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I have just received my first bad review for my main listing. The entire review is a short complaint that I live in the home with my partner and they didn’t have the entire home to themselves.
We seem to have been given one star for accuracy for this despite the listing clearly saying that it is a private room and not an entire home.
Are Airbnb likely to delete this review? I don’t mind the text, but the low rating is having an impact on us potentially gaining super host status for something that is entirely the guest’s own fault.
Make the phrase WE SHARE THIS PRIVATE ROOM IN OUR HOME … in all caps, visible as the first or second line in your description so people don’t have to scroll down to see it. Alternatively use the phrase THIS IS NOT AN ENTIRE HOME LISTING, YOU ARE SHARING OUR HOME – again visible as the first or second line of your description.
Sorry to hear of this. I’ve written in another thread of how Airbnb altered my listing recently. I’d advise you to check they haven’t done this to you too. The screenshot below shows in big bold that we are a B&B but underneath in small type they inserted “Entire home/flat”. It’s not something I’d be checking for, so don’t know when it started.
I had a woman who LOVED my place and immediately booked for her return trip mistakenly give me one star overall, 5 stars in every category. I asked her to call Airbnb and get it fixed and she said she would. Later she said they couldn’t change it. I don’t know who is telling the truth but I know it’s unlikely to change. You might briefly respond to his review saying “you mistook my private room for an entire home.” Some people who don’t read listings might read reviews.
Maybe when you confirm the booking you can have an email going out saying “We look forward to having you has our guests in the suite in our home that we live in” or words to that effect, so once again, you are reminding them that its SHARED.
I had a guest who gave me four star rather than five by mistake.
I checked this with her via Airbnb messaging as she had been raving about how amazing my place was.
She confirmed it was a mistake and she meant to give me five stars. That combined with the review was enough for Airbnb to change the rating for me to five star.
If you guest confirmed via messaging that she gave you one star in error. Give Airbnb a call and see if they will change it.
This is very mindless from the guests who neglected reading the listing properly. There is enough information while you search for an accommodation already provided from Airbnb. I rent a room, so the listing obviously states that the listing is a room not entire place.
Airbnb also asks which areas are shared and which one are not. It’s very simple.
While I understand that they made a HUGE mistake to rate your listing low for this reason, I highly doubt that Airbnb will do something about it. From what I’ve seen lately Airbnb pretty much sides always with guests or just simply doesn’t give a damn.
I’m sorry this happened to you!!
Probably the guest is telling the truth. Airbnb has become a pretentious bit**ch. They don’t care about hosts anymore. They have too many of them already. Guests are the money $$$
Believe me I did so, twice, the night before their arrival… She admits she failed to read anything properly because she had a houseful of guests, had a bad year and was stressed out by it all. She does say she has learned a hard lesson.
I booked a place in London and failed to read the detail but assumed from the photos that there would be access to a dining area. Turned out that a room meant exactly that! No place to eat breakfast other than sitting on the bed with our own cereal and milk. After that I tagged a couple of our photos with “Not available to guests” realising we were guilty of the same misrepresentation.
I wonder why not one of your guests said they thought it was entire place .
Sometimes hosts put crazy things like: entire appartment 18 beds. What they mean that it’s a room in hotel with 18 rooms.
My In-House Boffin did it, not me I’m afraid but happy to share;-
copy the review text into the photo caption, surround with quotation marks add stars using the asterisk ***** and then add the name - cannot claim it as my own …
I agree with K9KarmaCasa - thought the same thing! Why show what is not available?
Another factor in our area is the “Personal Property Use Tax” imposed by the county. Every item in every area that a guest has access to must be reported and the county decides on the value of the item and assesses a “use tax” based on value and depreciation. Once I learned this we restricted access to our living room and family room - taking those photos down. Guests can use the guest bedroom, guest bathroom. laundry room, kitchen and back deck. Every item was inventoried to report to the county (even pencils/pens and pencil holder!) I doubt anyone from the county actually checks our photos against the inventory but I plan to be above board anyway and report everything. This inventory needs to be updated yearly.
I used to have pics of my home thinking it would show a clean, tidy home. It would be an insight into my personality. But I realized it’s just false advertising. Ever see those ads that have to say something like “beach home not included” in the picture of the lounge chair on the deck? People are dumb.
