makes it difficult particularly if today is Monday, and someone checked in last Monday.

I'm sorry for the laundry list of issues I typed above, but there's no real way to leave feedback as a host or get technical issues resolved. I've tried calling so many times and instead of being assisted, I'm put on hold for an hour and then told that they'll follow up via email. Which of course never happens. I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with host support and the lack of transparency towards very productive and frequent hosters such as ourselves.

Is there anyone we can reach out to in order to get these issues addressed?

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

Actually, there are two ways additional you can voice your requests for improvement: 

Host Voice - found under the "Discuss" tab above.  They are actively seeking options for improvement to the mobile app at this time.

You can provide feedback and log bugs here: 

https://www.airbnb.ca/help/feedback

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

I never use smart pricing because it usually suggests lower price than I can get.

I have a real, paper notebook with calender and I write down every new reservation for every of my apartments: guest name, time of arrival, parking or not, bed arrangement , phone numbers... I found that old scool system the most practical and I do not depend of wifi or battery 🙂

I never had problems like yours ... it is strange...maybee someone is messing arround with your account? Have you tried to send a message to airbnb help? I did and they always answered my email or they called me and they fixed my problems in few days

[Zacharias0]

Sorry to hear about your frustrations...

1) Superhost status doesn't do much for anyone so I'd let that go. If the people who adminster it aren't on your team screw em and just keep doing what youre doing. It's nothing more than a pat on the back for hosts sure to go the way of the dinosaur pretty soon. Those who are superhosts aren't listed first so what is the benefit?

2) Stats are always behind sometimes 2 days, sometimes 7 days. I stopped relying on them months ago and instead rely on the pattern of IB and inquiries. At the end of the day I pay attention to money in hand not numbers of how many people "viewed" my listing.

3) Deactivate Smart Pricing. Problem Solved. Every smart host knows Smart Pricing is a loss leader.

4 &5 ) Seeing my guests chronoligically hasn't caused me much frustration as I can scroll down to see whos due to arrive. All hosts should have a general sense of when a person is to arrive and depart. With 7 listings like yours I suppose it can get a bit tedious but you may have to start paying more attention to the calendars you have.  Seven listings is a full time job and our guests rely on us to overcome these obstacles. Hosts have to pick up the slack when technology fails them or doesn't work how they want it to.

[Brandon-And-Abby0]

For #2, when I say "stats" I mean the amount of money my bookings are worth for that month. For example, if I were to add up the total cost of my listings by hand and I got $5000 at the beginning of the month, it would tell me something like $2675. Then, when I get a booking, the total will go down by some amount. Having accurate expected payouts allows us to know whether we'll be able to cover our bills by the end of the month and makes things exceptionally difficult to plan.

As far as Smart-pricing, I would normally agree with you for most hosts, but during the weekdays it actually works very well for our revenue model. I would happily book 4 rooms on Wednesday for $40 rather than 2 for $50. The ridiculous aspect of this is when it changes our weekend pricing to $40 when we're 100% occupied at $60. That's just bad programming, or very host-unfriendly algorithms. Either way, it hurts hosts. Just having the option to set host prices for weekends that overrules smart pricing is an easy fix for this.

[Chase9]

Actually, your #1 answer above is not true at all. Searches for listings include the option "Superhosts Only" which most guests turn on and leave on which means if you're not a superhost, the majority of guests will never see your listing at all. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Chase9 superhost was never a default filter as far as I know. At least not here.

[Chase9]

Ok, I'll revise my comment.

[Tracey261]

We have some of the same issues. Would like advice on resolving. (superhost and smart pricing.)