Guest with good review but three stars

1

We’ve all complained about guests who leave glowing reviews but give just four stars. I’ve encountered a couple of cases of the opposite: guests who have been left good/glowing reviews by hosts, but not five stars. Most recently I had a guest with a positive review, but three stars across the board. I asked him about it, and he replied,

I only have stayed in an airbnb accommodation once, so I have contacted that person now to ask why he only gave me 3 star reviews and whether anything was wrong. His reply was that 3 is a “good” review that he gives to all people that leave the place like a hotel room and he does’t throw around 4 or 5 star reviews like that. Nothing has been wrong with our stay and he said that he would be happy to have us as guests again and that he said that he marked in his review that he gave us his recommendation.

2

I wonder what the host meant by “all people that leave the place like a hotel room”… Did you already host the guest with the 3 star review?

3

You have to ask what sort of experienced host doesn’t know that by giving three stars it’s a red flag to other hosts and means going forward guests can’t IB.

Having said that I am always quite shocked at the number of hosts who come on here saying they didn’t know if they cancel a booking they will be penalised. Even though it tells you quite clearly as you go through the cancellation process on Airbnb you will face financial penalties, lose your superhost status and have the dates blocked.

Clearly it’s not just guests who don’t read.

3 Likes
4

I believe that it is up to us as hosts to “educate” our guests about Airbnb’s review system and how anything below a 5 star hurts us.

  1. On the welcome letter I mentioned the 5 star review and how Airbnb looks at 5 stars differently from other rating systems.

  2. When guests arrive I send them an email asking if everything is ok and if not to let me know because I truly want to make their stay great.

  3. My checkout email thanks them and reminds them that a 5 star review helps other guests know about the suite and also helps me as a host to be being found on the Airbnb platform.

Yes, it might seem like over-kill but since I started doing this I don’t recall getting anything less than 5 stars except of course the ridiculous location rating.

3 Likes
5

He sounds like a jerk university professor who doesn’t give A’s. Or like the jerk hosts who don’t give bad reviews because they are scared of guests.

The longer I do this the more I see that there are lots of really bad hosts. I can only hope this host will get his share of 3 star reviews and be out of business soon.

4 Likes
6

I have taken on guests a couple of times who were quite straightforward about having an over the top prior host. One shorted the guest for having left a small amount of water on a tile floor. My current (direct) guest had a landlady who was bonkers. Their loss, my gain.