I am a 29 times Superhost - one of the originals. I am over 70 and a home share. My listing is popular because it is a Frank Lloyd Wright design, in the wilderness, surrounded by wilderness, and off grid. I also am a former 5* resort manager and pride myself on superlative hospitality. Our rural county has briefly dipped below the red tier, and spent most of the last 2 years in purple. Delta is still raging here. I’ve been isolated here since March 2020. I plan to reopen end of January, when my new STR insurance kicks in, and sorely miss hosting. I’ve missed having some income as well. Yes, we are required to have STR insurance, and our former insurance company quit doing homeshare coverage due to the pandemic.
First quarter, dead of winter is no time to require 10 bookings, even without a pandemic. First quarter is a dead time here. This is rural, mountains, outdoor activities (no skiing) such as hiking, fishing, star gazing. With rain, snow, road closures, ice, etc, this is no time for guests to come here. And they don’t.
Tourist season, OK, it could work. Winter we carry chain saws and road work and rescue tools in the 4 wd. Locals get stuck. So, I earned those 29 times - 8 years worth of Superhost - homeshare is a labor of love. I’ll survive without the badge, and I most certainly will not sacrifice health and safety for a badge. I’m an Airbnb stockholder and I’ve definitely let them know that this is ill advised and poorly timed imho. In another region and climate, with whole house rentals, OK. With homeshare hosts in a rural wet winter in our region - no. One size does not fit all, and in case no one noticed, we are in a full on pandemic here. Our rural hospitals are struggling. Our vaccination rate is not where it should be. My housekeeper and ranch hand are in quarantine. Their child brought Covid home from high school this week. "Nuff said.
Yep, I’m in the same boat. Mr. Chesky seems to have forgotten how he first (and still does) pitched his start-up, promoting meeting people around the world (not faceless check-ins to property-managed listings) .
Not to mention his company’s supposed concern about spreading Covid.
You are not alone. We’ve beaten the unfairness of “superhost back to prior standards” to death in a different thread.
Many of us will probably lose Superhost Status. (I’m borderline for 7/1 evaluation-I may not make the minimum stays/days)
The message they sent was a reminder. The original notice went out in August 2020. I think many of us including me either missed or forgot about it.
https://www.airbnb.com/resources/hosting-homes/a/the-latest-updates-to-superhost-assessments-257
Aw, surely not… oh wait, we do too.
Said before, not overly fussed but if it comes down to one booking, 
JF
I missed the August notice. Alas. It makes no difference. Without insurance, and with Delta raging here, no way. August here was far worse than now. Hospitals sending patients out of county, surgeries still postponed indefinitely. Folks dying and others picketing (the hospital)over vaccines and masks. This is so insane!
You know, it’s great being a Superhost, and we have been for years now. But we’ll lose it this time.
In the grand scheme of things, I don’t give a rat’s ass. The pandemic is in full swing. Home-share hosting is outrageously unsafe for people (like me) who have risk factors.
If Superhost status evaporates, who cares! When/if we ever start hosting again through Airbnb, we can always get it back.
In the meantime, we plan to survive, regardless of what irresponsible garbage Airbnb expects from us.
I read a hopeful medical option today. For the vaxxed & un-vaxxed omicron variant for most (not all) tends to be mild.
It’s number of infected has doubled from 2 weeks ago. The positive news is it appears to provide immunity to Delta and may crowd out the Delta variant. Meaning less Delta hospitalizations & deaths.
This was an opinion /anecdotal evidence BUT points to more hope on the horizon.
There’s really not enough data yet to say that Omicron tends to be mild. It’s just getting started.
Remember when Delta breakthroughs were considered mild, why only a few months ago. Lots of people got very sick and died.
Right now in the US, we are in a 2nd Delta wave, Omicron isn’t even a factor yet.
As I’ve read variants don’t tend to get weaker, they get stronger and Omicron is much more transmissible than Delta.
The opinion was based on the experiences thus far from the UK. They are several weeks ahead of the USA with Omnicron.
I didn’t present it as evidence based.
Oh dear. They really haven’t been dealing with it well. Is it Plan B, or is it Plan C or is it the case that some folks are more interested in their political standing than saving lives. Hang on, this sounds just like a year ago in the UK.
JF
Yeah, what a great favor to do this in the dead of winter when the Alaskan season is May15-Sept 15. No way I’ll get 10 bookings.
I would rather be a healthy not-superhost than a miserable & sick (or worse) superhost
I’m not unsympathetic to the host who feels that this is unfair to home share hosts. I agree. But in the interest of being encouraging I’d like to remind every host that they all started as a non Superhost. It will be okay.
Agreed. Just sucks to not get the $100 credit towards a host booking someone else’s AirBnB.
From the UK press yesterday:
JF
I’ve stayed at many Airbnb rentals and don’t think I’ve ever checked to see if the host is super-ized or not. And I talk to a lot of my guests in a why-did-you-choose-us conversation and the fact that we are SH has never been mentioned.
Exactly. 
This is true for me too. I spend a lot of time picking out an Airbnb but I don’t care whether the host is a superhost or not, it doesn’t enter into my calculations at all. Obviously, I had a bad stay recently but I’ve never had a bad stay before. My favorite Airbnb ever, which was a home host I stayed with many many times, was not a superhost, he had a 4.7+ something and several reviews complaining about stuff that did not bother me or deter me from becoming a repeat guest.
I did deal with a host one time that got kind of weird about some stuff on our second stay with her and she was inappropriate after checkout but she was a superhost. The most recent stay was not good and the host was not a superhost, but even with my 3-star review he is set to become one in January (assuming he makes it off of suspension and doesn’t get de-listed), so there’s that. In my experience, a host being a superhost has not given me a better stay.
edit to add: Actually my husband just reminded me of a stay I forgot about. We actually left after the first night because the host was so abrasive and overbearing and caused a big scene about us not being breakfast eaters even though I was clear about that when we booked since I don’t want a host to waste food on us since we don’t breakfast. Anyway, I think she must’ve been going through something but we left and got a hotel. This was while we were visiting our current city in prep for the move here. She is a superhost and has one of the higher ratings for a home host in our city, nonetheless it was probably technically the worst stay since we had to leave.
Of course I’m not saying being a superhost makes someone a lesser host, I’m just saying it doesn’t mean they’re a good host necessarily. It doesn’t matter.
The worst place I ever stayed via Airbnb was a Superhost’s rental. It had completely untrue reviews and the photographs badly misrepresented the place. The pool was unusable due to green slime and the cottage itself, although delightful from the outside, was shabby and grubby with no real AC (one window unit that didn’t really work) and no internet (although internet was in the listed amenities.)
Pleasant host but the place was awful. So there’s no way I’d trust that Superhost badge.
I only care about SH for my stays because it’s a filter that filters out some of the lower ranked Airbnbs and because I find the filters to be lacking. 90% of the time when I look to stay in an Airbnb there are too many listings to read. And that’s another reason I avoid listing with a long description and lots of rules.
How weird. Why would she care whether you wanted breakfast or not? The only thing I can think of is that she considered her breakfasts to be something really special that she wanted to show off, figuring that earned her good reviews.
I’m not a breakfast person at all, and am really fussy about how I like my eggs, I like oatmeal barely cooked, and don’t like accidy fruit like oranges or grapefruit, so I never want others to prepare breakfast for me, nor do I go out for breakfast. I’ve more than once had to send the same plate of eggs back to the kitchen twice because the cook refuses to believe anyone would want their eggs that well done.