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Had a cancellation last year and one this year. Neither were for “extenuating” circumstances, but both weeks before arrivals. I had communicated with the guests, and all was as fine as it could be.
Now, walk in the big bad AirBnB monster. I loose my super host due to the arbitrary percentage I guess I am over now.
You know what, as I have learned in here, I don’t care. I did what I would expect form any good business owner. If Air cant figure that out, their loss.
My experience is that Superhost status didn’t bring me any more bookings or earnings, so in that respect, it’s probably not a big loss to your business. I’ve seen data that says Superhosts make more money on average, but it isn’t necessarily based on cause and effect. I.e. Hosts don’t start making more money because they earn Superhost status, hosts make more money because they do the things that earn them Superhost status.
The cancellation metric is an interesting factor though. Guests get burned by hosts that cancel, so some of them look for Superhosts simply because they know booking with a Superhost minimizes that risk.
Why did you cancel? Didn’t you know how a cancellation would affect your Supershost status and take that into consideration before committing to cancel?
@Brian_R170 , we cancelled for family plan changes. Emergency, no, but critical to us. Yes, we knew it could/would affect that rating. ;-(
We have had the Super come and go, and the stays are statistically the same. I would view it as a plus as a guest, definitely. However, based on user ratings is how we evaluate hosts primarily when we travel.
Why didn’t you ask your guests to cancel with the promise of a FULL an immediate reimbursement and a discount for future bookings? Or why not use your free anual cancelations? Or why not call AirBnB to look for a solution? Why not ask someone else to attend to your guests?
So many more options than just pushing the cancelation button.
And why not accept that you are in the hospitality business and that doesn’t allow for family plan changes? As a guest I would hate to have my plans spoiled because you consider something “critical” to you, but were unable to plan accordingly .
You know what they say : you get what you paid for . You don’t want to pay hotel prices be ready to be canceled on and other " joy" of renting from a person .
I was actually surprised to hear how many of my guests who rent from me though Craigslist and repeat guests told me they don’t rent through Airbnb exactly for this reason : cancellations …and checking process .
Well exactly. Why would you? Your forthcoming guests don’t know. Their accommodation and the service they receive will be the same as when they booked. A lot of potential guests don’t even know what it means. It’s not going to affect them, and there’s no reason why it should affect you.
I’m wondering though how you have the time and inclination to post about it? You say you don’t care (quite rightly) but you’ve devoted enough time to the issue to post about your lost ‘gold star’.
I have to agree with @GutHend - it’s a shame to spoil a customer’s travel or vacation plans. Don’t you have any contingency plans in hand in case you can’t host personally?
Explaining :
Craigslist give guests opportunity to check listing before renting . And …meet their host . And check out area. With Craigslist there is no sudden cancellations . They already in my house , they pay me directly and they stay. With Craigslist noone makes any deposits before hand because it’s risky …there is no bookings ahead of time . Ussualy guests who rent from me come couple days before they move in .
Checking means " check- in"
To add…I also rent though booking.com. Price 15% more in booking.com of course because of commissions. But it becomes the same for guests side. I get booked more on booking than Airbnb . Recent guest told.me he saw me on Air also but he still booked through booking because of cancellation problem with Air. He said if he is cancelled on booking he gets another hotel for same.price for him . With Air it’s lost case . He was stranded so many times before last minute with Air that now he avoids
In a perfect world it would be ok for both parties to cancel and loss should be equal. Here we as hosts loose a lot and have high penalties while guests only loose their service fees. With other platforms like booking and Expedia we as hosts can’t cancel without relocating a guest and pay ussualy higher price for their accomodation .
Guests however can cancel last minute and usualy its all refundable.
I was superhost 2 terms for the 5 years I am hosting. I did notice light increase in bookings but may be it was just busy times here …I don’t remember.
When I book as a guest I never look for superhost . I stayed in quite a few very messy and dirty superhosts houses where host was supersweet. I personally prefer not so supersweet host but clean house. One house afwully smelled like cat. And my bed was covered with cat hair and smelled like cat pee.
I just stayed at superhost place and it was bad stay . It was separate place and was infested with crawling creatures . I am not easily scared or even disgusted but that was too much .
There was an insect spray on a kitchen and that’s how I started my day by spraying everywhere .
@GutHend, time frame prevented the contact the guest solution, but I agree that would be the easiest and best. I am not aware of any free cancellations, where exactly is that available on the app or website? I didn’t call AirBnB knowing that our reasoning wouldn’t suffice for their involvement. We are not located nor setup for co-hosting. Only had 2 incidents in over 3 years, so have never went that route.
For the record, I am not in the hospitality business, I am a homeowner primary and being hospitable second. I share my home because I can and want to and believe that is exactly what the creators started as?
As to being a hospitality business, I guess you are missing my point. I don’t care about the business part of it, I am not a Best Western and am not a for profit entity at any level here. What I was trying to convey is that AirBnB (now) is trying to make us into franchises of the AirBnB hotel system.
@jaquo, I posted to see where my decison in the matter stood. Been on the forum for a while and have seen many post to newcomers “dont worry about superhost”. Maybe things have changed, and so should my mentality? Or get out of the way of the change at least.
I concur with you and @GutHend, this is not something I have or will do lightly. I guest on AirBnB also, so know the concerns for travelling. We do not have any contingency plans. That may be the thing that I was trying to get out of the post? Ideas, options,…
A couple of years ago I had to spend two months in hospital, totally unexpectedly, in a coma. And yet I had two rental apartments that were fully booked up. My contingency plan was with a local person who was able to do the cleaning. I had someone else to do the internet dealings and we had to have guests self check in. (We had had keypads for quite some time).
This worked fine. I had created a ‘manual’ online so that the cleaning /preparation person could refer to it on her phone whilst actually doing the work. There were plenty of photographs for her to refer to ‘this is how the cushions are arranged’ or ‘this is how the fresh magazines should look’ and ‘arrange the takeout menus like this’ and so on. It covered everything she needed to know.
So therefore it was possible for me to be out of action (out of consciousness actually!) for two months, plus several months convalescence, without disrupting any guests. Certainly reviews slowed down and I’m not sure that all the guests had the best time they possibly could have but it kept things running just fine.
That’s what I mean about contingency plans. I am a really healthy person who had never had a day’s illness or hospitalisation accident until that time. It can happen to anyone unfortunately. It’s as well to be prepared.
@jaquo, sorry to hear. Seems you were well prepared for “something” and I can learn from that. I/we write Standard Operating Procedures" for everything at work. I had written them for nearly everything for the guests. (hand book is well written) I had never considered doing the same for “ourselves”, since we do those tasks normally. If we had them though, getting external help would be MUCH easier, thanks!
Even though I didn’t know it when posting, was mostly a vent, this was the “help” I was looking for. Not to be judged or berated, but to check myself and improve my listing(s). Thanks again!
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