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First, you might be right that this rule is illadvised. That’s why I am posting this in the forum for feedback.
Second, breaking a house rule could be a serious thing. Whether the Host asks Airbnb to remove the review is a matter of discretion for the Host, and, I suspect, for Airbnb too.
Third, as to ‘extortion,’ a number of threads point out that often the Host is in a bind or has no or little recourse when the reviewer blatantly violates house rules and then blasts the Host in a negative review. So the purpose of this rule is to deter such guest behavior and – hopefully – provide some recourse to the Host when the guest does so. So there seems to be ‘extortion’ the other way.
Fourth, I can easily see how such a rule could be abused by the Host. So I would think that Airbnb would honor the rule based on the circumstances and the conduct, including past conduct, of the Host. The rule is intended to give authority to Airbnb, should it wish to exercise it, to remove the review.
Do you have a better suggestion? Or do you think that such a rule cannot be edited to be workable?
Such a house rule as I am suggesting would, in my opinion, give Airbnb the authority to remove the review should Airbnb feel that otherwise Airbnb does not have that authority. Whether Airbnb would in fact remove it is, I think, an open question that might depend on the circumstances including past conduct of the Host in seeking to enforce this House rule.
It’s interesting to me that there are many posts on this forum of guests blatantly violating house rules – serious ones like not smoking or inviting unregistered guests on to the property – but the Host fearful of raising these issues lest the guest leave a negative review. This house rule is intended to. protect the Host in such circumstances.
Maybe there is a better way to protect the Host, but this idea occurs to me.
They keep stating that this would be a house rule. A rule about rules. Hence my response. Airbnb wouldn’t enforce a rule about rules anymore than they enforce any other rule.
But they already have. The host agrees to follow their review policy in the terms of service. To have a house rule that directly conflicts with the Airbnb review policy is unenforceable.
It’s Airbnb’s owned & managed website. They can do anything they want. We as hosts don’t authorize them to do anything.
Why would you think that? Airbnb refuses to remove 1* revenge reviews by guests who break all the rules even if the host has hundreds of 5* reviews and the guest has no reviews.
And this rule is meant to “give authority to Airbnb to remove a review?” Airbnb already has the authority to do whatever they like.
I agree - depending on the rule. It seems that there are some hosts who, every time a guest does something they don’t like, create a new rules about it. Of course, rules like no smoking or no parties are important (and often mandated by a host’s STR insurance and/or business license) can violate local codes and health $ safety issues.
But I’ve come across some crazy rules too, especially pre-checkout rules. Must take out the garbage. Must strip the beds. Must leave towels in the tub. Must switch off AC. And so on. They are not ‘important’ rules, they are for the convenience of the host and not for the comfort of the guest.
If a guest has been told pleasantly by the host that xx or xx is against the rules and the matter has been dealt with amicably, then why should the guest leave a negative review? But we live in a review society - hosts shouldn’t be scared of poor reviews. Everything is reviewed these days. If a host has great reviews and offers great value for money and fabulous hospitality then one bad review is seen by potential guests as being written by a bit of a weirdo. No big deal.
There’s no point in wasting time with a poor review. Hosts are far more concerned with their own reviews than potential guests are.
Hosts may differ a lot but I don’t see that I’d want to ‘give authority to Airbnb’.
No, I don’t. Even if the language is edited to give the rule a less off-putting message, it still seems unnecessary. I just can’t see how there are any benefits that outweigh it.
How long have you been a host? How long have you read forums or message boards (for example reddit) about Airbnb. Airbnb is a corporation that looks at their bottom line. Yes, occasionally one might get a competent CS agent who says “I see from looking…” about something in regard to your account, history, etc. But for the most part they want to dispose of every CS issue as quickly as possible. They sure AF do not want to deal with your cockamamie idea. They are guest centric and will rule against you first, maybe think about it later if you spend way too much time on it.
You can’t run your business in fear of every review, I will NOT ALLOW a guest to destroy my property just because I am afraid of a review. And in an instance as this is is easy enough to get it removed. I have gotten a review removed from a guest that we evicted as Airbnb considered the review retaliation for the eviction.
Speaking of guest reviews, how does an owner access those? I have gotten a request from someone and over to the right, under their name there is a star in a little blue house with the words ‘Owner Recommended’ to the right. Below that is five black stars and (2). Doesn’t that (2) mean that there are two reviews of this renter? How do I get to those reviews? How many little stars in houses can one be awarded? Is one a good score?
@Tennisgal I have found that the last two issues I had with Guests violating rules were handled by Customer Support very quickly and in my favor. I think they are starting to realize just how valuable their Hosts are and definitely supporting the Host over the Guest. Not sure if this works more in favor of Superhosts (which I am) but I am just grateful that you and I have had positive experiences
I am. Part of why I wasn’t afraid of the bad review I’m sure will come is that I have about 150 reviews and a 4.99 score. I think decent guests will see through a bad review since I will reply under it.
In addition to the smoking, I’m pretty sure he was a drug dealer. All he brought with him into my condo was a backpack and a laptop. There were seven people that came in and out of my condo at different times in the 16 hours he was before I canceled his reservation. One definitely looked like a prostitute. Plus the man who checked into my condo was definitely not the man in the profile picture. The whole thing was ridiculous, but I only brought up the smoking because nothing else really mattered for customer service’s thought process.
It would have been so interesting, if futile, had you pursued this. I’ve said many times that I don’t can about the profile picture for a bunch of reasons and one is that about half my guests don’t look like the profile picture. The match in general terms like “middle aged hispanic appearing female” but the rest… no way.
Thanks for the suggestion but it didn’t work. All I get on the circle with their initials is a large capital I and it goes nowhere. In Airbnb, that circle has their picture and I get the little hand and it does take me to their reviews, but with VRBO, nothing.
We had a problem where guests had smoked in our villa, we found 2 cigarette ends in 2 seperate bedrooms and the whole villa smelled awful.
We complained and requested the cost of cleaning all the curtains, rugs and carpets. This was a total of about 1000€. This may sound excessive but there are 17 pairs of dryclean only floor to ceiling curtains 12 rugs and carpets. The guests refused saying they had only smoked outside on the terrace. They did not pay, when Airbnb were involved they immediately gave us the full amount. The guests had only paid 1200€ for their stay, they didn’t write a review!! Great result and hopefully a lesson for the guests. Thank you Airbnb.
