The AirBNB "Platform"

Do you really want people paying flop-house prices staying with you. The only saving grace is that they need a credit card. But withe “green dot” cards you could still end up with a “Pacific Heights” scenario.

More on my wish list:

I would like to know if a guest has actually opened a message sent via the AirBNB message system. Had one guest this week that uses her business email to receive notifications, and didn’t bother to check that email for 10 days before her arrival. I had no idea when they were going to arrive and had to succumb to texting her phone number.

Tomorrow’s guest has also not responded to two requests for an arrival time over the past week.

Texting seems pushy if they have simply chosen to ignore. Even my threat of stranding them on the porch has not worked, but of course, I don’t know if they actually have received the messages.

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Well the minute I post a rant here, she did respond. Away for the week. No email. le sigh And the kicker? They actually don’t know when they will arrive, but now I know they will be arriving later, no earlier than 6pm, which is actually close enough.

There’s a problem at the moment with messages and texts getting through. I was getting really pissed off at a couple who were late and not responding to my messages. They arrived 3 hours later than planned and were very apologetic saying they just couldn’t manage to send a message. Yeah right, I thought, but they were so nice I forgave them. But then, lo and behold, I received a message A WHOLE DAY AFTER THEY LEFT (!!) that said they were sorry to be late and giving an updated arrival time. Bearing in mind that they stayed for two nights, that’s a delay of 72 hours. Ridiculous. It’s happened to me a couple of times recently.

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It has been a HUGE concern with me lately. I hate texting guest phones. Oh, keep everything in the messaging system, sure. But if it doesn’t work? There goes your “communication” score!

It happened to one of my guests too. I got 5 texts at the same time, written at different intervals. They were keeping me updated. But all texts arrived as they drove up.

Same with me – delayed Air messages received two days later. I also suspect, because guests have said they sent a message that I never received, that I am probably not getting all inquiry messages. Who knows how many bookings I (or any of you) have lost because we are not receiving messages?

And what about the new tinkering with the calendar? Do they have a new calendar guy who is trying to justify his salary by all of these changes? Why is Airbnb not telling us ahead of time (or ever – we have to figure it out on our own) about these changes? Or asking our opinions? We are in partnership with this company, helping them make billions of dollars, but they can’t give us the common curtesy of letting us know what is going on.

Yes. Because Airbnb is paid more if you are cheaper.

Airbnb’ Guest fees start at 12%, but then decrease at the amount of the reservations gets higher, to reach a minimum at 6%. They will make 12% of 10 bookings paid 100 by the guest, but they will make 6% over one reservation of 1 000. They have a vested interest in lowering your price. Smart Pricing basically helps to enforce this commercial objective. They know they are under-evaluating your unit.

That is not accounting for other externalities, for example, guests seeking cheap rates return to Airbnb unlike those for whom price is less of a factor.

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@Oesmec read above!! Way better than my answer!!

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At the very least they should keep us updated. I usually discover changes when I go to the site and I’m not emailed or sent a message of any type to tell me something’s changed.

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This has always been my biggest irritation with Airbnb. All the talk about ‘community’ and the importance of communication and yet they have always failed consistently to build a relationship with the very people who constitute their business - hosts. There is no reason or excuse not to communicate changes to the system. They simply choose not to do it. It has always been a mystery to me why they ignore this aspect. It is such bad practice. A fundamental principle to ensuring a healthy community is communication, consultation and timely sharing of information.

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Yes, and this includes changes one has made. They should send you confirmation emails when one makes a change to the listing.

I actually understand not sending an email. I understand not adding a notification to our dashboard. (though how hard could either of those things be?) I do not understand not maintaining a public change or commit log, such as I get on GitHub, so I can see what has been changed and what is on the docket to be worked on in the next few sprints.

Does beyond pricing work better than Air B&B Smart Pricing?

I imagine their code is proprietary.

Oh yes. But the change or commit log doesn’t need to be. Two different things, as you know. :slight_smile:

Certainly, but I don’t think Github has support for private changes and public logs, at least. And I can’t think of any other standard service that does. Though I’m sure Airbnb could come up with some suitable service if it wanted to.

Also, I imagine a public log without being able to see the code would just be an exercise in frustration. And in practice, commit logs are usually quite technical, and hard to understand without context.

I expect if Airbnb was to make their code public they’d be getting a lot of bug fix suggestions, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.

But I’m really most interested in having user changes recorded in the system, as I’ve said already in various places.

At the time I tried Smart Pricing the price tips were so ludicrously low I couldn’t trust anything they were doing. A few times they were jacking up my price but I could not find any event to justify it.

Now, surprisingly, the airbnb price tips are starting to come in at or above my current price, so I am reassessing, especially as I pay 1% to beyond pricing every month!

Airbnb may have raised mine too high because I’m only half booked through September. I started out around $50 and they’ve got me up to $67 now so I’m wondering if the reason is the price

My latest irritation with the “platform.” When I receive an instant booking the only notification that I receive is an email. No ding or notification on the phone app and no notification on the website portal. I realize there is no requirement that I respond to an instant book reservation, but I like to thank them for booking, respond to their message [I always get a personal message], and let them know what the "next " step will be. I have found that this followup reassures the future guest that their reservation is truly confirmed.

Why don’t I get notifications where I am most likely to receive them? Has this always been the case? Only recently have I removed the requirement that another host has recommended and the number of instant bookings has increased.