Long term reservation and super host status

[Joseph302]

I am a superhost on an island. I had a guest come for a short term (1 month) rental while they looked for a home. They eventually said they could not find anything as nice as my rental and asked if they could modify the reservation to add 13 months. I agreed and all is well; however, I will not have enough bookings and reviews to maintain my superhost status. How does AirBNB address long term rentals into the superhost calculation? It seems as I am doing something correct to be booked for such a long time, but the single booking & review won't help with keeping the superhost status. Any thought?

[Louise231]

@Joseph302You could always ask the guest to book several, concurrent, shorter reservations.

I.e have a new booking for every month.

If you were in the uk i would say it's actually a benifit to keep each reservations under 28 days as the rights a person have change from a short term stay to the right of tenant (in the uk you can get rid of a problem short term tenant super easy- reasonable force, or police, done. But anyone 28 days or longer, it's a whole different issue, involving courts..)

But if you explain to your guest that you would be happy for them to stay but please could they book seperate reservations, along with giving you reviews for at least half of the bookings, then you both win. They get a place to stay, with the same airbnb guarentee's, you don't loose for helping them out.

[Joseph302]

Thanks Louise, for my location short term bookings, anything under 91 days, adds a 20% hotel tax, so there is a financail advantage for making a long term booking.

[Linda108]

I think you have hit the nail on the head, @Joseph302.  When you have a long term rental, your reduction in the activity affects your position in the search and for Super Host status.  I wonder if you snoozed your listing for the next 6-9 months, if that would help mitigate the impact of going from host to landlord.  Just a thought.

[Susan1204]

Thank you! Does anyone have insight to this? I am hosting for 4 months and would hate to give up Super Host status. 

[Lawrene0]

@Louise231, but does that work? Having the same guest book over and over? Not talking the extra service fee costs or the hotel tax, but the fact that reviews by the same host do not count as separate recommendations for a guest, i.e., guest has 7 reviews but only 5 recommendations because they stayed with the same host 3 times and those 3 recommendations count as only 1. Knowing that, I am wondering whether 12 reviews by the same guest will count as 12 for the purpose of superhost stats. Does anyone know? 

[Louise231]

@Lawrene0@Joseph302Yeah it works fine for the number of stays, Airbnb doesn't distinguish between who the bookings are from when it counts (the same way it doesn't register the number of days a guests stays) it just wants to know how many completed trips.

I have a few people stay on and off for work, and they always get included for each stay in the number of completed trips. The main problem is getting them to complete multiple reviews as they tend to feel like if they have done it once then why do it again if nothing has changed.

If you explain to the guest why you'd need them to review at least half of their stays to keep superhost (perhaps the first half so you're not chasing later!) then you shouldn't have a problem. It might help motivate them if you let them know that having 12 positive reviews in return (even if they are from the same host) will make them look alot better to other hosts in the future.

I'm not sure the details for your hotel tax (i imagine it's different to UK) but for the fees it shouldn't be different. 10% of 1 year or 10% of 12 bookings that add up to a year should be the same.

I persume you're discounting the nightly rate for the length of stay but as long as you're using the same nightly rate for the month stay the guest won't loose out. and you can check the 'How much does the guest pay' to make sure airbnb isn't changing the fees from say 11% to 12% for the differnt bookings. (airbnb does say its changes fees depending on length of stay, but 1 month is still classed as a long stay so should be similar/same to 1 year)

[Lawrene0]

Thanks, @Louise231. It is not something that will affect me here, but I did wonder about it. 

@Joseph302, will the same guest booking back-to-back work one way - as an over-91-day stay - for the tax authorities, and another - as 12 stays - for Airbnb? Just a thought.

[Louise231]

@Lawrene0@Joseph302

To be honest i'd be really tempted to this....

Assuming the guest is already there right now keep the booking a 91 day stay (or go over a few days to when suits you in the week for the next part)

After 91 days (or 95 whatever) book 5 SEPERATE 1 day stays at a super low price.

Book another 91 days (or 95 whatever) and (you guessed it...) book 5 SEPERATE 1 day stays at a super low price.

Then just book for the remainder of you stay.

Why tiny price for the 1 night stay? Because if the nightly rate on the small stay is low, your taxes are going to be tiny, (persuming superhost means enough to you to pay £2 per night tax on 10 stays, i'm assuming here the minimum price of £10 per night)

Why split the small bookings up and spread them? - Because if you do them all in one go at the begining, them you might have a problem a year from now when you've had a long stay for ages. If you did them all at the end you might struggle now if you're low on bookings at the moment, also at the end risks the guest leaving early and you not having any!)

All the long stays are tax exempt, so no worries, the short stays are tiny so you should be able to take the hit on £2 per stay for 10 stays. (might want to ditch the cleaning fees)

Also if you're about to review the guest half way through the stay it should remind the guest it's an airbnb, it's your home, not a long term let, and they might be motivated to tidy a little more around 'review time'.

It's fairly normal in rental places here to have a 6 months landlord check (so just compare it to that)

[Mark884]

Hi All,

I have a question re payment for longer term stays.

I have a guest who has booked for 3 months and payment is automatically staggered by Air BNB (something i have just learnt).  Payment is staggered to be paid each month.

My guest wants to change the dates of the payments and make them earlier - yes happy about that!

But can i change the automatically generated staggered dates by Airbnb to customisd payment dates?

Does anyone have experience with this?

[Allan115]

I had the same problem but it was easier and more reliable to have the one year commitment then to leave it open ended for monthly or every three months renewals.  I also want a commitment so that I do not have any vacancies because of verbal commitments that can change.  

If they read this thread they would respond.