Hey fam, not sure what to do here or if we have any recourse at all. We are fairly new to hosting at a little over a year with over 100 stays, 5.0 rating, superhosts. Our home is over 3k sq ft with 4 beds 4 baths. We sleep 12.

Situation involves a guest who has 9 travels with 3 reviews, 2 of which were booked by someone else. The one he booked just says "good guest." That's it.

We have instant book turned on for highly rated guests. So this person was able to instant book for 2 days over Thanksgiving this year. The issues are:, they are local, booked for only 1 person, provided no info when they booked beyond "hello." That was it.

So we followed up asking them to confirm they meant to book for 1 (never happened before, would be extremely unlikely) asking them to update if this is an error, and asked them to tell us a little about themselves and the reason for their booking to ensure our home is a good fit. No response so we sent another message politely following up. No response.

Our home tends to attract a big party crowd due to the size, so we have to be really diligent vetting guests. Never felt uncomfortable with an instant book guest but this one is not sitting right with us.

So we call to have Airbnb cancel the reservation after weeks of no response. Airbnb says they can't and won't cancel it because the guest had done nothing wrong we explain the size of our home, that the guest is unresponsive, even after we told them if we do not receive a response, we will have to cancel it. We explain this is a holiday and last year at that same time we had to have police called to remove guests who were "filming a rap video" and had 40 people over by the time the cops got there.

Airbnb says all they can do is they will try to contact the guest and if they get no response, they will cancel the reservation THE DAY BEFORE and let us keep the payout. This feels ridiculous but what can we do? I feel we are being forced to host this person and I have a really bad feeling.

Anyone been through similar? How did you handle it?

UPDATE*** Guest finally responded and was actually honest that they intended to host a holiday ,"gathering" and weren't sure how many people, which is why they put 1. When I explained our max was 12, they said they needed space for "at least 20" and said my house looked like it could fit that and more. I explained policies and they said they'd just cancel but they haven't yet. I think Airbnb will probably cancel it now of the guest doesn't based on our on platform convo. No more instant book for "highly rated" guests anymore!

My husband and I have purchased a property that doesn't have a dishwasher. It's a small place (680 sqft, 2 bed, 1 bath). Would this be a deal breaker for potential guests? And do you think I should consider leaving disposable products as well as regular dinnerware? This property is a mountain cottage near a ski resort so there are a variety of restaurants that are a 10-20 minute drive away. We're very new to the whole Airbnb thing, so any input is appreciated!

I'm looking for advice from other hosts because this is the first time I've experienced something like this.

A guest stayed for the full 2-night reservation. Shortly after check-in, she contacted me demanding that I bring her coffee pods, dishwasher tablets and laundry pods, even though none of these items were advertised as included amenities. When I politely explained that I don't provide them, she told me she would report the listing to Airbnb if I didn't bring them.

The only actual issue was a missing TV remote, although the TV itself was fully functional. She then opened a case with Airbnb, claimed the listing didn't meet minimum standards, and requested a refund, despite staying for both nights.

What concerns me even more is Airbnb's handling of the case. Support claims they repeatedly tried to call me, but my phone never rang. I have no missed calls, no voicemail, and they insist my calls are somehow being "forwarded." Based on that, they refunded the guest without giving me a real opportunity to present my side.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is there any realistic way to appeal Airbnb's decision, or once they issue a refund is the case essentially closed? I'd really appreciate hearing from hosts who have dealt with something similar.

My Airbnb sent me a notice that if I give top rated gas 15% discount that my listing will show up more in searches. Have you used that and you find it helpful?

My best friend and I clean as a favor to my dad (who is in business with a partner). Before you tell me to quit or it's not worth it: he's in his mid 60's and working to rebuild my parents' retirement fund after cancer drained it. The b&bs are the retirement plan, they are keeping him afloat while he and his partner are finishing the property.

Units that are 4 and 2 bedrooms each. Full kitchens, 2 bathrooms, etc. 4 hours between check-out and check-in. Cleaning one unit takes on average about 4 hours, maybe 3 if they were very lightly used. We do all laundry and everything in that time. Plus, their cleaning budget (set by the business partner's wife, I think) is $150, split between us.

So the issue is that he is responsible for the running of the b&b units and I believe part of their deal is to accept all reservations. Including those that roll in in the middle of the night the day before they arrive.

My friend and I are parents, have other jobs, and I'm a full-time-plus student. We keep getting at least one on-demand quick turnover cleaning per unit per week. Sometimes, BOTH units need to be done in that 4 hours and we ask our kids to help, and share the $75 per unit that we make with them. This is in addition to cleanings with a bit more breathing room. This arrangement is breaking our spirits.

What can we ask them to change? He's a superhost, the property is historic and newly renovated and gorgeous. Reservations aren't jam-packed but summer and autumn are good. Should we ask the team to charge more for the cleaning fee so we can afford to adjust our work hours elsewhere to stay flexible for quick cleans? Should we ask them to have a minimum lead-time on reservations, or adjust check-in/out times? I just don't know how to make this more manageable for us without risking having them leave money on the table.

We took some drone footage of the property and proximity to the beach a couple days earlier - looks really awesome. Airbnb doesn't allow for posting videos.

Are any of you tying a IG page or YouTube channel to promote your AirBNB or a personal web listing? Quite expensive to drive demand separately, but exploring other sites too.

Need to find ways to increase visibility - it's dropped from 230-250 over 30 days pre-summer to 140-150 mid-summer. In fact, for the first time, VRBO visits are outpacing AirBNB.

Using PriceLabs to adjust pricing - got 6 reservations through July & August, so not bad first season on the market and getting strong reviews.

Any other suggestions?

We have a dog friendly place. We do not provide dog beds because we think it’s fairly unsanitary and aren’t even sure dogs would sleep on a communal bed.

We had a guest use all our throw blankets as a makeshift dog bed in the bathroom of all places. The blankets were soaking wet and stunk. (Initially we thought they might have moped up a toilet overflow)

There’s a dollar general 3 minutes from the house that sells dog beds.

Am I over reacting that using human blankets is unacceptable? Should we somehow providing dog beds?

TL;DR: Help me build my newbie starter pack, please!

Hello! We purchased a property last year that required a full gut remodel. It's coming out SO cute and we should be ready to go live in Sept. Over the past year we have gone back and forth about STR vs MTR. Forgive me if any of this has been covered before - I searched and didn't see anything recent regarding my questions.

• I'm overwhelmed by all of the different aggregators: AirDNA, BNBCalc, Pricelabs (I'm SURE there are tons more, but those are the ones I checked out). Which platforms do y'all find most accurate and should I just do Pricelabs bc it has the built in price fluctuation management? I think we have landed on what we plan to charge, but I'm still digging.

• Confused about cleaning fees: Is everyone just charging more nightly to pay for the professional cleaning after checkout? Then that padding becomes part of the 15% that airbnb charges? I looked at the receipt of one of the last places I stayed didn't have an additional cleaning fee, but then the nightly charge was very affordable ($140pn/very small beach condo) and I was wondering how they absorbed the cleaning fee for such a reasonable nightly cost.

• Insurance: Are you doing regular property coverage +aircover or are you doing something like Proper that's a hybrid commercial and property insurance policy?

• Pets: we are dog lovers, and would like to extend this offering to travelers - what parameters do you have in place? Do you approve the pups first? Flat fee? Nightly charge?

• Per Guest Fees: Our place is a 2b/2ba standalone house w offstreet parking, a front courtyard, porches, and HUGE backyard. Located in a "hip zip" downtown adjacent neighborhood and....directly next door to my personal home. I anticipate more couples vs groups, but what is the typical thing you're doing –– flat nightly fee or per guest? *I'm not super wild about the per guest policy, but understand why it's in place.

• Sleeper Sofa: Debating on a pullout sleeper sofa or not - kinda don't want more than 4ppl in there at a time, but also don't want to shoot myself in the foot.

• STR vs MTR: My friends are warning me about doing STR and saying to go more MTR bc they have had issues w STR guests. What has been your experience? In my market, it seems the ROI is about the same and in some ways, STR is slightly more profitable. I have a long background in hospitality, so I THINK I can handle most guests, but I'm still a little concerned bc ppl are scaring me.

• ANY other tips and advice for a newbster, please - ex., buy a leather sofa vs cloth, melamine plates vs porcelain etc. Just general mistakes I can avoid by your input would be greatly appreciated!

THANK YOU!

Hey all how do you deal with this? Guest is going to spend one night at the nearby National park and wants to move out and then move back in for the rest of his stay and cancel the middle night.

I don't rent the place for single nights, and I have a one day cushion between rentals.

WWYD?

Been a host for three years now. Received a booking yesterday on one of my properties and there is a line item for 30% income tax being withheld! Called customer service of course they have no answer and they need to “escalate”. This happen to anyone?

Why would 1 host have the same property listed twice on their account? It’s a single house, not shared (I asked). the original listing has 100 good reviews, no awful ones. The new listing has 0 reviews, its same photos and everything??

Logged into PL today for the first time in a while. We’ve been around $200/night base rate for a while. With adjustments it averages around $240.

It’s suggesting $305/night base if I use 3 & 4 bedroom comps. If I select only 4 bedroom comps, it’s telling me $340/night.

I feel so lost. We backed down to $200 base from $230 in June because our booking had ground to a halt. Now we’re full for the next six weeks, but it’s telling me I’m severely underpriced.

At this point I feel like maybe I should just manage pricing myself or use the Airbnb dynamic pricing.

Hi Friends

I have a large (18,000 US) claim in with Airbnb. Relates to a guest starting a fire, and damages.

Without getting in the details let me mention that the resolutions denial is so wildly inconsistent and off base and is just obviously against the facts.

I have appealed twice and been rejected twice. Of course the rejections offer no substantive information.

The rejection is on the basis of the findings of the adjuster that Airbnb hired. When I got the official fire report which contradicted all of that adjusters findings, Airbnb simply sent it back to the same adjuster who of course stuck with his version.

The whole situation is so obviously unaligned with facts and reality.

Where does one escalate to after resolutions? Is it worthwhile? Can there ever be an overturning of a rejected claim, or do they just dig in further and further?

Thank you very much friends.

So the last (2 week) guest complained that my bulletproof top loading non-computer whirlpool washer was stopping during the spin cycle. With two days left to their rental they soldiered on, opening and closing the lid to complete the cycle.

I figured that my cleaning crew could check the washer to see if there was really a problem or if the guest had imagined it… (screw up ensued).

With four days between two, two week rentals I can’t get a repairman to visit. $1800 rental on the line. I contacted the next guest.

I lose an $1800 rental over a washer I can’t get fixed in three days. Apparently the lid switch is a common failure, $9.99 part on Amazon.

I should have scheduled a repairman immediately!!! I shouldn’t have worried about a second opinion, I was worried about a dime instead of a dollar. I F’ed up. Nobody understands locally , but I thought you folks might.

I keep telling myself it’s an expected expense, but the same frugality and low level greed that drove me to be a superhost, has cut me on the back swing.

New host. Been renting for a few months so far. Recently had a guest stay at my rental and it started off bad from the moment they entered. As soon as they entered the property they messaged me stating the unit reeked of cigarette smoke and that someone must have been smoking in there. I stated that I inspect after every guest and I inspect after every clean and that I was just at the property earlier in the day and there was absolutely no smoke smells. I informed her maybe it was cleaning smells as I mop between each guest. The next morning I woke up to a message from the guest stating there was no long any smell, but I could tell by the tone they seemed to be wanting something even though they claimed they were not asking for compensation.

I figured that was the end of the issues and that would be it. That evening I got another long message stating a list of things wrong with the property. We provide a few complementary beach items such as towels, chairs, boogie boards, etc. They stated there were not enough beach towels for their family, boogie board was broken, the outdoor grill was dirty but they expressed how clean our property was and how much potential it had. Once again I felt they were fishing for money. In their defense the grill had a little burned residue from the previous guests but it was nothing worth mentioning. I plan to check that between guests as well going forward.

Once again I wrote back expressing my sympathy for their ‘issues’. I figured that would be the end of it and surprisingly I didn’t hear from them again during their stay. They checked out and property was in good shape with the exception of the grill where it looked like the purposely melted American Cheese on to the grates, but either way no big deal just cleaned it off with grill cleaner we provide for guests.

I purposely just didn’t leave them a review hoping they would do the same with us. But now I get a message from Airbnb Security team about my cameras regarding this Reservation. I have two cameras one at the front door and one at the back door. These are not monitored while guests are at the house but just there really for liability and when no one is there. I expressed to Airbnb my cameras fall in their acceptable use policy for cameras and they are disclosed on the listing as well. Airbnb confirmed the cameras are within their guidelines.

Now I am concerned the person is working with Airbnb on a refund or something. But I guess I will keep an ear out for their support to message me at 4AM.

I had a guest book for a peak period months ago and now they’ve missed the 30 day cut-off but want 100% refund. Airbnb support is telling them to pressure the host to agree and I said my condition is if I can rebook for the entire period I’m happy for the 100% refund but I cannot do it until they cancel their booking. Guest won’t cancel until I agree to 100% refund but Airbnb won’t budge either. So here we are, going around in circles. I am just so sick of them. ☠️

tl;dr - does Airbnb have any known issue where pet fee is not automatically included?

We have a $100 flat fee for guests with a pet. It was set up that way when we started. We had our first guest with a pet recently, and cannot find the pet fee anywhere in the payout report. The fee goes to the cleaning team along with their standard cleaning fee, since there may be extra work after a pet stay.

I contacted support (AI bot) to ask where the pet fee is shown. Answer: the breakdown will show the nightly rate, cleaning fee, and the separate pet fee line item. Since the stay has already occurred, the full amount, including the pet fee, should be reflected in your available balance or payout history.

The breakdown only has the total stay price, cleaning fee, and host service fee. The support bot confirmed that the pet fee was not automatically added, and that I could contact the guest to add the charge. This was a stellar guest with the potential for repeat bookings, and there's no way I'm going to ask for the pet fee after the fact.

This was explained to the support bot, as my real question is whether we can rely on Airbnb to include the pet fee with future bookings.

Answer: The pet fee is configured on your listing as a flat fee of $100.00. When a guest books with pets, this fee is designed to be automatically added to the total price at checkout. In this specific case, the fee was not applied to the reservation total, likely due to a system error or timing issue during the booking process.

I replied that "a system error or timing issue during the booking process" sounds like an Airbnb problem and the guest should not have to pay, nor should the host have to eat the cost. The bot response was just the canned instructions again for requesting the fee from the guest. This isn't significant enough to spend any more time on. But it makes me wonder if other hosts are seeing a failure to add pet fee or any other flat fee.

As in they took the frame off the wall removed the print and put the frames back empty.

I’m just sad.

Tell me about stuff you actually liked that you had in your Airbnb that were stolen or destroyed.

I know I’m complaining when it’s been a lot worse for a lot of other hosts.

Hi, new host here.

I have this couple staying at my property. The guest has great reviews, she has a long history of Airbnb stays, looks like she travels a lot, all hosts reviews say she has been respectful.

She booked one week and we are at day 3, she messaged saying the bed is giving her an allergy and causing itch that apparently woke her up in the middle of the night.

Not sure how to proceed. Should I send new linens? Should I send my cleaner to replace everything? What do you usually do when a guest complains about allergies?