Why am I not a Guest Favorite?

[Ryan3422]

I read on Reddit that the Guest Favorite badge only applies to properties that got 5 stars overall and 5 stars in cleanliness on their last 5 reviews.  This is nowhere in the "articles" / robotic responses support will send you, or from support over the phone.  This means if you are a Superhost that got a 4 star in cleanliness over the last five reviews (which can take a year for some people to accumulate), then you won't be a Guest Favorite.  They also removed the Superhost filter for guests to search for, and replaced it with a NICE BIG WELCOMING GUEST FAVORITE filter instead.  So, for all you hard-working 5 star overall with dazzling reviews Superhosts that got a 4 star in cleanliness on one of your last five reviews, then you are lumped in with the one star hosts and are essentially un-filterable when a guest searches.  Welcome to the graveyard.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/605669673879860817?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=c7895f3f-9196...

I guess my reviews aren't good enough to be a Guest Favorite.  Thank you Airbnb, for crushing my views and wrecking my chances for any possible stays right before the slow season starts.

[Helen3]

This is a community of hosts and guests who give their advice and input for free to help other hosts and guests @Radek25 

There is no need to be rude .

[Sara-And-Rob0]

I do not detect any rudeness in .@Radek25 's responses.  What I find increasingly rude is the lack of involvement by .@Bhumika who sees these messages of hosts begging for open and fair treatment and not only is doing nothing, but just copies and pastes the support responses that we have all seen and don't address the issues we are raising openly and honestly.

They are doing nothing, and doing nothing is NOT a solution.

Thanks .@Radek for raising the issues of AI usage, we are in the age of change and we must hold companies responsible for the decisions they make regarding usage of AI and set an ethical standard of fairness.  Your comments are very welcome in my opinion.

[Joan2709]

@Radek25 

The moderators on this forum are not Airbnb Customer Service. They simply moderate the forum activity.

You can send feedback directly to Airbnb regarding the issues surrounding the Guest Favorite Badge and how it is functioning (or not functioning).

Since Airbnb places alot of emphasis on the GF badge, I do agree there should be more transparency on the factors that determine GF. Only Airbnb can provide that; not the moderators on the CC.

[Debra300]

@Joan2709,

Adding on to what you've already written, the moderators also are not Airbnb employees.  They can try to use their connections to raise our concerns, but have no ability to perform customer service tasks.

[Radek25]

hi @Debra300 , thank you for stepping in. I appreciate that moderators are neutral in this kind of disputes and are to serve on other matters. 

That said, by copy pasting an article from airbnb website is not helpful nor symmetric nor neutral. If a modarator does not know detailed answer they should not pretend they do. Naive copy pasting is simply:
- Gaslighting the raised concerns, 

- normalises the position of Airbnb, not the clients of airbnb,

- assumes the 'rightness' on the side of the airbnb documentation.

One must reflect  on documentation from airbnb before copy/pasting. First of all it is not always an 'objective truth' ,
- that content from airbnb is always  'in airbnb interest' by the nature of the content creator who is Airbnb themselfs.
- in fact the raised problem is that the behaviour of the guests-favourites in real scenario has nothing to do with what is officially documented. Hence copy pasting a website that is the problem on itself completely misses the point and does not help with discussion.

I know it's a harsh feedback but hope it helps and that can be constructive. 

[Radek25]

thank you @Joan2709 for support. Just an extra support/ leverage .
Some extra information: In EU there is now an AI Act as a legally bounding document. This protects everyone with an EU passport (even if you live somewhere else). The AI Act introduced legal obligations like 'Openness' and 'Transparency'  and 'Explainability' .

Airbnb effectively is breaking the EU law at this point. Every time their helpline cannot explain why the behaviour of the system differs to what is officially documented on their website and they lie 'its ok and as designed' they break the law.

What is even more scary is that Airbnb themselves do not know how well its AI is doing given they cannot reason about its quality to the clients. This means their AI is doing whatever it wants without a proper oversight.

The moment I find more time I will make it a small legal court case, just for fun. I collect all the evidence from all the phone calls, and have backed up all the airbnb helpline chats. Taking it to a court of small cases will likely be 'not enough' for airbnb to get involved and will generate a payout to cover for my looses due to the way they are handling to GF batch and due to uncontrolled, unstable and unpredictable Economy with a non-competitive environment they created.

stay tuned and all the best, good luck!

[Radek25]

all of the folks complaining here have sent the feedback to airbnb for months if not years by now, and spend days of phone calls with the airbnb helpline. And hours in the helpline chats.

nobody would come here to rant with complains without trying all all the other channels and with a lot of own research and validations.

We all know by heart the documentations everyone helpfully shares that are not helpful. This is only thing that is left for now.

the next steps that remains is LinkedIn/X/Facebooks campaigns and legal actions but people cannot afford it as they simply wither do not have time or money or both.

Airbnb is breaking the law, at least for the EU citizens after the AI Act stepped in.

[Radek25]

this answer is non actionable therefore not helpful. in fact this wishy washy response is damaging the business of the hosts as they start wasting time and energy fixing/tuning parameters of the business that have no observability of.

[Radek25]

I am sorry by this link is not helpful, the entire problem with the documentation you share  is not reflecting the reality.
A host can meet all the criteria and still be excluded from the GF batch, and even worst one can see other Hosts with lower scores and somehow obtaining the GF batch. You seem to not see the problem by copy pasting a link to the symptoms of the very problem.  

And that would be only partially painful, only  if the helpline could explain 'why' so the hosts could optimise their business better.

The problem is the helpline never shares and tangible insights. And sometimes they even hand up if they run out of  vague unactionable excuses.

Seems like you have not read in details some of the problems raised here. And the problem is in details that needs attention, copy pasting public documentation that everyone affected by the GF problems knows by heart is not helpful, and quite rightly can be found disrespectful and frustrating.

You must understand that people deal with this for years already, spoken with helpline for days already, a link serving the helpline as an 'catch all excuse cover'  is not helpful whatsoever.

[Helen3]

As you know Reddit is full of misinformation and this is no exception @Ryan3422 

glad you've been given the correct information on this helpful community.

[Ryan3422]

@Helen3this info has been confirmed, and the Airbnb host subreddit is a better place to connect with hosts and get real info than this censored board is.  Misinformation is literally on any platform you could possibly check these days so feel free to cite your sources.  I did, and Airbnb took it down.

[Helen3]

Sorry you are not correct you stated  Reddit said you need all five star reviews to be featured as a guest favourite this is not correct as you can see for the clarification given above @Ryan3422 

I'm not sure why you feel the need to be so rude to your fellow hosts . 

[Ryan3422]

@Helen3 You should go back and read what I wrote.  I said you need 5 stars overall and 5 stars on cleanliness on your last 5 reviews - not all 5 star reviews.  Not sure what clarification you are talking about, but below is verbatim from the article written by Airbnb, which does not mention that anywhere.

• At least five reviews from guests
• Excellent reviews and ratings above 4.9 stars on average
• High marks from guest reviews for check-in, cleanliness, accuracy, Host communication, location and value
• Superb record of reliability, with Host cancellations and quality-related customer service issues of 1% on average

What me and many other hosts are experiencing is that we meet (or exceed) the criteria listed by Airbnb to achieve the Guest Favorite badge, but it is not being applied.  I have been told in writing by multiple support ambassadors that I do qualify, and they are not sure why the badge is not being applied.  For now, they are saying it's a phased release and the badge will eventually be applied. 

I host on a lake with only 8 other listings on the entire lake.  6 other properties have gotten the badge, leaving me two other listings without the badge.  All 6 listings that have gotten the badge have lower ratings and scores than my listing does.  With the superhost filter now being removed, and the guest favorite filter taking its place, all a guest has to do is click the enticing guest favorite button when applying search filters (I would if I were searching for a place to stay), and my listing becomes invisible.  This is also happening as we enter slow season, when every view I don't get is money being taken out of my (and Airbnb's) pocket.  

I'm not trying to be rude, but you are the one picking the side of this battle that is not supporting your fellow hosts.  My beef is with Airbnb, not you.

[Radek25]

I am sorry to hear that @Ryan3422 , I can imagine how frustrating this is especially with all the gaslighting from airbnb and airbnb moderators.

I think they might simply not follow or understand how massive impact it has on a business  like yours. Some moderators seem to simply focus on the  'niceness' rather than solving tangible problems. The comments you raised are not against the moderators all, you try to be specific and be precise, which clearly for many is too much. 
There are many more facing similar problem like you. Let us know if you learn anything more.

I had the GF batch on  and off and every time I ask the helpline they cannot explain why, they reference to the same airbnb documentation that I know by hart already and that I know it lies or does not reflect reality.
Quite frankly the most frustrating part for me is the part of community itself that is lacking critical thinking and assumes that Airbnb is the source of objective truth for rules and values. 

[John5097]

@Ryan3422 

Your listing says you are a Super Host and have a 5.0 overall rating, so it seems you are on the right track that it may be a 4 star in the sub category. 

I agree the timing would be very difficult entering the slow season. You also don't have any upcoming reservations so no chance to pull that back up. 

You also have amazing reviews where your guest are saying its the best one they have ever stayed. 

While I understand the most recent reviews should be more relevant, a single four star in the overall or sub category shouldn't have too much weight. 

For example I had a single 4 star review in 330 reviews. Clearly this was an outlier. I hadn't had a single 4 star in any sub category in  over a year, but I went from the being featured at the top of page one to the bottom of page 10. Thankfully I'm usually always booked so the next 10 reviews were all 5 stars, but it is so competitive in my area, and it also happened to be at the start of the slow season. I also don't get bookings on short notice like I used to. 

Anyway I think you have valid concerns.

Airbnb should consider that 1% of guest are going to leave an inaccurate review because they didn't get to check in early, didn't read the listing, or just don't understand how it works, and think the sub categories are feed back to Airbnb. In 345 reviews 3 have given me a 4 in cleanliness, without any reason. Almost every guest comments on how clean it is. Location is my lowest yet every guest that leaves a 4 star raves about the location. 

I think your only option may be to make some adjustments on your end if you aren't getting bookings or page views. 

ETA: If potential guest read your reviews they will book regardless of Super Host or Guest Favorite.  SH or GF would help enhance a listing; the most important upgrade is that guest can now see how each guest star rating, like Amazon. I dont think they will even notice SH or GF badge. Guest will be very perceptive and dismiss any marketing hype. Just because a celerity or an Airbnb executive deciides to open their home or guest house for a single night to handpicked guest for marketing hype issn't the same as host who have hundreds of guest per year.