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Any hosts out there renting guest room & sharing bathroom (there’s a private half-bath)during COVID? Any bookings?
I live in Oakland, CA - obviously a COVID hot spot - and, not surprisingly, haven’t had a single inquiry since March. Zip. Nada. I purposely raised the rate to its max in lieu of snoozing the site, as it IS possible to do… just more work & inconvenience.
Anyway, I’ve spoken to AIRBB (very vague), been sent a couple useless links and read what I’ve googled…
To simplify: if I have no bookings due to no inquiries will I lose Superhost designation? I have maintained a 4.98 since I started.
Any wisdom or links or recommendations would be appreciated!
I had to close at the end of August last year, after our recently acquired kittens were diagnosed with campylobacter. I had to cancel a booking, which was accepted under EC, with vet docs etc, and didn’t reopen until mid October, when we wouldn’t expect any bookings anyway going forward. I had one booking over NY, then nothing up until the UK govt closed us down on 23rd March. So that’s only one booking from August - Dec/Jan, admittedly 5*, and I’ve still got SH in my paws to date.
I’m not going to reopen until the end of August; possibly. If I lose it, so what? My reviews speak for themselves.
As an aside, I have had a deluge of recent requests to book into my B&B from TripA, by phone, from people who think I will reopen just for them because, variously, they are not ill, are very nice and clean people, or the final thrust, “surely you need our money? We’re trying to help you”! This, despite being closed a) by the govt b) on Lodgify.
I outside of Tampa, FL with the same situation and the governor shut down our type of listing in March. I’ve had 1 inquiry for July 4th weekend (1 night, no thanks) and have refused it due to not being sure when I’ll open.
I’ve switched to a 2 night minimum, Moderate cancellation policy, and turned of IB. I’m unsure when or if I’ll open again and yes, I do miss the money.
I have a guest room, en suite bath with shared shower like you do, in Oakland, CA. Between our high COVID numbers & BLM protests, probably not the most popular destination these days…
I closed in mid-March by blocking off subsequent months, thinking “all will be well by summer”. Ahhh…those innocent days. Then I forgot all about hosting ‘til May, when I got two requests -almost simultaneously - for a week in June, then for 2 weeks in July. I wiggled out of the first one, as the prospect was too daunting at the time. The second seemed do-able and safer with several addenda to House Rules. It went very smoothly. Today I accepted a booking the month of October. I’m thinking I might open with a 2 week minimum and just do 1 booking per month?
Truth. My expectations for our response were low. We’ve come in well below that.
But anyway, here we are and nothing to do but carry on.
I was completely closed from early April to early July. I opened my calendar and got 5 bookings within a week. 3 coming that first 10 days, one for around Labor Day and one near Halloween. I also got a couple more off inquiries that I ignored and reported. I’ve closed and opened and changed settings repeatedly over the last month as I try to figure out what to do.
Last weekend I had a repeat guest who inquired though my calendar didn’t show as available. So I sent him a special offer for his 2 night stay. I’ve got some availability and this weekend another two night stay. Prior to covid I used to do up to 25 back to back bookings a month all while boarding dogs in my home. In the summer I’d easily have 8-10 dogs here most the summer.
Now I feel listless and distressed. I don’t need the money the way some folks do and I sure as hell don’t need stress. I currently have a two night minimum and don’t expect to have many bookings. In addition I have two days between guests before and after set. That means if I get two weekend bookings in a row I have the whole week off and that’s fine. I want to wait a day before I go in the room, have a day or two to clean and then at least a day before the next guest checks in. Now that we have more info about covid spreading in the air I don’t want to finish cleaning the morning of the day a guest checks in. I want at least 24 hours to close the door behind me and let it sit on the 1 in 500 million chance I could have covid and not know it. If I lived somewhere I could get one two week booking a month I’d be thrilled to do it.
I lost my superhost status for being closed too long regardless of a high rating and years of being a host. Ticked me off, but didn’t keep me from having all May weekends booked within a few days of opening up my calendar again. We are just cogs in the machine.
It seems to be weirdly random. I think there were glitches on the Superhost assessment this last period, because I’ve read if other hosts losing theirs when they met the only 2 criteria that Airbnb has supposedly been counting since the pandemic started- 4.8 rating and the good response rate.
I haven’t been open to bookings since early last March, and I still have Superhost.
Apartment rentals are scarce and expensive here. I’ve starting getting requests for long term stays despite parts of each month being booked all summer.
The one problem with just a few bookings is that it makes you particularly vulnerable if you have one harsh review. After a thirteen week lockdown, we had a scam review (the only one star out of our 50 x 5 star ratings over two years) and this has done untold damage to our brand. Loss of superhost, our overall rating went right down. We are slowly climbing back but Airbnb refused to give us our Superhost status back or acknowledge that adjustments need to be made in times of COVID so hosts are not adversely affected.
