"Is your guest count accurate?" Feature Request

[Kelly149]

Show of hands from hosts: how often is a one-person request really for one person??

Would it help you to avoid needless back and forth for ABB to include a check box with something like:

Your request/reservation is for TWO GUESTS. Is that correct??

Or how about give hosts the ability to adjust pricing BEFORE the reservation is confirmed? bc right now, I can ACCEPT or I can DECLINE, but I can't get the request to be accurate.

[Mark4102]

I can see that I've put my foot in my mouth and done ruffled everyone's hackles. Being a father of 2, I know well how much work it is. But all of this is not the point and I beg you to return to the original request. We're asking for a more accurate guest count,  right? 

PS. I raise the white flag, ladies. 🙂 Have a blessed day. 

[Sarah977]

@Mark4102  Being the father of 2, I'm.sure you must realize that an active, walking, talking 2 year old todder is not remotely like an actually infant, i.e. a babe in arms not yet mobile on their own. 

As a parent of 3 grown daughters  and grandma to 6, I agree that charging for an actual infant, as I described, isn't necessary- the issue is what Airbnb classifies as "infant". 

A 2 year old isn't an infant, and I don't know any parent who refers to their toddler as such, unless doing so means they won't have to pay for them.

[Christine615]

Back to the original post -

Would not this be easier if Airbnb acted like a booking agent and let individual hosts control their own inventory. They bring us leads, we decide if we are a host/guest match. Airbnb gets paid.

I think that's the crux of this. As Airbnb's attempts to be all things to all people makes the process more convoluted, what got lost in the mix is that they work for us, not the other way around. This platform was at its best when it was about hosts and guests interacting with each other without a middle man in the mix.

It stopped being coherent when it tried to be Uber and Lyft.

Which brings me to another point. I was out of town when snow storms across the country resulted in my flights being cancelled twice in 24 hours. My only option (getting the second cancellation notice at 1am) was to chance that the first flight out would be the most likely to get off the ground and the least likely to be already full of stranded passengers. That meant getting up and calling an Uber at 5am. The driver told me that Uber now hides not only guest identity, but the pickup and drop off location. So he had no idea he was picking me up in the suburbs and driving me to the other side of the city to an airport 30 minutes away in a snow storm. He was great. I tipped him well. But in that conversation he revealed that drivers have to "accept" a ride before they even know how far they have to go to pick up the person. And they don't get paid for the time and gas to go pick up the guest if they are far away.

At some point someone will come up with a better system. Hopefully Airbnb (which is now a noun) will fix their own systems before a competitor figures it out. Partnership is everything.

Implementing the rules we need guests to follow is a good start. No booking confirmation until the number of guests is verified and the guest checks a box acknowledging they have read ALL the house rules.

[Kelly149]

@Christine615 @Laura2592 ditching IB really has been the only thing keeping me sane in this re-entry to ABB. If you don't read and you don't at least ask nice them I'm with @Mark116 that's going to be a big fat no thanks from me

[Debra300]

@Christine615,

Furnished Finders only requires a nominal annual fee, but the host doesn't pay any commission on bookings.  This platform is mostly for long-term stays, but it's the only one that I know of that provides a service closest to what you've described.

[Marion170]

I wrote this in my house rules: Only the amount of persons booked are allowed on the property. I did this after people booked and suddenly more turned up over night (which we didn't realize) and they ended up wrecking the place. Since I updated my house rules I never had this problem again. 

[Kelly149]

Just now guest message: Hi! We'd love to stay while we're in town for my brother's wedding. Guests are me, my mom, kiddo one and kiddo two. Also my best friend and kiddo three. Thanks!! lmk what other info you might need from me!

Guess what the reservation says: 2 adults, 2 kids

grrrr

[Sarah977]

@Kelly149  Apparently she thinks the "alsos" don't count.

[Kelly149]

@Sarah977 classic case of "I was looking for 4, but this is so cute and goes up to 6, and oh! I needed to update the guest count??"

[Colleen253]

@Kelly149 Math is hard. 

[Kelly149]

true... true @Colleen253 

[Kelly149]

And she still hasn’t responded but abb sure is on top of pelting ME with reminders to hurry up & accept. 

if guests get even half as many reminders as hosts I sure don’t understand why they’re so bad at responding 

[Richard2237]

I am also finding that people are not using the pull down menu for who is coming including pets.  I think as for pets in the pull down the quest are thinking that it applies to service animals since that is next to pet.  We are also have receive one person reservation and waste time to find out who is coming. 

So far this has been a step backward instead of an improvement.

[Kelly149]

Update for today:

the request for 4 but say we're bringing 6 lady retracted

another group who was 2 people, but didn't read the house rules and told me they were looking forward to arriving at noon and departing at noon, was declined and blocked after not responding to messages for 20 hours

and then another new guest who requested for 6 (our max) and then real quick said "oh, actually, can you undo this bc we're bringing extra people, who aren't sleeping there!" After I sent her the House Rules, that say no extras of any kind, sleeping or not.

Come on ABB, show the House Rules and give Hosts some help here. I'm not willy-nilly going around rejecting people, but if I listed a checkin time, a departure time, a guest count max and some house rules, then I should get to expect that those things will be known and respected before I get to have my day interrupted by people who scrolled a photo on a phone and just hit reserve.

[Kelly149]

and update for today: musician coming to town with his pregnant wife during our busiest festival of the year, requests for 2 guests, doesn't read house rules, therefore doesn't answer the questions. Blocks my calendar for 23 hours while he isn't reading my messages, while ABB sends me multiple "hurry and confirm messages". I guess maybe they finally threw a reminder at him too since he came back and wordlessly retracted his request. How is this helping anyone??