@Jac0 Well Jac, as Gough Whitlam once said, "You may well ask"!......Two weeks ago I just happened to come across this little snippet of information that I am re-pasting...
……This is an excerpt I just came across from another post purportedly from a member of Airbnb staff! “Customer Support: I have reached out to my colleague who is working with this system change to get more information. It sounds like we are working to phase out this method of notification, which is why this change has been coming about. For now, it sounds like it should be able to be switched back on through the app on your phone. You can do this by going to Settings > Notifications and turning on the Text Message Notifications. You may need to switch it off and then back on again"....
Jac, tell me they are kidding!!!! Their not. All over the world there are complaints coming in about lost bookings with exactly the same bottom line.....no notification! Some have lost up to half a dozen bookings!
I lost a booking because it sat on my dashboard for 16 hours and I never knew it was there. Jac, cracks are appearing in the system.......and as I have said in other posts there are going to be some problem times ahead. I phoned Sydney and spoke to a very pleasant lady who said she had 're-activated' my sms messages, but I have had three messages since then on my listing page that I haven't been notified of. In fact, since last week my mobile phone has been utterly silent as far as Airbnb is concerned!
The thing that hurts most is Jac they haven't had the guts to release a statement to their hosting community that sms (or more particularly Cellular) level of contact was about to cease....we have had to find it out in dribs and drabs on a forum site and nobody actually connected with Airbnb will give us a difinitive statement....all they are saying is 'it's a glitch in the system'!!!
This is a big deal, fairly obviously cellular contact is costing Airbnb and enormous amount of money....every txt costs, and it looks like the 'backroom boys' have hit on this solution (which works fine in NY, Miami, Paris, London, in fact anywhere there is a Wifi hot spot) but in the less heavily saturated internet areas we depend on cellular....even a personal WiFi is still a cellular service.
The one thing these 'backroom boys' haven't taken into account...an sms costs, what, 20c. A lost booking to another site will cost them $20-$30-$50 or more, either in a guest going elsewhere or a host! Does that make good mathematical sense??
Jac, we are being screwed to that God of economies! Airbnb knows full well there will be a lot of flack and a considerable amount of fallout from this but, it looks very much like it's a numbers game.....the decision has been made to discontinue cellular notifications and that is all there is to it. You will get some soothing talk...(There you go Robin, I have reset your notifications) ....but I am afraid, it's all cobblers!
Strap yourself in possum, we are in for a rough time and you know, the worst part about it is? After following Airbnb's advice to the letter you are going to be pinged for not responding to enquiries....as though it's all your fault, not theirs.....jeeezzzuuuuussss!!!!.... cheers.....Rob”