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AirBnb seem to have a different policy now: they simply delete the bad reviews. In June I had my first bad experience. The owner was nice but the property was a

• newaccount74 4y ago
  It's such a shame how short-sighted profit motives ruin everything. User reviews are such a wonderful thing -- until companies figured out it's more profitable to hide negative reviews and just sell people crappy products. Booking.com is the worst in my experience, and it makes me sad to hear that Airbnb isjust as bad...
  • yuvalr1 4y ago
    Since Airbnb couldn't verify my credit card due to technical reasons, I started using Booking a lot (with the same card - no problem whatsoever), and it was a pretty good experience. Why do you think this way about Booking?
    • hiq 4y ago
      What's your minimal rating when you book? I found out that anything lower than 8/10 is really bad on Booking, which was counterintuitive to me.
      • deadbunny 4y ago
        Sounds like video game reviews. Anything lower than an 7/10 is considered bad. As an example, Aliens Colonial Marines[1] was literally unplayable, filled with bugs, and generally got a 48/100. To me that should be a middling game not literal unplayable garbage. 1. https://www.pcgamer.com/aliens-colonial-marines-review/ https://www.pcgamer.com/aliens-colonial-marines-review/
        • throwaway290 4y ago
          Reviews are not representative. You want to look for new reviews (fake reviewers are active in waves, only for as long as they are paid), even if they are bad, read them and see what people dislike. The only way to warn others without risking your account is by posting a reasonably high rating and a seemingly positive review that obscures how horrible the place is. "Convenient if you drive a car, otherwise you'll want to rely on cabs since walking one way might take 30+ minutes. Lovely staff, make sure to ask about reception hours since they may not always be as advertised. Perfect bed if you like a hard mattress and aren't too tall (say less than 6 ft). Got a bit itchy in the morning, probably my skin allergies. Some roach sightings but they are everywhere in this price range right?" This will stand out among all the paid 5 star reviews with two words and three grammatical errors.
        • supertofu 4y ago
          48/100 is an F.
      • elliekelly 4y ago
        Yes! Does Booking give stars on a curve? Because there is some serious ratings inflation happening. I once stayed in a 6/10 “room” in Spain and it was just a walk-in closet with a cot. And calling it a walk-in closet is generous. It was really more like a walk-in closet sized shed or garage that had been tacked onto the side of the house. Picture the back door of a house that when you open the door that should lead outside you instead enter a generic Home Depot type shed that has had its doors removed and been nailed to the side of the house. It was only marginally better than sleeping in a cardboard box. No one in their right mind would ever rate this “room” more than 1/10 but somehow on booking.com it was a 6??
    • newaccount74 4y ago
      They ask you what was good about the hotel, and what was bad, and then they show only the good part of the review to others.
      • raverbashing 4y ago
        I always see both parts on the review
        • newaccount74 4y ago
          If you click through to the detailed reviews you can see both parts. But on some screens they show just the positive part.
          • aconsult1 4y ago
            I have at least one example of Airbnb ignoring a bad review. I had a pretty bad experience in Washington DC once and left a review to warn future guests. To my surprise such review never came online. I checked for several weeks after and saw new reviews popping up on the same property but my review was nowhere. I still use Airbnb but just lower my expectations by a huge amount because according to them everyone is having a fantastic experience. Just like Instagram... Thanks internet!
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
      I had a situation with Booking a couple years ago where I booked a room that was double booked. It’s kind of the hosts fault, but Booking’s support was completely unhelpful in resolving the situation.
  • arcturus17 4y ago
    Like GP, had infinitely better experiences in Booking.com than in AirBnB. I'd just rather stay with professional hosts, except in few cases (eg, renting summer stays for larger groups)
    • bartvk 4y ago
      Just being on booking.com doesn't guarantee a professional host, though. I booked a small B&B via booking.com and they cancelled an hour before arriving. Or rather, they told me that we couldn't come and instructed us to cancel ourselves. That felt weird and I said I wouldn't do that. What they then did, was to invalidate the creditcard payment. Luckily I could book another hotel, even though it was holiday season.
      • bombcar 4y ago
        They always want you to cancel because that doesn't hurt their metrics. Same with somehow invalidating the credit card payment.
        • bartvk 4y ago
          Yeah, the whole thing didn’t sit right with me.
      • CaptainZapp 4y ago
        Did you take it up with booking.com? I'd guess that they would be very unhappy about such behavior and eventually drop the property. For what it's worth: I booked 100s of stays on booking.com (virtually always hotel rooms) and never ran into an issue.
        • bartvk 4y ago
          Yup, called support and after our explanation, they asked whether the host offered us an alternative. I said no, and support would get back to us. Never heard from them again.
  • hasmanean 4y ago
    Reviews can have objective facts (the AC is broken), but there is a subjective quality to them that has to be calibrated to each person (shabby decor to one person is faded glory to another). Maybe that’s a good use for AI. It could Calibrate itself to each persons “taste” and filter the world for them. Instead of making users rely on fake metrics like “stars” or hidden clues like the presence/absence of neon lights, or some quality in their logo to signal what type of establishment it is…this signalling/filtering could be done for them virtually.
  • xtiansimon 4y ago
    “It's such a shame how short-sighted profit motives ruin everything.” Slightly off-topic, but this statement reminds me that it’s not just “profit motives”. I deal with third-party customer services (my clients work with third-party b2c who markets to customers, and my client fulfills the orders) a lot. Each company has a slightly different culture and structure. All have front line customer service for merchants, but it can take months to get through to higher levels of support—if at all. Front line say yes yes yes but nothing is fixed or remedied. The only obvious recourse is to leave the platform. Profit, yes. But also structure and roles of employees you are allowed to speak with who have no power for remedy, or incentive to be rational actors.
• caskstrength 4y ago
  What do AirBnb do if you just give a host low ratings without actually writing anything in text? Might be a good way around malicious hosts pushing AirBnb to remove all bad reviews due to some technicalities.
• wojciii 4y ago
  It has been a while since I used Airbnb.. they deleted a bad review that I wrote. This is really strange. At this point I have had enough of this. Trustpilot does this also and tries to conceal it with me not providing enough information.
• captainbland 4y ago
  You'd think that it is somewhat within the owner's control because they could disclose whatever this apparently immutable fact of the property is and then people could reasonably factor this in when deciding whether to stay or not. But presumably this is not something which is policy because it would lower the price of relevant properties which presumably affects airbnb's revenue as well. This kind of behaviour should somehow be regulated in a similar way to advertising - if they're intentionally hiding negative information while posing as a place to reliably inform you about your stay based on the experiences of others (which is what "review" implies) then they're misleading you for profit. What they're actually running is a mislabelled testimonials section. It distorts the market by actively preventing people from accurately assessing the property's utility to them.
  • scarface74 4y ago
    It is regulated - it’s called zoning. There is a reason many municipalities are banning short term rentals. But AirBnb is not doing anything to make sure the hosts are in compliance and are actively hiding where the places are until after you book. Can you imagine not being able to find out the exact location of a hotel until you book?
    • bambax 4y ago
      True, but this can actually be circumvented easily. The pointer on the map is at the exact location, all one needs to do is zoom in, and compare with a map that has street names. It could probably be automated too.
      • kcplate 4y ago
        My wife does this for every one we rent. Google street view can be a godsend.
    • leephillips 4y ago
      Sure, I’ve done it many times. Sites like priceline.com offer huge discounts if you’re willing to commit to a small area on a map and a general description of the property without knowing the particular hotel until you pay.
• vizzah 4y ago
  Everyone these days does it. Looks like the property count is not infinite, so many of them will accrue negative reviews with time. So rental companies demonstrate to us they only care about their own livelihood and not about the quality of the product they provide. Expedia/Hotels.com prevented me from publishing a negative review and made it impossible even to edit it (to supposedly meet their "review guidelines"). I also had terrible experience with Airbnb due to fake host review. So yeah - just use Booking.com. Most apartments are there anyway.
• itronitron 4y ago
  I could be wrong about this but I think they only post guest reviews of the property once the host has also reviewed the guest. So if the guest leaves a review the host doesn't like then they simply won't post a review for the guest. The only times I have not received a guest review from a host on AirBnB is when I have left a 4 star review (instead of 5.) The net result of this is that more properties have more 5 star reviews and so do more guests.
• mancerayder 4y ago
  >I left a bad review (my first). Two days later I received a convoluted message from support, telling me that my review was incorrect and wouldn't be published, because it pointed out "things the property owner couldn't change". I've been shouting that from the rooftops for a couple of years. I discovered that same thing happened to me, but without the support comment above. Then I discovered in the Airbnb subreddit, hosts telling each other that to remove a bad review it's easy, just show something in the review you can't change. Bingo. You know what, F Airbnb. Anyway the cleaning and service fee add ons make it more expensive than a hotel, and with 0 flexibility to cancel or reschedule.
  • bambax 4y ago
    Yeah it makes sense that hosts would exploit this; but it doesn't make a lot of sense that "things that can't be changed" are the things that can't be talked about in reviews? As a traveler, it's those things I want to know about. Not whether they did or didn't swipe the floor six months ago...
    • mancerayder 4y ago
      Noise, location are prime things that are 'outside of host control' and thus need to be censored. Speaking from experience. How about a ground floor apartment with several restaurants' courtyards and back areas adjacent to the windows?
      • wizofaus 4y ago
        As a customer you're reviewing the overall experience, not the host. Whether or not something can readily be changed by the host (and actually, there's very little a host genuinely can't change - if the location is terrible, they could sell that property and buy another one in a more suitable location!) is irrelevant to potential customers deciding whether a property is suitable for their accommodation. Do AirBnB also remove positive reviews that praise things the hosts can't change?
        • 4y ago
• dominotw 4y ago
  I had a host write me a bad review. I challenged it with airbnb team with screenshots and proof, they agreed that review was incorrect but said couldn't do anything because it a policy to not change/delete reviews.
• gassiss 4y ago
  Had a similar experience. Stayed at a 4.9 star superhost place, and the place was terrible. Very cheap and uncomfortable furniture (I had to buy my own pillows in order to sleep), and the place smelled of sewage most of the day for some reason (not due to bad cleaning). I left a bad review. They just deleted it saying it was against their TOS.
• dpkirchner 4y ago
  I wonder if they allow positive reviews mentioning things the host can't change. Say the location is great, isn't that unfair to all of their hosts that are in less ideal places?