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This led me to the more general issue, which I had not previously considered, of how one can prove what ones Airbnb account settings was at a specific point in time, given that all records are on a web site one does not control and has no special access to. In this specific case, it was price settings, but it could be something else. Banks and other financial institutions handle this by sending email to their customers every time they change something. Sometimes also on paper. I think it would be very reasonable for Airbnb to do the same. It would be straightforward but not trivial to set up a system to do that. Currently, of course, they donât do that. As far as I can tell, they donât send email about any setting or setting changes whatsoever.
Has anyone else ever encountered this issue? Thoughts?
Iâve had this question also, as Iâve played around with my listing making various changes. Would the guest be able to point back to what the listing said at the time? Would air?
One thing I noticed, in the âprint confirmationâ screen such criteria as your cancellation policy at the time of the booking shows up.
Yes, the print confirmation does include some stuff, but it doesnât include a snapshot of ones account settings at the time of the booking. Though even that would not solve the issue which I am talking about. i think the best thing, as I already said, is if Airbnb would email hosts details of changes when they were made. That would not be perfect, but it would be way better than the current situation.
Have you personally experienced any problems relating to this? Youâve been doing this far longer than I have, and have had many guestsâŚ
Well, photos are unlikely to cause a dispute. Restricting this to things that might affect the value of a booking would be good, at least for a start. I notice that they do take a snapshot of the house rules, which is good. Sending an email every time the house rules are updated, however, would also be reasonable, I think. Also, making such emails part of the public record of the listing, at least so that the host and Airbnb can see them, would also be a good idea.
They still email if you change parts of your listing including photos but for some odd reason they donât confirm price settings changes. Iâve played around with prices and made errors. I raised my prices for the long July 4th weekend and got a three day booking and noticed the average was a bit low when I realized I had only increased two of the three days! I just let it go and accepted the booking. Now I am more careful when messing with price changes! What if I entered $10 instead of $100 ouch!
Another problem is that they donât seem to have a public record of the price settings after the guest has booked. It disappears from the calendar, for example. There is no reason it could not remain on the calendar forever - frozen in amber, so to speak. And there is definitely the possible of software or UI bugs, so some kind of record would be a good thing.
How did you realise that? Did you have access to some record of your price changes?
They should have a link to a stored URL or something like that. I like to change minor things in my description, not necessary in the house rules, but something that I didnât offer before and want to offer now, or I did before and I want to remove it. It would be easier to go to âYour reservationsâ and click to see the exact description.page at the time of that guests booking. There is no way I know if the booking for tomorrow have such and such extra offered or not. It is impossible to remember.
Yes, like Wikipedia does. WP keeps a record of all revisions to a page. That would be another way to go. And that could be combined with the email method I earlier suggested. No reason they could not use both methods.
