Joe A.

I'm reading a lot of reviews here from renters but need to add my own as a property owner. We own and/or manage 17 vacation rental properties in two countries and have been Air BnB hosts for over 10 years with 95% 5-star ratings. Every now and then, we get a weird bad review-usually due to a gap between what we offer and the expectations of the guest. Recently, we got a 4-star review from someone whose issues included no water in the ice cube tray, exposed television cables on the wall, no door on the closet and not understanding that Air BnB properties don't include breakfast (it was her first time using the platform). As a result, Air BnB suspended the listing for a week because it fell below their arbitrary 5-star requirements, with no option for disputing the review and no one to talk to at customer service. Their attitude is "we let the reviews speak for themselves", even when the review is clearly unreasonable. I can live with a bad review-I can't accept the arbitrary suspension as "punishment". 10 years ago I used to tell everyone how great customer service was at AirBnB, and it was. Something went wrong somewhere along the way and they have become arbitrary, unresponsive and arrogant. There are better choices out there including VRBO/HomeAway and Trip Advisor/Flipkey We've developed our own booking site and related marketing tools and last year, it came close to beating Air BnB in total booking revenue for our properties. So we're winding down our participation on the Air BnB platform this year. They don't seem to understand that property owners are their lifeblood and responsible for 100% of their income. I would have written them to tell them of our decision directly but they don't seem to want or care about this feedback.