This popped up today on the app.
I wonder if âStayed with undeclared kids at a no-children listingâ or "Snuck in two dogs to a no-pets listing " will be among the new tags. 
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Thatâs actually helpful.
I noticed the winter release now also has âguest favoriteâ for highly-rated properties (I think it is for 4.9 stars and above). But I canât figure out the exact equation (no surprise, I guess) - there is a neighbor that has a 5.0 rating with twice the number of reviews we have, and they show as âSuperhostâ but not in âGuest Favoritesâ while we are âGuest Favoriteâ and not SuperHostâŚ
I also canât find the Superhost filter anymore when I search. Hopefully thatâs a glitch.
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Are you a Superhost? I just read a post on the Airbnb CC, by one of those Airbnb cheerleader type hosts gushing over the new updates, and she said that âGuest Favoritesâ was supposedly assigned to listings which had 5 star ratings, but for some other reason didnât qualify for Superhost.
But if you have Superhost status and had it switched to âGuest Favoriteâ, then thatâs obviously not true.
Yes, I am a âSuperhostâ but just by the âskin on our teethâ. Thereâs a good chance weâll lose it at the end of this quarter - not enough bookings.
I canât find the filter either. It was certainly there yesterday. But if I click on guest favorites everyone is 4.86 or higher on the first page. I used the SH filter as a way to filter out the places I wonât stay (generally not below 4.9) but if the guest favorite does the same thing, I donât care about SH.
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Thatâs actually good for us. We donât get a ton of bookings from AirBnB (Vrbo guests usually plan ahead more and book us up), so we struggle to get the ten-stay minimum for SH. But we get good reviews.
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I remember you also saying that you filtered for Superhosts when booking, knowing that meant they hadnât cancelled guest reservations. I donât think âGuest favoriteâ is an assurance of that.
Sure would be nice if Airbnb gave its users some explanation of new features. It is so disrespectful, , IMO, to just leave hosts and guests wondering what some new designation is based on, or what some new term means.
That is correct. I wonder if they still have that in the reviews about âhost cancelled this stay.â
I may be wrong, but I think they did away with that awhile ago. Although Iâve never travelled as a guest, I thought it was a good feature. I used to see it on a lot of listings. Sometimes it was obvious that it wasnât an indication of a bad host, like if there were 2 or 3 reviews that said that, at the very beginning of when a host started out ( I figured they were maybe confused about IB, or otherwise just didnât understand how things worked) and didnât show any cancellations for years after that, or they were outliers in specific small time period in the midst of plenty of good reviews- like the host had a medical emergency or the plumbing burst and just didnât realize they should have asked Airbnb to cancel the booking under âextenuating circumstancesâ rather than cancel themselves. Or some Airbnb CS rep said âSorry, that doesnât qualify as an EC, just find a co-host to take over.â
And now the stars are back! Iâm seeing them on the mobile app now. Iâm also still seeing that I am a super host, but havenât had a chance to sit down at the computer and see what is new.
Update: you need a 4.9 to be a Guest Favorite. No word on if there are any other criteria or over what time period.
Iâm seeing âGuest Favoriteâ listings all the way down to 4.8. Iâm also a superhost, but my listing is now listed as âGuest Favoriteâ. Which is fine with me - I think it means more to most guests. But at this point, almost every listing in my area is either Superhost or Guest Favorite, which makes everything pretty meaningless.
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I canât figure out the criteria for Guest Favorite. I looked at some local listings. This long-time host with a 4.79 has it.
As does this new listing.
If new listings can get it, I foresee hosts deleting and recreating their listings when they dip below the threshold.
At first glance, it also seems the Host Favorites are being favored by the search algorithm more than Superhost was.
I also found some listings over 4.9 who donât have this new designation.
Well, they are in the âearly-releaseâ opt in stage, which in non-jargon means âWe had an idea and now you can be a guinea pig while we work out the kinksâ.
Read a few posts over on the CC re hosts getting glitches on unrelated things since the update, which seems to inevitably happen.
Maybe âGuest favoriteâ is a prelude to eliminating Superhost altogether?
Another thing I donât book are ânew listings.â Obviously I donât know how other folks choose their Airbnb though. Iâm very particular and havenât had a bad experience yet with anywhere I stayed. My only problem is Airbnb not giving me the tools to search quickly for what I want.
Me, too. A neighbor with a 4.96 rating, 112 reviews, and Superhost isnât a guest favorite, but we have 5.0 from 36 reviews and Superhost but are a âguest favoriteâ. Itâs crazy.
This AirBnB page has a bit more detail about the criteria:
- Great ratings and reviews â Guest Favorites have excellent reviews and are rated above 4.9 stars on average. These homes also receive high marks for ease of check-in, cleanliness, listing accuracy, Host communication, location, and value.
- Outstanding reliability â Guest Favorites have a superb record of reliability, with Host cancellations and quality-related customer service issues below 1% on average.
The sub-categories count now, including value, where we are often dinged for the AirBnB fees. And it seems to be a lifetime average, which does not incentive hosts to improve over time, like Superhost did.
Iâm curious what counts as a quality-related CS issue. Is this when guests call the CS help line? Would I know if mine had called?
This doesnât offer any clarity as to why I found listings below 4.8 that make it into this category!
Not a glitch. They have done away with it. I am not pleased.
I just looked at listings in the first town I hosted in to see some hosts with âsuperhostâ and others with âguest favoritesâ. As usual Airbnb is not being transparent about what the heck this means.
The cynic in me says theyâre trying to get away from using super host so they no longer have to give vouchers for $100 off your next stay.
That definitely occurred to me. Phase out Superhost so they can stop with the $100 vouchers. Just in time for me to be eligible for my first voucher since I lost Superhost for the audacity of closing my homeshare listing during the height of Covid. (If Airbnb had actually cared about the health and safety of their guests and hosts, they would have extended the lifting of the number of stays criteria for those who share spaces with guests, but I guess they figured not providing them with service fees for more than 1 year, meant we were no longer considered Super, despite all the 5* reviews.)