Last updated on March 16th, 2022 at 12:25 am

What does a five-star rating mean for your stay at a vacation rental? It means that the property was as described on the website. Five-star AirBnB ratings are important for owners. Consider when you are looking for a property to rent. Do you select only five stars or do you select three stars? Exactly.

Why do guests give lower ratings? Lots of reasons include the wrong belief that a property has to offer caviar and champaign to get a five-star rating. Ratings are very important to owners, their ability to maintain their properties is based upon how often people stay. If you decide that the property was ok and give a three or four-star, you are not doing well by the hosts.

Yes, some properties advertise a swimming pool and when you arrive it’s empty. Give that host a lower score. The beds were not made, linens were dirty, giving them a lower score. The host does not reply to you in a reasonable period, yes, reduce the rating.

Five Stars means the property was in good condition as advertised

I have to admit, I have in the past graded surveys as less than excellent only because in theory nothing is excellent. Those surveys probably did not hurt anyone’s ability to pay their bills. You have to be more diligent with your AirBnB or other ratings. If for example, the property advertised three queen beds and two full-size beds which were there. The website also said that there was a coffee service which was there. They advertised a few minute’s walks to the true beach. In this case, you should give a five-star rating.

Don’t look for things to reduce the rating. If you were comfortable and your guests enjoyed themselves, give the owners the benefit. One of the rating areas on Airbnb is the location. Some guests give high ratings for everything but the location. Perhaps they wanted to be closer to something or further away from something. The website can not anticipate everything you would want if this was a perfect world. Even if you were not pleased by the location of the owners of the property who took good care of you, give them a five-star anyway. Why penalize the property hosts because of the location unless the location was not what was described.

Guests cause damage

Time to talk about the guests. The reason why properties deteriorate and future guests make complaints is because past guests damaged the property. I can tell you from experience that I have replaced carpets because a guest spilled something and it stained. The same is true of furniture. We recently replaced a sofa sleeper with one that cost well over $1,000 because guests’ children were drawing on the cushions.

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Guests that wear out properties well before their time are not often charged for the damage. The owners try to repair the damage but in some cases they have a new guest coming in behind the last ones. Rather than cancel and ruin their new guest’s vacation, they accept them. The guest then companions about the damage and wonders why it was not fixed. Perhaps you can understand these situations. More reasons why owners need some kindness from their guests in the form of a five-star rating.

Owners can rate guests

Owners can rate guests on the Airbnb platform. I have spoken to many owners who resist the desire to tell everyone what the guests did to their property. Often the bad guests give a high rating hoping they will not be charged for damage. The owners are reluctant to then give a lower rating to that guest. This is one reason why the rating system is far from perfect. There are perhaps many properties with averages in the 4 point range that are better than rated.

Another thing that some younger guests attempt is to complain that something is wrong with the property just before they are ready to leave. They may ask for a discount. The word is out in their circles that some hosts will give a discount rather than deal with the fallout of a low rating. This behavior is immoral and it occurs so often you would wonder how they treat others. Owners are becoming aware of this “trick”. Our property manager tells all guests that they are to immediately report anything that does not meet their expectations. Failure to report issues immediately upon arrival will mean that they have decided the issues were not serious and no refunds or discounts will be warranted.

Negative comments from guests that are not warranted will be met with host comments explaining in detail so others can see, this guest should not be welcome in the future. Conversely, great guests which are in the majority will receive five-star ratings from great hosts. The system can be kept in balance when both parties care about the needs of the other.

Communication

Every host has a different method of communicating with their guests. The key is to ensure that there is communication at the beginning, during the stay, and at the end at a minimum. Most guests do not want to be bothered by the hosts and this is ok but some contact is critical. Does a good host welcome the guest by explaining the rules and answering questions e.g. where can I get seafood?

Should something malfunction during their stay, the host should react quickly. I can recall when the AC went out in one of our rentals. A repair tech was on-site within half an hour and fixed the unit. During another stay, the dishwasher failed, once again a technician was dispatched and corrected the issue within an hour. Hosts like to get the fixes done when the guests are out of the units.

Great communication and attention to detail on the part of the host deserve a five-star rating. Perhaps you were sweltering in the heat when the AC went out. The host had the system fixed in a reasonable amount of time and then all was well. Consider the work required to make that happen. The host had to locate a technician who could come out at a moment’s notice. Not an easy thing to do. The cost was not an object and emergency fixes are costly. All the host was thinking about was the guest’s comfort. Why not a five-star rating?

Leave comments

Ok, so people do not usually leave tips at vacation rentals, unlike hotels. You can leave comments instead, they are more valuable than leaving a tip. Your comments are greatly needed by the owners to determine if your stay was as expected. More important, those comments tell the hosts how to improve for future guests.

I was speaking to a guest one time, she said that there should have been more mirrors in the house because everyone was getting ready at one time for dinner. She was right. An excellent idea. We fixed full-length mirrors to the back of the bedroom and closet doors. I could go on and on with the great suggestions that we acted upon. Some guests return and find that we listened and made improvements.

Many hosts have a book inside their properties where you can leave written comments. Some hosts have a website where you can leave comments. The comments you leave on AirBnB, VRBO, and the other sites are good for others, if you have more helpful suggestions for the owners, leave those in another place.

Now it’s time to ask that you leave comments on this page. Thank you for visiting our website. Please read other articles about vacation rentals including how to own your own.