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Is anyone participating?
I watched the video and read some info and I think it looks good. But when I was about to try the early access I was prompted that I couldn’t undo it and go back to the old way. So I paused and came directly here to get y’all’s thoughts….
Thanks!
I am participating, I don’t like how you can compare other listings prices, the booked ones and unbooked ones, they are trying everything to make us lower our prices.
Only thing I like in the update is the read receipts.
Yes, I liked the “read receipts” addition, too. And, to his credit, he’s at least trying to make it sound like he’s “GO, hosts! We got yer back!”
Curious to see how this roll out works for us… Not holding my breath!
none of it is working for me yet, i just get a blank screen. I’ll let others report back in a few days if the Early Access thing is worth it.
yep, that’s their standard move. offer the world, accept anyone and their dogs, but lower your prices and ditch the cleaning fee…
I guess I missed this. What is early access?
@lynick4442, it was an option that appeared (I didn’t ask for it) and it means you will accept the redesign and can’t go back…I am cautious as while the info outlines the goals and purpose, I don’t really know exactly what is changing and what might break as a result. So I’m waiting to see, personally.
I don’t understand the point of “early access”. Presumably this update will affect everyone within a few weeks anyway, like it or not.
I did it. I’m not super tech savvy so take my comments with a grain of salt. As far as I can tell, nothing has exactly changed. It’s just a bunch of features that you can use if you want. If you click on a date on the calendar, you get the option to look at comparables and their prices for that day. ( I personally don’t exactly trust their info any more than I do their other stats / smart prices). There are read receipts which is nice. It shows your prices on your calendar (which was already there so not sure why that’s an update). You can select a whole bunch of dates at a time if you want to edit. Things like that.
Exactly. What their algorithms pick out as “similar listings” are anything but, at least in my case. All it looks at is area, number of bedrooms, max guest counts, etc. It has no idea whatsoever if one place is an ugly dump and the other is an artistic gem, or whether one is tucked away on a quiet dead end street and the other has noisy traffic whizzing by. It can’t determine whether one is outfitted with quality linens and the other has one flat pillow per person, cheap microfiber sheets, and threadbare towels.
I’m participating, and am not happy. I was really interested in that price comparison feature, which I think is actually very interesting. I’m not going to decrease my prices at all as a result - but wanted to see what’s what out there.
The PITA that I’ve encountered is that I am unable to edit custom trip lengths past August 31st now that I’ve joined this early access fiesta. My availability window is set to 6 months in advance, but I’ve never had trouble setting custom trip lengths past my availability window in the past. I’ve been going back and forth with customer service for the past two days, and the latest response I’ve received is this:
“This was forwarded already with our IT team . Other Host is having the same issue, for now we cannot do anything about it. All we have to do is to wait for another month and try to edit .”
I find this outrageous and have told them so, but that won’t get me anywhere. What next? Any suggestions on how to get movement on this? I’ve blocked the dates on my highest-grossing week of the year so that I don’t have to turn lots of requests down, but now I have to potentially wait a month, or two, as I’d like to adjust my minimum stay settings for Halloween week. (I’m located near Salem, MA - it’s an amazingly huge thing.)
I shall never do anything early access-like again. Feel like I made a rookie mistake here and am stuck being a lab rat for AirBnB. Ugggghhh. SMH.
Yes, I’m always loathe to change anything on my hosting pages for fear it will screw something up. And it seems that without fail, everytime they do an update, something that was working just fine no longer does.
yes, in another group a few have said “why wouldn’t you opt in”
oh dear, have they not been around for the past fiascos?
or perhaps they didn’t know? not all groups are as savvy to the stuff ups.
also, don’t they know that ABB don’t seem to properly beta test, this “early access” IS the best test group.
It should be “why would you?” If volunteering to be a guinea pig doesn’t come with some reward, monetary or otherwise, why would you? We are all going to be opted in by default soon whether we like it or not.
Contrary to what I’ve read in other forums, as well as this one, I actually like the “host passport” feature for two reasons. One, it quickly distinguishes the rooms from whole homes if the guest is not filtering. Second, if you leave the career option blank, then it shows your years as a host along with your number of reviews right on the first page without the guest clicking on your listing.
It seems one of the biggest negatives that private rooms have faced over recent years is inexperienced hosts trying to make a quick buck and throwing up any spare space they can. It’s caused a lot of problems and negative press for this category.
This little passport shows the guest immediately who their host is and that they’re dealing with an experienced host. These are definitely positives in my mind.
Why is having no photo of a guest fighting discrimination, but having a photo of the host also correct?
And will the guests need to fill out a cute questionnaire asking for their useless skill etc?
As a homeshare private room host I am grateful for the push from airbnb but not ok with the unequalness…
Plainly, because anti-discrimination laws and policies apply to business owners and businesses, not their customers or anyone else in the general public.
Of course, but the reasoning behind removing photos was to prevent ‘prejudging’. I would have assumed that it would be important to hosts not to be ‘pre-judged’ as well…
Pre-judging is discrimination. Airbnb has already lost discrimination suits. Removing guest photos is to protect Airbnb from further discrimination accusations. There is no discrimination accusation to be made the other way around, e.g. it doesn’t matter if guests are discriminating against hosts based on their photos (or pre-judging if you rather) because that is not against the law and Airbnb has no legal liability for it.
Maybe it is important to hosts but that’s not relevant to Airbnb.
Since when does Airbnb afford the same considerations to hosts as to guests?
I’m sure there are guests who pass on listings when seeing that the host is black, or wearing a hijab. But Airbnb doesn’t care about that, because the guest will just book a different place, and Airbnb still gets their service fees. And guests pass up listings for all kinds of reasons- there’s no way to track if it’s because they are being bigoted, as when a guest keeps getting declined or cancelled.
And if a guest keeps getting declined due to their race, they will fault Airbnb, possibly launch a discrimination suit, and book through some other platform.
Never. Why would they? I pay them my 3% and it’s certainly not for them to look after hosts 