Air BnB feedback

[TedWilson]

Been staying in the most random Air BnB. Think posh mansion with basement flat - we are staying in the flag and the owners are upstairs. Not cheap. Well past it's best and normally I would have complained for the cost. But the owners are sooo lovely I think they would be heartbroken. They genuinely don't see the problems. Help me with some constructive feedback that gets the point over to others looking without upsetting owners too much?

Also checked reviews and no one has said a bad word yet!

I suspect the owners are very well aware of the problems and use the "so lovely" card to stop people like you complaining!

Take pictures and leave an honest review.

Tired and in need of a refresh bit otherwise thoroughly acceptable.

I imagine that may well be the case. But the fact everyone else leaves such good review mine will look weird. It has a lot going for it but just needs some TLC and certainly not worth near £300 a night!

We stayed at a hotel in France recently that was a bit tired in places (the bathroom was straight out of the seventies and the stairwell decor was eccentric to say the least!).

BUT it was very competitvely priced and in an amazing location. The owners were fairly new and had plans to rennovate (our main room had been recently painted and redone) and they were absolutely lovely.

So we left a review noting the tired decor in places but also said it was good value, clean and acceptable quality for the price and location.

Are the photos on the site representative of the condition in real life?

Hi @TedWilson
We stayed at a terrible air bnb in Paris, ants in the kitchen, bathroom / toilet literally next to the bed, power kept cutting out. My husband said to be honest and say all the things that were bad about the place. I did and submitted it. But oh god the guilt, i felt awful, i had it deleted. I thought it would be better to message directly instead of on a public review place. This is just me though, i wish i had the courage to just say it how it was and not feel bad!

Representative to a degree but the general cleanliness was more the issue and age of things up close eg mould around mastic on tiles/sinks etc that you wouldn't see on a photo.

@Summer2424 oh that sounds awful! I can't say ours was that bad but it just wasn't what it should have been.

Airbnb reviews give you the option to add another section of feedback that only the host can see. I used it last week to give them feedback on a few issues with had with ours that would be easily fixable/were one offs so I didn't think deserved to go in the full review (not enough loo roll, full dishwasher, dirty laundry on top of the washing machine).
Some negatives did go in the full review.

Same as @RagzRebooted we left feedback about minor things in that section. We pointed out some of the issues but acknowledged they were trying to sort it (broken pathway) and then mentioned the other things as an aside - bring pool towels (ie they are not provided) and that the front door locks when it closes!!

I mean in the public review we pointed out the path and towels issues.

If general cleanliness was the issue then definitely say that in your review! For £300 a night it should be spotless..

Start with positives. Friendly hosts, great location with onside parking (for example)

Then say there were some things that impacted the enjoyment of your holiday and list those. In our case we had raised them but they'd not been resolved during our stay, so I said that.

There is a character limit, so you need to be very efficient with your words. I kept the starting positive comments very brief so I had more characters for the negative.

There is also a right of reply so no point in saying something like "the oven doesnt work" if you didnt raise it because they just reply to with the comment that you didn't tell them when you were there. For things like this use the alternative message where it goes to the host only.

Having been in a similar position, I didn't leave a review. Aka massive avoidance!

@Ohmylovejune yes I was considering the shit sandwich approach!

I agree YANBU. You explained the situation and asked for prior notification of visits. You could have being doing nudist yoga, doesn't matter. You asked for no unannounced visits and the owner agreed. Then there was a visit.
I suggest getting back in touch with owner and saying that you specifically asked that any visits were announced in advance and this was agreed and not adhered to. And you will be making this point in the review if they kick you out. It's basically the only lever you have to pull

The problem with air b and b, despite the high prices, there's no independent grading system so if things go wrong you are in the lap of air b and b or a good host.

We had quite a few major issues at a place we stayed. Having paid to self cater there was almost nothing in the kitchen to enable that to happen. I'd taken a paella pan(as our family love paella) and we had to use that almost every day to make dinner possible. I served a huge ceasear salad.in it, made a camping type one pan breakfast, paella (of course- we had that twice in the end), etc additionally, one room had no curtains or blinds and this was durung the hot weeks of spring. The hosts were of no help at all..air b and b gave a small refund.

To be honest we just needed them to go to a shop and buy a decent whole set of kitchen items.

I'll never stay air b nd b ever again because its simply not reliable