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So I’ve just turned down a booking request from a a guest who wants to rent my entire apartment for a group of 4 during the spring races which is the most drunken event of the year.
I initially turned him down because there was no profile picture, no written profile and no prior reviews (I also turned him down because he did not quote the code word hidden in my house rules to ensure that they read them all), but in further inspection it appeared that this guest has been a member since 2015 and that I can no longer access guest reviews unless I have activated the “Instant Booking” feature.
I realise that Airbnb have been trying to push people toward “Instant Booking” but honestly withholding reviews now? How the hell are we supposed to make any kind of judgement on guests if we have no access to their reviews. It;s enough to make me abandon their platform altogether.
I’m very concerned about setting up the “Instant Booking” feature with my entire apartment as I an not around to watch over guests.
I had set it up for the single room listing only (as I am still on premises with the guests) but even with the filters to exclude certain guests, they seem to still be slipping through.
Are other people experiencing this? When did this firewall to guests reviews happen? Has anybody had any experience with other platforms that are less evil in this respect?
I have IB so can’t really help much. I was just going to mention that I know the review stars can only be seen if you have instant book so maybe it’s a glitch? Or a test (that hopefully will fail for your sake). I would not be surprised if Airbnb eventually goes to all instant book.
Under the section where it says
"About this guest" There is a green link that says " Learn how to access guest star ratings". When I click on that I get
Access guest ratings with Instant Book
When you let guests book instantly, you’ll be able to see how other hosts
rated them on cleanliness, communication, and how well they followed
House Rules. Guest ratings will be available for any booking you get
while Instant Book is on.
If you’re ever uncomfortable with a reservation, you always have the option to cancel penalty-free. Learn more
Hosts being “allowed” to see the Star Ratings is a very recent addition, and it is only available to Instant Book hosts. They didn’t take anything away from you; they never gave it to you to start with. You should be able to see the written reviews, just not the star ratings.
You could try calling Airbnb and asking. Like if you get a booking request and it says “member since 2015” you could ask the guest if they have reviews, or you could call Airbnb and ask them. Unfortunately many hosts seem to follow the rule of “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” So they get a guest that they wouldn’t recommend but they are afraid of a retaliatory review. So they don’t review. A poor guest could use Airbnb dozens of times and just insinuate they weren’t happy, are going to leave a bad review or otherwise black mail a host to not review. I have new guests all the time who have no reviews and I’ve had no problems but I don’t have the same situation you do. In your case I’d only want to rent to someone with reviews for the special event.
@anon67190644
Ok thanks I was worried that I might not be able to see ANY reviews that would help me make an informed decision w/o having instant book. I just didn"t think this guy did not have any prior reviews since 2015.
You’ve got a code-word embedded in your rental description that the guest should give you to prove they’ve read the information? So simple! Brilliant!
In the rental description, do you ask them to mention it when they make their booking request? Do you offer an incentive to get their buy-in like “to get an extra 5% off your booking price mention the code word “beachbum”?”
