DEAD after Snoozing

Greetings! So my listings have been going strong for nearly two years, last December I was booked nearly every day through New Year’s. In late September, I had major surgery and decided to snooze both of my listings for a few weeks during recovery, and since then this house has been a ghost town! I’ve got 57 positive reviews, ‘Superhost’ for the past year, and I match other listings for the lowest price in the city… any suggestions on how to kickstart my listings?? I loathe the idea of having to get a roommate, but my mortgage company is getting pissed ha ha…

Wake Up your listing – change out some photos. Revise some of the wording, change things around. That’s the kind of “activity” to get you higher up in the search algorithm. It’s a good thing to do some of that every month.

4 Likes

I just did a search for your place, Haverhill [and the map showed a much bigger area] and private room. You didn’t show up. Then I did a filter for Superhost and repositioned the map to include Haverhill and just a little bit more area, and you still don’t show up. Have you searched using incognito mode or a browser that doesn’t know who you are?

I will note that I checked the calendars for about 4 of the resulting SuperHost listings and they have no bookings at all.

I think that @KenH is right. You need to do some tweaking on your listing to play the system as best as you can. I have been known to lower my prices just a bit and then the next day raise them back up and seem to get bookings almost instantly. Odd thing, which I can not say is reproducible.

Hope that you have recovered well.

1 Like

Well that’s not good! Thanks, I will get on my computer and check right now, maybe I messed something up!

Missing 1/2 a kidney, but cancer free since 9/23! :grin:

7 Likes

@MsJTherrien. Now that is good news, once you get past the surgery and cancer part.

3 Likes

I just did a search by first filtering for super host and then without and found both listings without issue. What did you change?

So I logged and looked at mine on the computer before I searched for them, it said “SNOOZED 9/22-10/15”… I checked off ‘Listed’ and the dates went away and the little dot turned from orange to green! I couldn’t have been snoozed all this time though, because I’ve had two guests in the past two months, they wouldn’t have seen me if it was! I’m still going to edit and update, thinking of hiring a pro photographer to come do photos.

1 Like

I’m starting to wonder about my listing too. We decided to let friends stay the entire month of December so we blocked the calendar. We’re available again 1/2 and have had ZERO bookings, inquiries, VIEWS! I even went on a few days ago and updated my pricing and such. I guess I need to play around some more.

Our listing completely fell off the platform in November @Sarah_Warren. We had to call AirBNB to get them to look into it and fix it. It took a couple of days. Others have experienced the same and it’s taken a lot longer to fix.

Congratulations on your success!! So happy for you!

@MsJTherrien – contact AirBnb and get them to send their professional photographer – it’ a free service

The free photo shoot is not available in our area. I suspect that they can’t find folks to photograph for the amount they are willing to spend or our area is saturated with enough listings that the cost/benefit isn’t in our favor. I have now made that request four times, and have been denied four times.

Ive just check and I have no booking for Feb and March, weird, and I did snooze my listing recently. I have dropped my daily base rate $3 and lifted my weekend rate $10 (I didn’t have weekend pricing before) and used my cleaning fee to $55 from $50. Lets see if it has any effect, seems on the surface like I am cheaper but actually I am more expensive now he he

How can you know which listing is hers?

She has posted the link to it in the past.

1 Like

OK, so maybe I did something right thanks to the advice here… I got two inquiries for this weekend, unfortunately I gave preference to the first one, who waited 12 hours to tell me that he is looking elsewhere, so I lost the second one, but hey that’s more action than I’ve had all month! :wink:

Definitely treat guests as a priority only once they pay… I’ve never once ‘saved’ or given a guest priority as I figured they would probably flake. So far I’ve have been proved wrong once maybe twice when a guest took about a week to decide and then came back to book; the dates were already gone. Snooze you lose!!

2 Likes

I agree. I had a host from Brooklyn inquire about staying with their dog and even told me the dog’s link on Instagram. I replied within minutes and asked if he wanted me to send a quote with the dog fee added. He didn’t even bother to reply to my reply. Less than 48 hours later the room was booked by someone else.

The last month has been my busiest ever. I get a lot of last minute requests and some instant bookings at night when I’m sleeping. I’ve had several people ask if it’s ok to arrive at some late hour, even though my description says it’s ok.

I suggest anyone who needs more bookings to consider offering instant book, late check in or self check in, and same day bookings.

2 Likes

I wonder if blocking is better than snoozing. I went on a road trip and had my room blocked for a couple of weeks. Since I been back in early November I’ve been busier than ever.

Don’t know. I snoozed for months and have been doing very well since re-activating the listing.

1 Like