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Hello!
This time I’m writing as a guest (or a wannabe guest)…I’m found a nice room for my holidays, I had a look and the owner has several rooms in different places of the same town, in the host intro they wrote the family has been renting rooms and flats in town for more than 10 years, but the reply rating (no idea if they’re the correct words in English, sorry) is about 50%. I think it’s the lowest rating I met up to now.
I sent a message asking some questions and after a few days I got no answer (and the room is still available for that date). So I got an invitation from airbnb to look for another room.
I wonder…why did they list their rooms if they don’t answer? I don’t have many feedbacks, but they are good!
I wonder if the host is being affect by a messaging blip? Some hosts on the forum simply aren’t receiving anything via the messaging system on Airbnb. You could ask Airbnb to check and make sure it went through.
I just saw that my request was refused, some hours after I got the invitation from airbnb to look for another place, so the host did saw the message.
It’s not a problem, because I found another nice room in the area, and I already booked, but I really wonder why they only answer 50% of requests… (I had a look, it’s 63%, not 50%; 50% was another host I found this morning and skipped because of the low rate of replies)
Does Airbnb give penalty if they answer “sorry but no”?
I feel a bit sorry, it’s the first time I got refused (and I’m a good person, I promise!)
That’s not a person, it’s some kind of business, with 16 listings. Which makes their low rate of replies less surprising. They’re probably advertising in a bunch of places. Though they should still answer queries, of course.
Yes, but they write something like "my family rents flat since…"
Anyway, that should be the reason! (BTW, the room is still available for the days I asked)
It’s strange. They only have two reviews for the room, none since 2015. I also don’t like to rent from businesses with multiple listings if I have other options. You should be glad they declined you.
Well, most of the listing I liked for that town are from such short of companies…At the end, I reserved at a guy’s place, but I saw he has a lot of rooms around Poland, so I guess he’s a sort of “company” as well…
We’ll see…In the other places, I reserved rooms in “normal flats”, but here, nearly all the rooms I found in the centre are owned by companies.
By the way, this made me think of another “strange” listing I found some months ago, it was a lovely villa in Tuscany (Italy), near the sea, for a very, very good price (in a very famous place).
It has been on airbnb of more than 2 years and didn’t have any review.
I talked about it with a friend, and we supposed they were renting “on the black market” but none of us, at the end, didn’t write to ask for info, so it’s just a supposition…
When I stayed in Kracow in 2009 I found an apartment by searching on the internet and the office where I checked in was on the bottom floor of the building. They had many apartments around town and I loved it there. So there is nothing wrong with renting from a property manager (as I have to do in Costa Rica next summer too). I just like to look for individuals like myself first.
There’s also the possibility that they don’t rent them out anymore and have simply neglected to delete their airbnb listings. Alternatively, they may not even real listings. I remember enquiring about a listing as a guest, and getting the reply, “I just put up this listing as an experiment to gauge demand in this area”…
There’s probably also hosts who don’t have the app and just check their listing a few times a week. But I think it’s really detrimental to not be notified and respond quickly.
What drives me nuts is that I respond within minutes and often don’t hear back for a day or two…
My record for replying is 7 minutes after receiving a inquiry/request, I think. I’'ve hit that more than once, but it seems to be hard to respond faster. Then again, this isn’t a competition.
It is a competition. You are competing against other listings for the guest, who may have sent inquiries to multiple places. The faster responders stand a better chance of securing the booking.
Ive had many instances with my Air and with my long term rental that I got the rental because I was the one who was responsive and actually answered questions. I now have a 3 year lease with an awesome tenant in my LT rental, even though I was $50 more a month than the other house!
