Why can I no longer see ratings before accepting? What is the point of them?

[Leanne69]

I receive requests for bookings but it no longer shows me their ratings, only their verifications.  I have no idea if they've stayed with Airbnb before or if they've received horrible reviews.  As a mom of kids and dogs, I need to see the ratings before accepting so that if anyone has a review that sounds like it would not be a safe of comfortable situation with my kids or pets, I would decline.  I was able to see them before and now it says that I have to turn on Instant booking in order to see them.

That defeats the whole purpose.  I always accepted requests when I had the ratings, because the ratings were good.  But now that I've had a bad experience with someone being in appropriate in my home, I know that I need to read through the ratings to make sure it doesn't happen again. 

So why the change???

[Matthew285]

@Leanne69 the written reviews are not being hidden from you; if you see no written reviews, then the guest has no written reviews. Airbnb has not changed the policy about being able to view written reviews, and you do not have to have Instant Book on or anything to be able to view a person's written reviews.

Ratings (the numeric star ratings) are only shown if you have Instant Book, but if the guest has no reviews, they also have no ratings.

If you are unsure about being able to see reviews, just click on any random person's profile here in the Community. You have no connection at all to them, but you can read their written reviews.

You may be seeing more people without reviews because Airbnb is expending a lot of effort and money to attract new people to book travel with Airbnb.

[Leanne69]

I was able to see the reviews later - but they were not showing up at first.  And yes, the ratings were missing.....  

[Rick15]

Matthew - This has not been my experience.  I see re iews only after I accept.  I do not use Instant Book as I want to know from the community what has been their experience with a guests.  AIRBNB must have changed this as some time ago I could.  I think they changed it when they took away photos as well.  Their political correctness is getting in the way of allowing hosts to make decsions based on a guest behavior.  Nothing wrong with asking people to take personal responsibility for their actions.

[Todd-and-Jodi0]

I think it's ridiculous that hosts can only see ratings if they activate instant booking. A major reason hosts do not turn on instant booking is to be able to fully vet potential guests on a case by case basis. We, like many hosts, are very careful about screening guests and part of that process is gauging the back and forth correspondence to get a feel for the guests by their tone and how they answer questions.  That can't happen with instant book, yet the platform is giving us less information than before to entice us to move to instant booking.  That won't happen with us. I'm having more success with guests who don't just kick the tires on another rental platform and the harder airbnb makes it for me to vet guests the more likely I'll just focus on my listings elsewhere.  This is not a host-friendly change. If this forums is the wrong place for this feedback, I'll be happy to post it in the right place.

Thank you.

[Nicholas39]

I agree wholeheartedly.  These changes are showing just how little regard Airbnb actually gives to their hosts, who earn them their money by the way, and more focus on increasing profits.  I'm starting to focus my attention elsewhere as well.  I'd rather focus on a platform that actually makes changes to help their actual business prtners provide better service for their guests and not make things harder for them.

[Matthew285]

@Todd-and-Jodi0, @Nicholas39 while I do not like how they try to push everyone to use Instant Book, please be aware that Airbnb has *not* taken any information away from the hosts who do not use Instant Book.

You can still read every single review a guest has, just like you always did. You do not need to be on Instant Book to read reviews.

For Instant Book hosts they did *add* the ability to see the star ratings of the guest, but that is all. Every host, Instant Book or not, can read all the reviews just like before.

[Rebecca181]

@Matthew285 I had an odd experience yesterday and am wondering if you can assist: I was notified by ABB that an UNLISTED listing I have was now on 'Instant Book' (it was already on Instant Book, so that made this even more confusing). To be on the safe side, I decided to turn 'Instant Book' off. I went through the process and my only option was to PAUSE it, and I was only allowed to pause it until May 8th (one month on). There was no way to 'Cancel' Instant Booking as there had been in the past. 

Is this how it is now for everybody, or do you think this is some new 'beta' test thing that I got and few may be aware of, unless they try to turn 'IB' off?

[Matthew285]

@Rebecca181 I think you and I both have seen new hosts say their new listing could only have Instant Book. However, as this is an existing listing for you, that shouldn't affect your *unlisted* listing.

I wonder if this is a new experiment in making Instant Book mandatory but "pause-able".

I am going to be setting up a new listing soon, so I will have to keep a close eye on the Instant Book setting.

But no, I have not myself seen or heard anyone say their unlisted listing's booking setting were changed the way your unlisted listing's settings were changed.

[Alex1001]

Hi Matthew, this same thing is happening to me. I can nol longer see any information about the guests who are looking to reserve other than verifications. AirBnb have clearly done something to block this. And as others have said the reason you don't want Instant Book is to fully vet a guest which AirBnb is now blocking, so why use AirBnb is the question that I am left with?

[Robert1227]

Nobody in this thread has mentioned reviews except you.  All we want is the star ratings.

[Max1556]

But this does inherently make it harder for hosts to vet guests

[Leanne69]

I completely agree with your concerns. Last night I had a last minute request from a "couple" who claimed to be local and they lost everything in a house fire.... They asked if I'd rent to them weekly or month to month.  There were other details in the request that just screamed bad idea and I could tell they would be a major risk (like maybe they wouldn't leave or would potentially go through our private areas when I wasn't home.)  This was based on their email but also when I found her FB page and found out things she was saying weren't true.  They were new to airbnb with no reviews, and we already have other bookings this month so I nicely told her I couldn't accept her request.  However, I know that this can happen with others who have been around.  Not everyone leaves comments with poor ratings, so we won't know if there are low ratings to warn us with the new system.

Also, I'm a foster parent, so I can't accept instant bookings because I get last minute placements and can't have overnights guests in the home when I have a placement.  But since placements can also leave at any time I don't update my calendar daily....  

It's just all around not a good idea... Especially when I respond and approve requests within hours... 

[Max1556]

I agree, I think its not very customer centric (hosts are ALSO customers of AirBNB). Why make it harder on hosts to quickly see a guest ratings. If a guest has a 5 star rating I'm not compelled to read their reviews. Now I have to read every review to understand what previous hosts thought of a guest. This looks engineered to influence hosts to have instant book on and maximize profits my minimizing vetting. Yes, a host can still cancel on an instant book, but guess what that is also not a good customer experience for the guests to book and then be canceled on. Also we have to have instant book off to avoid double bookings on two sub listings of one parent listing (airbnb does allow you to link calendars of sub listings, just sub listing to parent listing)

[Alexandra316]

I do use instant book and I agree that every host should be able to see a guest's star ratings, regardless of their booking settings. I had a guest last week whose written reviews were great, but had really poor star ratings. Two things stood out to me about that:

1) A host who didn't accept instant bookings would accept this guest without knowing that there was an issue;

2) Why would a host give a low star review but say nice things? If a guest is a bad guest, why can't hosts just say that? I wish that all hosts would write honest reviews.