My revenue has gone down 40% in 2024 - Discontinuation of Airbnb Plus and Where is my Guest Favorite Gold Badge?

[Natalie767]

My listing was an Airbnb Plus in Los Angeles since the beginning in year 2018 until Airbnb discontinued the program in 2023.  Then Airbnb started to introduce the Guest Favorite program in 2024.  My listing has almost 200 reviews at the rate of 4.96 (meaning I have almost 200 5-stars review) but I do not have the gold badge.  The gold badges go to new listings with 15 reviews.  My revenue has gone down by 40% in year 2024 since Airbnb removed my airbnb Plus status and has given me the grey Guest Favorite Icon just like everyone else has.   

I do not know who to speak to!  I googled this topic and found that that Airbnb Plus was only rolled out in 12 cities with less than 1% listings which means it was very exclusive and not many people feeling the impact or understanding my pain.  I saw people speaking the same concerns about these gold badges going to new listings in the community thread but that's almost a year ago with no updates from airbnb.

I am really heartbroken as I don't see Airbnb being loyal to protect their superhosts operated high performance listings who has been on the platform for 7+ years who has gone thru ups and downs and a pandemic with them.   Airbnb took on so many new homes onto the platform in the last 1-2 years and now they just give gold badges away to the new homes and forgot about us.  

[Frances3408]

@Natalie767. Natalie, you have a beautiful home and clearly look after your guests.

I think the Airbnb algorithm is biased towards frequency of bookings as well as the quality of those ratings. I note the Gold GF seems to occur at the Top 10% here in OZ (and Airbnb even goes onto to specify if its a Top 10%, 5% or 1%).

In our local area its the more modest priced listings that seem to get booked regularly that also achieve the Gold (so no Luxe seem to consistently earn it, although we have those too with great ratings). Listings here regularly lose that Gold, even in the space of one weekend booking so its definitely a harsh system, not geared to the longer term.

Have you looked at your local competition to see if its similar?

So I am probably telling you something you already know ie that Airbnb is encouraging the number of bookings, irrespective of differentiation.