Well, there's no scepticism required. The Airbnb documentation for hosts explains how the pricing works, and it didn't work that way. It certainly didn't work like "Smart Pricing".
Xmas/NYE is the middle of summer in Australia. My pad is right next to the beach in a nice part of South East Queensland, and everything like it is already booked out for Xmas.
If you have access to my account data, which the support team does, Airbnb FAQ Articles #503 and #1168 are all that's required to establish that the pricing made in the offer to my guest is the result of a bug, which I have characterised in writing.
But how to establish that with Airbnb and get a resolution? I've been trying for 4 days..
When I read the S-1 with the beautiful sentimental story of the evolution of Airbnb, I couldn't help but post here. Not because I'm pissed, but because I believe in the story promoted by Paul Graham about these people. It would be great if they could retain some of their essence by responding to this incident instead of blocking it with bureaucracy.
They do have good customer support people, and evidently they have retained their culture, but it doesn't facilitate responding to bug reports from hosts in a timely manner. As the support guy told me, without reports, they'd never know about pricing bugs. Surely this is an important one, given that "Smart Pricing" is a feature in the S-1, and hosts are considered important stakeholders in the prospectus.
I've got to wait until the subject specialist verifies the bug and reports it to engineering. If engineering verifies the bug and reports back to the subject specialist, who might then report back to the support guy, who might then consult with his supervisor about whether they can compensate me or my guest somehow, this could all work out fine. So long as that happens before 21 December, no problem. Otherwise, I better cancel the booking before then and find a new guest, and hope the woman who thought she got a bargain can find somewhere else to stay for Xmas. Or just disregard my feelings for this guest and be more detached about hosting. And other people's bugs.
Cool. You might want to let her know first before canceling, since I think she's on the shorter end of the stick here. After all, you'll get someone easily, going by the occupancy rates near yours.
She is, yes. I did tell her right from the start that it's a mistake, and I need to get the correct price. She asked me to team up with her to ask Airbnb to compensate her i.e. pay the difference. I totally think they should, because their bug has lead her astray. She is also an Airbnb host in her home country. So, according to the S-1, we are both valued stakeholders.
The support guy last night who escalated it to the specialist said they can do things to help her, such as find her another place. Knowing that, I am hanging on a bit longer to see if they come through...
