Lay My Hat

I really hope that Airbnb will see the necessaty to change that very owner-unfriendly-policy.

Tell me, what is Airbnb without OWNERS? NOTHING!

Owners have invested a lot of money and effort in their home and want to decide wether they want to reimburse or not after a cancellation.

"So be carefull. For example you rent out a nice villa and somebody books it for 3 weeks in August, with 1 mail from Airbnb you can loose 3 weeks. "

All a bit worrying. I have been considering blocking July/August on ABB as a result....

It occurs to me that a compromise might be to only allow max 1 week bookings from ABB in peak season. This would reduce the risk overhang perhaps. Also we have been favouring 1 week rentals recently as the changeover for two or more weeks in July/August can be realy hard.....?

So that maybe it would not be such a bad thing in our case..mmm

I don't accept any bookings at all during peak season and restrict the calendar to only a few month's ahead - I think I've only risked 1 full week's booking via Airbnb ever - it just doesn't work for me other than for short infill breaks.

Hi

Airbnb have a extenuating circumstances policy. Unfortunately the cost is 100% bourne by the host. I think the only option is to spread your risk and secure bookings across a number of different sites. Easier said than done as Airbnb continue their march for world domination.

Since the intro of this policy, I have locked out some dates on my Airbnb calendar Peak New Year in Dubai and some summer peak weeks.

In the future I will only accept Airbnb bookings in the low season and to fill in gaps.
I will never again accept high season bookings from Airbnb.

I have the impression some guests from Airbnb know very well their position. I even received a threat:
8 guests (all friends of around 35 y) left the house after 2 weeks in July, leaving all the garbage. I was in chock to see that. They need to leave the house at 9.30 am but they were still all 8 in the house. They left at 11 am and in our rules is stipulated that they leave the oven and barbecue clean.
It was not clean at all and when I said something about that and all the garbage they said: you need to accept that, otherwise we can write a very "nice" story about your home on Airbnb.

After 10 years of renting out 2 houses I thought I need to stop with the rental business. I was so depressed.
But .... after a couple of days and having again lovely guests from HA and HL, I was happy again.

Next year I won't make this mistake again!! So be careful with the guests from Airbnb.

pilou64 wrote:In fact, Airbnb is fine when only renting a spare room. Years ago Airbnb started with only a bit of B&B. People booked only a few nights.

Yes that is how they started but now their valuation exceeds all the hotel chains and their market share dwarfs the other suppliers such as HA. This is evident from our own 4 properties whereby 99% of our bookings come from AB, only the occasional blip from other suppliers.

AIRBNB is now so dominant that the term is used to describe any holiday let. Probably not a good thing.

Their cancellation policy definately needs refining.

From our perspective (to date) we have not had any problems and have been impressed with their customer service. I emailed twice over the last couple of days regarding minor queries and got a reply from a person the same day for both queries!

They do seem to listen and change things quite quickly so hopefully their cancellation policy will be made more fair.

gozokerry wrote:... their valuation exceeds all the hotel chains and their market share dwarfs the other suppliers such as HA. ...

Airbnb is still a private company, not listed anywhere.
The valuation is based on what investors think its worth which in turn is based on pure marketing BS descriptions of growth and projects, and not on any actual real performance.

So they fill their listings with gazillions of private rentals, but all we do is fill up the calendars lest they actually do perhaps, maybe on the off-chance find us a booking.

And valuations are based on number of subscribers, not on profit.

e-richard wrote:

gozokerry wrote:... their valuation exceeds all the hotel chains and their market share dwarfs the other suppliers such as HA. ...

Airbnb is still a private company, not listed anywhere.
The valuation is based on what investors think its worth which in turn is based on pure marketing BS descriptions of growth and projects, and not on any actual real performance.

So they fill their listings with gazillions of private rentals, but all we do is fill up the calendars lest they actually do perhaps, maybe on the off-chance find us a booking.

And valuations are based on number of subscribers, not on profit.

Welcome to the tissue-paper-thin world of Values.
No relation to the values that we as owners place on our guests’ enjoyment of their holiday.
One of those is worth something, and has millions of individual investors none of whom is worth squat except to their guests.
The other has a handful of investors each of which is worth billions, but who have no concept of what a guest wants, or is. But that’s not important...

I have listed 4 November weeks with them nothing else, I can never rent them, in 7 years I have had about 8 or 9 weeks total for November so I don't mind a cancellation lets see what they can do........I am not holding my breath!

Yikes! A scary new observation about airbnb:

As a guest, when you do a search and lets say, you just choose location and dates, then did you know that silently, the website automatically adds a filter to only show properties with instant booking.

Its not a case of giving those properties priority; if you have not enabled instant book, you'll NEVER be found by many (most?) casual searches.

Then I'm b....ered I won't get any November bookings, oh well!

Nope, I just tried it searched my area and November dates and my villa came up on top of page 2, there is still hope!
and I don't have instant booking, mine is a "request to book"

Of the 18 ahead of mine 6 were "book" and 12 were "request to book", I am guessing that the "book" ones are instant booking?

Interestingly whilst I was doing this exercise I managed to get my listing higher up the pecking order by clicking on my own ad! I am now 3rd from the bottom on page 1 by the end of the afternoon I will be on top, lol!

e-richard wrote:Yikes! A scary new observation about airbnb:

As a guest, when you do a search and lets say, you just choose location and dates, then did you know that silently, the website automatically adds a filter to only show properties with instant booking.

Its not a case of giving those properties priority; if you have not enabled instant book, you'll NEVER be found by many (most?) casual searches.

I do not think it is 'scary', sneaky may be. I have only seen this happen a couple of times recently and that is when they forewarn you that ''..because there are so many listings we have set the filter to Instant book, please de-select to see all..''

As 'dontwanttomentionthestuff' said he saw no overt prioritizing of instant book. I have spent quite a bit of time looking at all aspects and have also drawn a blank. We now run one property using it (IB) and so far so good.

AB are a success story nobody can deny that. Their software systems are sweet, they deliver bookings, they give you 'reward' money if you are a top performer, their commissions are low, they seem to have a good moral backbone, their support is excellent. What is not to like (apart from the cancellation policy.. ) ?

gozokerry wrote:What is not to like (apart from the cancellation policy.. ) ?

Maybe their penchance for handing out generous self regulated refunds for the slightest of mishaps.
And a frankly ludicrous service fee on many mid to high end listings

COYS wrote:..And a frankly ludicrous service fee on many mid to high end listings

But why does that affect you? If guests want to pay it, then they pay it.

Its not as if the fee is only applied to some listings like yours and not to your competitors. Its a level playing field.

Another one here who will only use them for off-peak weeks. The risk is just colossal otherwise. When we rent out the smaller chalet in a few year's time we'll probably have to use them more which is a gloomy prospect.

Particularly galling as in a case like this, the guest can insure and claim (as noted by you!) but not the hosts!