This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
It’s worse than that. We know that our government knew back in mid January.
I knew when I left for New Zealand on 4 Feb that this was going to be big. I would have canceled my trip but at that point absolutely nothing was refundable and I’d have been thought looney for even asking. My friends in NZ would have supported and agreed but they had no money at risk. I didn’t feel personally in danger by going, just that the 5K or so I spent would be better conserved for other purposes at this time. Anyway, my background is social studies and I knew.
I’m sorry. This is especially hard when coming from people we know and care about personally.
No, I think we can discuss civilly without it becoming a blame game free for all. Taking it day by day though.
Fitting AirBnB’s narrative that hosts are all just mom-and-pop renting the guest room, a story they tell whenever regulations come to town.[quote=“Christine_Shirtcliff, post:63, topic:41160, full:true”]
I think they are making some exceptions to Superhost requirements in consideration of the COVID impact.
[/quote]
They are dropping the “10 stays” requirement, I think. I meet that requirement, but my annual average is just under 4.8 due to two 3-star reviews I received last year. One was my fault, but the other was retaliatory for enforcing my house rules. I would have been able to build my averages back up in March, but I’m in Seattle and most of us shut our listings down around March 1 because we had an early outbreak here.
I agree that it is an unprecedented disaster at the national level. The only thing that is giving me hope is that here in Washington State, where the US outbreak was first detected, we seem to be flatting the curve and our hospitals may not be overrun. That doesn’t help NYC, which my heart breaks for, but I hope other states will learn from our example of managing this, since Trump is being worse than useless.
@Xena, it is great that Washington is flattening its curve. But I’m afraid to be hopeful at all.
The great difficulty is how many places across the US and around the world aren’t flattening the curve. How many willfully ignorant people aren’t taking it seriously.
We’re seeing just the first wave here in the US. From what I’ve read, epidemiologists predict three or more waves. In fact, I can’t fathom how it will stop until everyone is vaccinated or some other medical breakthrough makes a vaccine less necessary. I worry that the virus will continue to reverberate over and over and over around the world and across the US.
For a vaccine to be available to all US population, what would that take? If developing a successful vaccine will take 1-2 years, how much longer would it take to build supply and get people vaccinated? And what about the rest of the world (although many countries might well be far more organized about that than the US)?
I, for one, am at very high risk. My husband is at high risk. As far as we can tell, we are in isolation until the day we can be vaccinated. Two years if we’re lucky; more if we’re not. It’s a terrifying prospect.
And I heartily agree that Trump is being far worse than useless.
It’s called out today hopeful that the SF Bay area flattened the curve. They shut down before LA and before California.
Please post if anybody sees the application for that Airbnbn grant. hopefully they accept my verification, because they probably made +$3000 on their commisions for 74 stays in 2019.
I tried to start up an Experience and the verification was such a hassle I gave up. But if I’d succeeded I could consider that as lost income as well<><>
Back to the weeding and trying to make sure Loki does NOt. Chew. Up. AnyMore. Furniture.
He needs to be locked up somewhere so those who can deal with this responsibly are not hampered in their ability to try to save lives. His behavior qualifies as terrorist. It’s nothing less than criminal.
I watched his video. I found it informative. Bit of an emotion “pull on the heartstrings” pitch, but I don’t disagree with Airbnb’s decisions entirely. Overriding hosts’ cancellation policies w/o their consent seemed a bit excessive. I suspect they figured it would be easier to apologize to hosts then be the source of COVID-19 spread. We all know a shooting at a party is never the host’s fault. Airbnb bears 100% of the PR nightmare. A COVID-19 outbreak would be way worse than a killer party.
I was fortunate enough that I had semi-long-term guests already staying with me. Both needed to leave early bc their jobs were ending early. Only one needed a refund for the remaining nights.
Sadly, I don’t think I’ll qualify for the grant program. Technically, I have 3 listings, or 4 if you count the one for which I’m a co-host for a friend who has no fucking idea what he’s doing. He just wanted me to help him get his listing up. He lives 100 miles away, too. My “3 active listings” are 2 guestrooms and one listing that’s both guestrooms in one, in case a small group wants to rent both at the same time. One room sleeps 1 guest, the other sleeps 3, and together they can sleep 4. I usually block the smaller when the large room gets booked, anyway.
I also don’t rely on the income. It certainly pays my mortgage and then some. Now that my partner has no income (he’s self-employed), we’re certainly feeling the pinch. Since we were already booked, we didn’t have guests cancel as a result of COVID-19, so I doubt any would-be guests will voluntarily send funds. At least one guest who left early didn’t adjust his reservation triggering a refund, so there’s that.
We’ll try the unemployment insurance route. Perhaps we can get a small amount of supplemental income from that. My partner also qualifies for food stamps now, so that helps.
Meanwhile, while some of you are bitching about losing income, they’re converting the local ice rink into a makeshift hospital or morgue right down the street from me. Kinda looks like a scene from The X-Files.
Forget it, for some on here chasing the dollar overrides shit like this. Here in Spain, the big ice rink in Madrid is almost full, now looking to use the Science Centre, and that’s us hopefully starting to “flatten the curve”.
BTW, did anyone else snicker when Chesky said “I’m sorry we didn’t consult you as partners.” No he’s not. How could he be? He might be sorry that hosts lost money but he can’t be sorry that he didn’t consult with hosts, otherwise, the decision to refund was not based on public health. Airbnb had neither the time nor the resources to consult with 650,000 hosts, and they couldn’t risk the result being based on profit-and-loss if they truly valued public health.
However, I don’t believe the decision Airbnb made was based on public health at all, but was purely based on Airbnb not being able to handle the customer support associated with all of the cancellations worldwide. They had to automate it just to process it. Can you imagine? There could easily be 100’s of times the number guests and hosts calling and messaging customer service and easily 100’s of times the number of legitimate extenuating circumstances claims for their customer support people to process. It would literally take them years to process it, and at the same time their revenue is falling off a cliff.
Oh yes, you can bank on Mr. Chesky’s moves as being always self-serving, in the guise of genuine caring. He’s very good at that, he’s perfected it, it’s his M.O.
So, apologize to the hosts for coming up with that original COVID policy without host consultation or warning, yet his announcement yesterday of new policies, were also made without consultation or warning (and no, some “listening sessions”, don’t count). Either you apologize and mean it, learning from your mistakes, or you don’t. He doesn’t, and he doesn’t care.
He looked seriously distressed yesterday, but that distress has to do with the flak he’s been getting and the looming demise of his company, rather than any empathy for his hosts.
I think the guy’s a sleazebag.
I really wonder how I can demonstrate need. (After being laid off from 23 years at the same job) Airbnb pays my mortgage but how are they to know that?
A friend in New Zealand and her husband have both been job searching for over 3 months now. She said with the current situation and coming global depression, “at least the rejections don’t feel personal anymore.” Gotta laugh I guess.
Ha, that is funny. My job was so niche, I don’t even know where to look for another job. It was a real “jack of all trades master of none” type job.
I did apply and get accepted to an Amazon Flex job, but since everyone is losing work the opportunities there are few and far between. All the delivery blocks get snatched up quickly so I’ve not been able to start that yet.
All grants have very subjective wording. It’s private funds given according to the parameters set by the grantee. Even the stimulus checks for “all adults” are subjective.
That is indeed a big question. What are they going to do, ask for your 2019 tax return? Threatening letters from creditors? Photos of you and your family carving up an old boot to share for dinner?
