What is your procedure for leaving a guest review in terms of timing if you have a less than stellar review of the guest? In other words, should I resist being honest so that I can potentially get a better rating from the guests? Should I wait until they review me to give my rating of them?
Feedback will be greatly appreciated!!
Your review and your guest reviews are not published until you both have written a review or 14 days from the date of the guestâs departure. Therefore, neither side has an opportunity to review the other sideâs review before writing their review. There is, however, an opportunity to respond to a review.
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Also, from reading on this form, I have garnered that hosts who want to submit a negative review for a guest (and they think the guest me leave a negative review about them) tend to wait until the two weeks is almost up. Presumably, the reason is that reviews donât go live until both parties have submitted the review. After two weeks, one would hope that you have more positive reviews so that if they submit a bad review about you, it is buried under more recent positive ones. I am a new host, so perhaps the more experienced hosts will correct me if Iâm wrong or add to thisâŚ
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Oh gosh⌠Could you please try to search this site for this issue? Weâve had lengthy discussions already. Iâve only done this once, but if I have had a bad guest and want to leave a bad review I donât wait until almost the end. I wait until the very very very last minute of GUEST review expiration period. Not host review expiration. Keeping in mind that depending on your time zone, this may not work in your favor! Since I am in Hawaii it worked fine for me. If they have already reviewed you, it wonât matter. Review them. The idea is that if you wait until the last second, and both of you know the stay didnât go well, then leaving a review early might prompt them to smack you back.
Also⌠You can respond. But less is more. Your response can turn out to be more defensive than you wanted it to sound. I never respond because that tends to draw more attention to it than necessary.
Also ⌠Reviews will be posted in order of stay date.
Oh you are devious! What a hoot! So you have to plan ahead and make sure what time zone the guest is in, then have a countdown. Maybe thereâs just an hour or two window of time?
Ohhhhhhhh yes!! I guess you and I havenât discussed the sneak attack! 
It was actually suggested by an Air rep, who helpfully gave me the guest from hell expiration time. So I had the review readyâ All 500 words of itâat exactly 11:59 I pasted, hit submit, and voila!! She was screwed and didnât have a second to smack me back. Too bad so sad you terrible guest!!! Good luck getting another rental on Airbnb! Never!
Caveat: according to recent forum members the expiration time might now be the checkout time!
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Thank you. Your comments are helpful. (Well, except for all the hand wringing over my not having found the subject on the forum.) Other than that you are a gem.
Thank you. Your comments are helpful. (Well, except for all the hand wringing over my not having found the subject on the forum.) Other than that you are a gem.
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Yes. It all stated with a Very late night instant booking. For the very next day. First sign of trouble considering we are an off grid homestead in Hawaii. We got a message âlast minute trip sounds awesomeâ I really didnât appreciate the lame introduction. 3 guest for 7 nights⌠a week long and it came out of nowhere from account without a real name.
Leery of âMr. Beachfront Retreatâ⌠his photo was of a male mid 40s with black hair. I began to circumspect the authenticity of our instant bookerâŚ, the account wasnât for a real person and had a facade like a corporation. It was a questionable and screaming scammer comes to Hawaii for a haphazard unplanned week.
The man that showed up was not who the account belongs to and disregarded the house rules from the start. checked-ins after dark. The day was long and stressful. I managed to stay up up till 11 pm but it was frustrating to say the least and only did a quick tour. I went over everything again the next afternoon and chatted with them as guide, gave them a topographic road map and annotated it with the things they were interested in. I didnât see them much since they were up early and home late. I manage a second listing on the property and new guest came in mid week and then I left. returning 2 days later to the property. It was apparent Beach Front Retreat checkout early with no sign of return. The house was mehhh fine, lived in with crumbs and greasy.
I was shocked to see 20% battery bank well into causing damage. WiFi left on
multiple lights on⌠all house rules
It would have killed the off grid system .
I thought they were good guest. But not considerate of my time. I suspect these were tourist gregretting the spontaneous trip, unconcerned about the list, not following the checkout procedure.
I think youâre spot on based on my experience. Your guest just booked it and didnât read anything or have any clue what he booked.
If you have wifi, get some smart energy management devices. Iâm on the grid and I have my guests air conditioners on smart plugs so I can turn them off. You can put lights on simple occupancy timer switches available from home improvement stores for $17.
I have to carefully consider reviews today. Most of them are pretty straightforward, one way or another. But a couple of times I have had to catch myself because itâs more of a personality thing. This includes the inexperienced traveller, and the guest who is so thrifty they squeak. But those are my issues, not theirs.
Another consideration is newbies booking off phones. Itâs easy to skip and miss important points. They donât read contracts, and they donât read your correspondence. They need a room, thatâs all.
This used to perturb me until I saw how easy it is to make mistakes. Especially same day reservations. So I had to adapt if I wanted to stay in the five star business.
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This is exactly the case. Itâs said that half the reservations are made on the app and thatâs going to increase. There are many hosts sitting behind a computer looking at it from only their point of view. Thatâs fine if you are getting all the bookings you want. But if you arenât, youâll have to adapt to the new Airbnb. Complaining about it on the forum and threatening to leave the platform doesnât change anything.
I left for a day to try BDC and came back. All instant book with no ability to filter guests doesnât work here!
What will you do when Airbnb adopts the same? Go to LTR?
Yeah LTR. This is what BDC calls a homestay or Airbnb calls a private room in shared house with 3 rooms rented. If I canât filter my guests carefully or have an honest discussion about expectations before they book, its more likely Iâd have complaints from guests about other guests. The instant book works for a whole place rental where there are no other people to be considerate of. I use instant book now but the guests need to have at least 1 positive review, no negative reviews and a verified ID. I cohost at a âwhole placeâ Airbnb and we donât use those requirements so almost everyone can instant book.
Edit: BDC guess stole a towel. That is very rare on AIrbnb! Like maybe .3-.5% of guests do that.
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