pibmarco That's interesting. Thanks for the info. I didn't know that the guests were charged so much through airnbnb. Fact still remains that airbnb is the one offering some kind of help while Booking is not.
I think the policy is that any guest with a booking made before Mar 5 for up to May 31 will automatically get a full refund. The 25% that a host receives comes directly from Airbnb, not the guest. Yes, only those with a strict policy and who are "superhosts" are going to benefit and it is not a huge amount, but it is something. In addition, apparently those small, in-home hosts that meet the criteria can also apply for a one time $5000 payment to help keep them afloat. What is interesting to me is that the Airbnb commission charged to hosts is much less than Booking.com commission, yet Airbnb are the ones who are stepping up to help their hosts with real money. Special advertising rates, etc are not going to help any host if the community they are in has a municipal shutdown of all accommodation providers due to covid, as ours does.
Airbnb just announced the program. It will be retroactive and cover cancelled bookings from Mar 14-May 31. They have just started it up and it will take effect shortly.
Given that your competitors are starting to offer financial help, now would be time to start thinking about it. You cannot make money without us and if other platforms treat us better we will be going with them in the future.
Yes, I replied to the review in a polite and straight-forward manner as soon as i saw it, so that is not a problem. The problem is that her negative comment, without the visible reply from me, is on my front page for everyone to see as soon as they log onto my listing. I fail to see why this has anything to do with a policy of any sort as I don't want to change the review, just the mistaken placing of the excerpt. It is quite possible for disgruntled individuals to purposefully do this if they want to cause trouble, but in this case I think the guest just made a mistake. However, either way I am stuck until the site selects another comment to replace the negative one and who knows how long that will take! Not being able to change it is just bad website design and the refusal to look into a way to fix the problem is incompetent.
Yes, I had to waste my time going through many e-mails and phone calls only to be told that there was nothing that could be done and that if someone read the negative comment they could just go to the reviews and see my response! Not a very satisfying solution, to say the least. I can deal with a negative review, that is part of the business, but to have a negative comment under the "What guests liked" section on my front page and no way to remove it just stupid. I too will be looking to move away from Booking if I can. Airbnb, though not perfect, is in my experience much better at dealing with misplaced reviews.
pibmarco That's interesting. Thanks for the info. I didn't know that the guests were charged so much through airnbnb. Fact still remains that airbnb is the one offering some kind of help while Booking is not.
I think the policy is that any guest with a booking made before Mar 5 for up to May 31 will automatically get a full refund. The 25% that a host receives comes directly from Airbnb, not the guest. Yes, only those with a strict policy and who are "superhosts" are going to benefit and it is not a huge amount, but it is something. In addition, apparently those small, in-home hosts that meet the criteria can also apply for a one time $5000 payment to help keep them afloat. What is interesting to me is that the Airbnb commission charged to hosts is much less than Booking.com commission, yet Airbnb are the ones who are stepping up to help their hosts with real money. Special advertising rates, etc are not going to help any host if the community they are in has a municipal shutdown of all accommodation providers due to covid, as ours does.
Airbnb just announced the program. It will be retroactive and cover cancelled bookings from Mar 14-May 31. They have just started it up and it will take effect shortly.
Given that your competitors are starting to offer financial help, now would be time to start thinking about it. You cannot make money without us and if other platforms treat us better we will be going with them in the future.
Yes, I replied to the review in a polite and straight-forward manner as soon as i saw it, so that is not a problem. The problem is that her negative comment, without the visible reply from me, is on my front page for everyone to see as soon as they log onto my listing. I fail to see why this has anything to do with a policy of any sort as I don't want to change the review, just the mistaken placing of the excerpt. It is quite possible for disgruntled individuals to purposefully do this if they want to cause trouble, but in this case I think the guest just made a mistake. However, either way I am stuck until the site selects another comment to replace the negative one and who knows how long that will take! Not being able to change it is just bad website design and the refusal to look into a way to fix the problem is incompetent.
Yes, I had to waste my time going through many e-mails and phone calls only to be told that there was nothing that could be done and that if someone read the negative comment they could just go to the reviews and see my response! Not a very satisfying solution, to say the least. I can deal with a negative review, that is part of the business, but to have a negative comment under the "What guests liked" section on my front page and no way to remove it just stupid. I too will be looking to move away from Booking if I can. Airbnb, though not perfect, is in my experience much better at dealing with misplaced reviews.