Aren’t Flip and TA the same thing?
Faheem, I have noticed that as well. You just have to search for,thread updates manually.
Zandra, Tommy announced he had to do a server update, as his main server rain out of room for backups. So maybe things weren’t saved.
I think you only need the 1 account for TA and Flip now, but not when I joined, I have 2 separate accounts that bookings come through.
1 Like
Hi @HumptyDumpty,
Thanks for the statistics. It looks like your guests are posting reviews, at least. I’m just hoping that in Bombay people are not posting reviews for some reason. Because if the level of review reflects the level of activity, that paints a discouraging picture. And for some reason no sites lists the number of “trips” that the listing has had during its lifetime.
I don’t understand what you mean by
Direct bookings, no reviews.
though.
Hi @Freya,
As a followup, since I didn’t ask. How many guests do you get from Stayz and TripAdvisor respectively? You said you’ve only had one review from all those guests, correct. So you don’t get booking from any other sites?
Hi @faheem
Around 20% of my business is direct bookings I take over the phone or by e-mail, repeat guests that have taken a business card on a previous visit or recommended me to friends. I also have a business website and my business address and e-mail on my ABB listing. Obviously these guests cannot review our property.
2 Likes
Hi @HumptyDumpty,
Thank you for the clarification. Yes, booking that are not through a web site obviously cannot be publicly reviewed, unless you provide such a facility on your own web site. Which I suppose is technically possible, though people might not take it as seriously.
To be clear, you are saying you post information that will enable guests to contact you directly on your Airbnb site? If so, that sounds like something Airbnb would not like if they knew about it.
Yes @faheem its a legal requirement in the EU to proved your business address and e-mail before a guest books online through any online travel agent i.e. ABB, Tripadvisor, Booking.com.
ABB provides this facility, we go to dashboard, click account, click settings and a section is to enter your business details. Where it say’s “Contact host” on your listing, below it would be your business details. It surprises me that not many people use it. I have no idea if its available outside the EU.
1 Like
That’s interesting; I was not aware of that. I’ve not seen that on my own listing, and as far as I know it is not there.
Does that mean that any potential Airbnb customer could bypass Airbnb using that information and contact you directly?
Yes, although lots of people feel safer and prefer to book through an agent even if it costs more.
1 Like
@faheem
Hi faheem, not sure why I didn’t get notified when you @me, probably I ignored it and didn’t notice.
I have had 22 bookings (not counting future ones) so far.
12 from Airbnb, I got 10 reviews (one just checked out today so he may leave one later)
8 from Stayz, I got 1 review.
2 from TA, I got 0 review.
Stayz guests live a lot longer averagely speaking. So even if the number is not as many as Airbnb guests, but the nights booked a much more.
Sorry there was an issue with the mail provider but that has been fixed. Sorry about that! cc @Sarah_Warren
1 Like
Hi @Freya,
I think the notifications were not working for awhile. Thank you for getting back to me.
Have you found all the guests from the different platforms equally good? Any significant differences between them?
Hi @faheem,
So far my experience told me guests from TA and Stayz are trouble free, but some guests from Airbnb are problematic. My sample size is too small so the experience can change later.
Some of the Airbnb guests displayed all sorts of problems, though many are just excellent and lovely:
- A guest let her kids draw on my wall and tv screen using ball pen, and didn’t tell me or offer to compensate, not a big problem just annoying. Same guest also marked me down on value and location, but the price was quite cheap because I just opened and discounted a lot, location was known to her (she complained it is 30 mins from city in private message).
- A guest put all food residual into my garbage bin and recycle bin without rubbish bag!!! This is after I educated them how to sort waste because they come from a country where they don’t sort waste. I spent over an hour pulling out all rubbish and sort them and wash the bins (most disgusting thing I did in my life). What is worse, I educated them two more times how to dispose waste properly, and the following week, they still do the same, slightly better, but still I had to wash the bin. They checked out, one curtain damaged by the kid, cabinet door broken, wine glass missing, all unreported but not major issue.
- A guest lost one set of the keys (I gave them two sets), I had to change lock and she obviously didn’t want to pay. Luckily car rental company later told her they found the key, so the company mailed it back to me. (if no one found the key, the case may end ugly if guests didn’t want to pay for locksmith to rekey).
- Curtain rail pulled out from the wall by a guest and he believed the installation is not proper and I accepted his opinion after seeing comments on this forum. So it is a wear and tear, but I still doubt he forced the rope in the wrong way.
- One guest did not lock door when checking out even though I told her to, and write it in check out procedure. Same guest also marked me down on value and location, lol. She also complained in review that no dishwasher and coffee machine, but I never include those in amenity list or advertised that I have those.
- A guest burnt my quilt and dryer by putting the oversized, dry clean only, do not tumble dry item into a 5 kg small dryer. and she refused to pay. This is major damage so I opened a case with airbnb, and now the airbnb staff is asking for many documents, and some are impossible to obtain.
So you can see, 10 guests from TA or Stayz, not even a minor problem. 12 guests from Airbnb, and 6 had problems and one is being an ass…
Again, sample size too small, so I may have better idea after a few years into hosting (if I haven’t quit by the time).
Actually, I didn’t realize I had so many guests with minor to major problem from airbnb before I made the list above. 1-5 on the list are still acceptable, but 6th one is really being a pain right now.
I forgot to mention about potential guests. There are lots of enquiries (more than 10) from Stayz/Airbnb and guests didn’t book in the end, which is absolutely fine. But there was this guest from airbnb last week, asked me so many questions, and booked. She needed accommodation from 13/8-27/08 but mine is only available from 19/8-27/08. I told her to book from another place which is available during the whole period but she insisted she wanted my place and she would book separately. Then I answered her endless questions for 2-3 hours in a few different sessions (she always contact me at 3am, and in her time zone that is 1am which is quite late). And today, she cancelled the booking without much explanation, just that she wants a place for the whole period so that she doesn’t need to move, excuse me! I am speechless.
I seriously doubt this is a scam because I can speak her language and she doesn’t speak much English, I doubt she used me to get all questions answered only.
So I feel airbnb system allows good communication between host and guest, which is a great idea but sometimes does not end to be good for hosts. Stayz/TA customers only ask few basic questions/or no questions, and usually get answered in 5 or 10 mins at most. Although, many airbnb guests ask very few or no questions, which is easy to maintain. But you can see the weird ones (in fact, there were two such guests but the other one only asked for 1 hour question and she didn’t book to block my calendar and cancel later).
@Freya I hosted for two years with barely any problems. Then this year it’s been almost continuous and guests are harder to please. my response has been to withdraw all but essential services and to reduce the maximum a guest can stay.!
1 Like
Hi @Freya,
Thanks for the detailed accounting. 
I’ve not had significant problems from Airbnb guests so far. I’m currently listed on Airbnb and Wimdu, but I’ve not had even one inquiry from Wimdu so far. I’m in the process of adding my rental to VRBO and Co, and probably Tripadvisor and Co. I think Stayz belongs to the VRBO/HomeAway family.
Personally, I avoid people with children - I’ve turned down a few, I think. I’ve got nothing against children (I used to be one), but in a short term rental situation, they’re probably trouble.
I also tend to interrogate people a bit when they place a booking request (I’m not using IB), and I’ve had a few cancel on me during the process, so perhaps some people don’t like it. But I figure some filtering process is necessary. Though really most guests haven’t been any problem. They’re mostly young processionals doing the tourist thing during their vacations. Though why anyone would want to visit Bombay, I’m really not sure. Having said that, most of them are passing through on the way to somewhere else. I was expecting more business types, since Bombay is a big business area. But thus far this hasn’t happened.
I think there are plenty of problems with Airbnb, notably their Extenuating Circumstances policy, but I think that having the option to communicate directly with guests before accepting a booking is on balance a good thing. It isn’t an option on all sites.
Oh, and regarding your second post. Mostly people don’t ask many questions via the site. Usually I’m the one asking the questions.
Though I do get a comparatively large number of daft-sounding inquiries in shaky English from Indians. All of which I have to answer, unfortunately.