Couple reserves my bungalow for one night, paying an extra $25 fee for a third person, their son, to use a sofa bed. When they show up without the son, I proactively call Airbnb support and arrange to refund the $25, just to be a nice guy, since the guests seem unaware of the difference. They checked out this morning, telling me how grateful they were for the unexpected refund. I just read their review: only 4 stars for value! Lesson learned!
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Thatâs really, really mean!
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Location & Value are incredibly subjective. I wish Airbnb would stop using stars & only post comments for those.
Value is a kicker. Iâm tired of the 4âs from people making comments like âsaw Groupon ad for $49/night for 1 BR BA direct oceanfrontâ. What they fail to note is the $49 deal is the rate for Wednesday night only for a hotel type room without a kitchen or in-unit washer & dryer. The additional âresort feeâ, âdaily cleaning feeâ, âlinen feeâ, âtravel insuranceâ etc. more than double the quoted price. Plus the booking fee is more than is charged by Airbnb.
Opinion voiced without knowledge. I guess it is the way of the world now. 
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As Maria Callas once said, the price for honesty and integrity is very high.
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Perhaps they could let us choose a price/fittings point: Super Lux, Luxury, High End, Standard, Value, Basic; and then let âvalueâ be rated against that.
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Did she say it or sing it?
Maybe they fat-fingered the response on their phone, maybe they have a different perception of value. Is value a metric that Airbnb actually holds hosts accountable for? Did the guest still give you 5-stars overall?
She said it during an interview, as seen in the documentary, âMaria by Callas: In Her Own Wordsâ.
Mercifully, they gave 5 stars overall but only 4 stars for both value and location. Itâs perplexing that, on departure, the husband said the bungalow was great, or as he put it, â10 out of 10!â
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yeah, same thing happened to me: guest messaged me at 8PM if I could receive them the same night. Brand new airbnb user, no review. she said she and her friend were coming for the rainbow parade. She seemed nice, graduate student so I approved. I told them where to eat, adviced how to go to the parade, where to park for cheap etc⌠she left nice comments, but 4 star overall, 4 stars for value and accuracy.
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Yeah I donât get what is with the 4 star value people. Theyâre willing to pay the price and get exactly what was advertised and yet they arenât satisfied. You just canât make some people happy.
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I got four stars for value recently, maybe due to fat fingers. Or maybe due to she picked a holiday weekend and just might have paid out some $$$ to Air. Sweet to my face, stabbed my back with multiple 4* > lucky, 5* overall. But my record is RUined<><>
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I just ripped apart a hotel on value on trip advisor, yes I did book at the price but it was a rip off. Event pricing they doubled the rate to max out on a charity event coming through town. I booked because I needed the room, it was NOT a good value.
RR
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So my very next review, just submitted a moment ago, includes this sentence: âValue for price was phenomenal.â Go figure!
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We had a last-minute cancellation - a five-night stay - couple of months ago. âLast minuteâ being about ten days but you have to understand that this is a condo in Maui and 99% of people coming to Maui book their flights months ahead of time, not days. It is just very rare to get a close in booking.
Anyway, our strict policy says we keep half the money. Or put another way, we lose half the money, and at $349\night that is over $700. I decided to cut the price by 1/2 just in case and amazingly a local family decided to rent it for three of the days to have a âbeach weekendâ. So, we recover some of the $ and they get a great deal. Right?
Nope. They left four stars for Value. Every other condo in our area they would have seen online would have been at least $150 or even $250\night more than ours (if any were available) and those would have had a lot of road noise, outdated interiors or both.
I hope they try to rent from us again. : )
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@jgw_jgw, @Annet3176 In the host Q&A of Air community forum of last April I´ve read this news, about location and value:
3. Location ratings: Location reviews seem to depend on a guestâs opinion, rather than a standard of service. Plus, a great location for one guest may not work for another guest. Does Airbnb have any plans to rephrase the location category in reviews?
Yes! In fact, we recently published a blog post recapping the improvements weâve made to the review system, to make good on a promise we made to you at the last Host Q&A, in October, when another host raised a similar question.
Before we dive into the updates weâve made, itâs important to clarify that the location category rating doesnât impact your overall rating (or Superhost eligibility). That being said, we still know itâs important to you, and we want to make sure the whole system is as fair as possible. Weâve heard from you that the location rating can be particularly frustrating because some of you have had guests ding you in this category, unexpectedly, after great stays.
This category is tricky. It gives valuable information to prospective travelers, which we donât want to lose. At the same time, we hear your concern that youâre being graded for something you canât control: guestsâ opinion of your location. This opinion is inherently subjectiveâone personâs ârustic rural retreatâ may be anotherâs âtoo far from public transportation.â So we made it more clear in the review process that guests are rating the accuracy of your location description, rather than the location itself. Now, when a guest rates you in the location category, if they give you three stars or fewer, theyâll see an additional question: âWas the listingâs location not described accurately?â So far, this change has led to a 0.8% increase in the average rating for location. While this may sound small, itâs a meaningful and positive change for hostsâ location reviews overall.
While we were working on this improvement for the location rating, we also made similar changes to the value category. Now, if a guest gives you three stars or fewer in the value category, theyâll see this message: âWhat would have made this listing a better value?â This has led to a 0.25% increase in the average rating for value.
These changes were designed to begin to address your concerns around unfair or misleading reviews, and to help make sure that guests understand what these ratings mean. We still have a long journey ahead of us to keep making the review system better, and youâll continue to see updates from us on this throughout the year.#
The complete link with all the news here:
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SorryâŚjust had to laugh 
I would also add âaccuracyâ to that category. I sometimes get 4 stars here, with no explanation. I wonder wtf thatâs referring to⌠Everything factual on my listing is accurate. So does that mean something subjective is what is being considered inaccurate? Like, if I say my place is cozy and quiet, but a guestâs idea of those things is different? If I mean quiet because itâs out in the woods with nearly zero traffic, but maybe they had to use the window a.c. which is not completely silent, and their idea of quiet is like a noise free chamber? I just⌠Itâs really hard to try to improve the experience for guests if you have zero idea of what theyâre referring to with the star ratings.
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Before I added âNo stove and no cookingâ to my listing description, I twice received 4 stars for accuracy from guests who had simply assumed that there was a stove and were shocked to discover that there wasnât one.
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I got that once and was baffled, but I think youâre onto something. It sure seems like we have complete control over accuracy, but as soon as we use terms like quiet, cozy, spacious, modern, etc. to help make our listings more appealing, the description suddenly becomes subjective. Then thereâs wide-angle lenses that make rooms look bigger and touched-up photos that make spaces look brighter or more colorful, etc.