So tired of crappy Airbnbs getting good ratings

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Well, Airbnb has 2 different rating dictionaries, one for guests and another for hosts. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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We had a similar experience in an expensive Sydney air bnb.

There were a few things that weren’t great, but the thing that upset me was that the liquid hand soap bottle was empty.

I dare say this happens when there’s a management company looking after multiple properties, and so they don’t have that attention to detail.

Strangely (or not ), as I went to reply to this post, an advertisement came up for an Airbnb management company!

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I had an upholstery client who had a large rental property and though she had a cleaner and a full time handyman/jack of all trades/pool cleaner, she paid me for awhile to go through and check the cleaner’s work, as there were things she noticed her cleaner tended to neglect to do and knew I had an eye for detail.

One was topping up the soap dispensers. Also dust on the picture frames, fingerprints on the kitchen cupboards, and making sure the icemaker and the scoop for it were clean. I’d also sometimes notice things like dirty window screens, dead leaves on the potted plants at the entranceway, and dusty glasses on the bar shelf.

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Honestly, with the inflationary nature of Airbnb, reviews where many hosts with more than two listings are simply using templated reviews and “five star request emails”, I’m just happy when I can actually get a one-off legitimate response from an Airbnb host that is not some automated/canned template message.

As others have suggested, I also make a habit of checking, whether or not a host has multiple properties listed and I’m far more likely to choose a host who only has one or two for fear of QC issues you describe above.

My favorite was a booking an AirBnB stay in London several years ago where I was immersed in automated/scheduled template emails, but could not even reach the host to report that the key to access the unit was missing. Even though we had reported ETA in advance and were left out in the cold at midnight having to book an emergency hotel nearby at premium.

As someone who also takes great pride in in the individual/personalize nature of welcoming guests I can understand and appreciate that hospitality approach. I will also say that many of the items you’ve laid out in your own listing to welcome guests are not things that I could scale across listings that are located hundreds of miles away from me. I am fully dependent on the turnover team, who is mostly focused on cleaning sheets and making sure the space is setup for the next group, regardless of the checklists I give them. I have also found that cleaning teams where there are multiple different employees involved have a harder time keeping pace with turnover checklists in general, as opposed to listings where I have a single cleaner who I have worked with over time and who understands the goal of ensuring that welcoming space.

For those of you that have the luxury to walk next-door and do it yourself, I am sure you have far better luck. But we all know the quotes around if you want something done right, and that is not always something that all of us can afford (or desire) to do at scale.

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Once again, I have booked an Airbnb and over 24 hours later I haven’t gotten an acknowledgment of the booking/any kind of message from the host. Like all the places I book, it’s a highly rated place (currently 4.95) with hundreds of reviews (currently 724). I’d say this has become the case with about a quarter of the places I book.

This used to bother me as I always message a guest within minutes if not hours, of a booking. But I’m learning to not expect it and the upside for me is that it’s another thing that makes my hosting above average. I have gotten a few “thanks for the quick reply” messages that I didn’t get when I first started doing Airbnb and this is probably why.

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I’ve gotten some “Thanks so much for the prompt and detailed response” messages and it didn’t occur to me that it was because other hosts ghost them, I just thought it was because they were polite, appreciative people with good manners.

I guess I don’t have to feel so remiss if I’ve been powerwashing or weedeating and didn’t hear my message alert until a couple hours after it was sent.

I’m curious- if you look on the listings of these hosts who never send a message back acknowledging your booking, does it say “within an hour” by their response time?

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I purposefully got the thinnest good quality turkish cotton towels I could find for my tiny bathroom in my tiny (680 sq) second home rowhouse. They dry you off great but don’t appear “luxurious.” I just don’t have room for fluffy towels; I have one traditional higher pile towel for those who prefer it. The thinner towels actually seem more absorbant to me.

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Since airbnb provides a way to respond to a booking with a ‘welcome’ type of message upon acceptance of a booking, I am sure that this is going to soon be a nonissue. Many of us who use smartlock automation send a response with check in info, codes, etc automatically as well. These responses are also optionally sent via date - a message the day before the start of the stay, for example, can be automated right in the messaging app.

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I get those too. And as more and more hosts adopt the automated messages I get more and more “so glad to be talking to a real person” messages too.

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This is what terrifies me about hosting hosts (although I’ve been very lucky and all of mine have been fine). Not only might they knock off points for not leaving bottles of wine, flowers, and hand-written welcome notes, but they might find the need to broadcast their dissatisfaction on widely-read social media pages, along with thinly-veiled, shameful self-promotion. Ugh.

Plus, I wonder if these types of hosts realize that they might be harming their own businesses by broadcasting their superiority in this manner. To state that there is a “sickening” number of Airbnbs that aren’t what they say they are, even with stellar 4.97 ratings, is not only not true, but will terrify guests who read social media into avoiding short-term rentals altogether. Not the trend any of us want.

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If you are talking about those Hammam towels, they’re beautiful. I had never seen them before until I had a guest who had hung hers up on the clothesline to dry. I thought it was a shawl and said how pretty I thought it was. :laughing: She clued me in to it being a Turkish towel, said she always travels with it as it is super absorbent but dries quickly.

Those towels are pricey and if I stayed somewhere that used them, I’d consider it pretty upscale.

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They’re also called peshtemals and it’s what I personally use exclusively. I don’t really care for big, fluffy towels, it feels like I’m drying off with a stuffed animal :joy: But in the US they are the norm so I give my guests a few big fluffy towels along with a couple of peshtemals and let them choose. Not everyone cares for them, including my husband, but the people who do are really appreciative of having them.

I get mine directly from a woman in Turkey on Etsy and they’re not particularly expensive. I sent you a link to it.

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Thin towels (waffle-weave comes to mind) are not shabby or threadbare towels. Formerly fluffy towels which are now not much better than dusting rags are shabby towels.

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I agree. I have found that people who are hosts or who have been staying with Airbnb since the early days have unreasonable expectations. I’m glad that this host/guest won’t be staying in Airbnb anymore. Not sure someone who expects a luxury experience for $600 per night would be a good guest to have.

I’d much rather host a person who has 0 reviews and just joined Airbnb. They tend to know today’s reality of high inflation, high labor costs very well.

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I’m the original poster and if you read my post and subsequent further comments, I repeatedly said that I was not expecting them to do all the things which I do. My complaint was specific to the price point and description of the properly vis-a-vis things which are “indisputably” not ok for a 5-star property: unwelcoming and arguably dangerous lack of any lighting upon arrival, threadbare towels in minimal supply, uncomfortable/cheap mattresses which were so bad that my sister (not a host) chose to sleep on the floor rather than aggravate her sciatica.

I also did not shame the property owner on social media. This is not a totally open platform. Nevertheless, I did not specify the location, nor did I post any link to the property (folks asked, but I chose not to do that for fear of embarrassing the Host).

I’ve stayed at plenty of airbnbs in several countries. Until this stay i have always given 5 stars…even when, quite frankly, the places were not really excellent — they simply delivered what was promised.

While I’ve never stayed in one which offers as many amenities as mine does. is this shameless self-promotion? I don’t see it that way since I did not post any link to my own space or indication which makes mine identifiable.

I was simply trying to point out that if there is no distinction between “fine” and “excellent and welcoming”, then what good do the star rankings? Whether in school, movie reviews, book reviews, restaurant reviews, or business, grade inflation doesn’t do anyone any good. It drives everyone down to the minimal norm.

I am thrilled when I get other Airbnb Hosts as guests. I ask them for honest feedback long before checkout and I make a point of seeking to learn how I can improve my future guests’ experience.

Thanks.

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All of my guests who are also hosts, as well as guests who have been using Airbnb for years have been great guests who had no unreasonable expectations, no demands nor complaints, and all left solid 5 star reviews.

If you read the OP’s original post here, the place was advertised as “luxurious” and “spa-like”. Do you think that guests shouldn’t expect a place to live up to its billing? Isn’t that what “accuracy” means? Spas and luxurious places don’t provide a paucity of towels, nor threadbare ones.

It isn’t a matter of Newbiehost having unreasonable expectations, nor is the price relevant. It is that the way the place was advertised was not the reality. A host shouldn’t describe their listing as “luxurious” if that is not the experience they are providing.

And undercharging isn’t an excuse for false advertising. If a host doesn’t want to provide the quality of amenities that jive with their description, they should change the expectations they set up for guests.

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I haven’t recently travelled but if I were staying at a short-term rental that delivered on what it objectively promised I’d have a hard time not giving it a ‘5.’

However, if something like a bed were uncomfortable (not just for me, but objectively so for others) I think I’d be inclined to say so either in the review or in private feedback.

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Something like poor quality mattresses is exactly why a guest might legitimately leave 4* s overall even though they left 5* s in all the other categories. While it seems like the majority of discrepancies between the category ratings and the Overall are just fickleness (like “I never leave 5* s because nothing is perfect”), there can also be legit reasons for doing so.
However, if a guest does that, it would be fair to the host to let them know why, as you say, by mentioning it in the review or private feedback.

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I haven’t noticed. I instant book most the time. Maybe response time only counts if you as a question prior to booking or do request to book. Technically there’s nothing to respond to, especially not right away. Like I said, as Airbnb moves away from “stay with a person” and towards “use our website to find places to stay that aren’t hotels,” it makes sense.

I tend to agree. I have a towel that I like from IKEA that is thin with a texture and back when I was doing the “stay in my house with me” thing, I had it in the guest room like I would if friend was staying with me. My linens were various bright colors and I just used what I already had. But after my first complaint about it being thin and scratchy I began my slow move to more of the hotel model.

I know. Those responses aren’t any better than nothing in my mind. I guess I’m just a bit nostalgic for the early days. There are definitely still hosts who do it that way and more and they are my favorite stays.

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I did have one review mentioning how bad the master bed mattress was. A two year old Temperpedic that we left behind when we moved to another house. I, and many guests, know how comfortable that mattress is, however someone was not a temperpedic fan. Mattress comfort can be very subjective. That particular review was by someone mad about something else entirely.