‘Right, we’re going to book into Pauline’s B&B and give her a four-star rating and that will drop her down from a perfect five,’ I said, in a state of utter lunacy.
We were sitting in front of the fire at the end of a rainy West Cork day during which another difficult customer had rated us four stars, which should not be terminal but is, because of the way Airbnb plunges your overall rating the second one guest doesn’t rate you five stars.
I was so upset at our latest downgrading that I was comparing myself with other B&B listings in the area with a perfect five, and had become so deranged that I was proposing we level down the competition by spending €124 for a night at Pauline’s, rating her four stars to drop her down too.
‘Oh no, what is happening to me? Airbnb has turned me into a monster!’ I wailed, throwing down my iPhone as I lay on the sofa so I could no longer see Pauline’s home, a faux stone-clad detached new-build with a bedroom done out in a black-and-white duvet set, laminate flooring and one of those signs telling you what to feel propped on a radiator.
Pauline sounds lovely and I’m sure her place is wonderful. But it was burning a hole in my soul that I was rated lower than her with a Georgian country house with designer bed linens, hotel-quality mattresses and marble bathrooms with top-of-the-range showers, all for half her price. ‘I know why,’ I said. ‘Pauline gets customers who see an ordinary home and rate her generously. I get customers who think, “Get her with her country estate! I’ll take her down a peg!”’
‘You really need to stop trying,’ said the builder boyfriend, relaxing on the floor in front of the fire perusing classic cars on his phone, not bothered because, as he says, you can’t please ‘them’, meaning the customers.
Four stars should not be terminal. But the savage way the system works means it really is. With 27 five-star reviews and one four on the smaller room, that averaged us to 4.96, while the big room had 20 five and one four, which lowered it to 4.95. Thusly four point something, we were stripped by Airbnb of our gold laurels and our ‘Top Ten Per Cent of Homes’ logos.
I became so desperate not to get another four-star review that I was doing anything for every customer until it didn’t make any sense or profit, and was coming close to illegal under bribery and corruption laws.
To no avail. The latest four-star came from a couple who booked into our cheapest room for a week – €57 a night – and when they arrived she gave it a snotty look and I panicked. I offered them an upgrade to our biggest room and took the hit by not charging them a euro more. They walked across the hallway and dumped their bags in the larger room as though it was the least I could do.
She, a buxom lady from north-west London with an estuary twang that could slice bricks, then came back down and looked around, eyeing our antiques, saying: ‘I expect all this old stuff was dumped in the ’ouse when you bought it, was it? You wanna get a grant to do this place up.’
He, a slightly built man, squeaked ‘I like old houses’ apologetically. But he was on the back foot. It was clear she had expected him to book them into a five-star hotel and he had booked an Airbnb to save money. She was fuming.
They came and went all week on day trips that covered the entire west of Ireland, he driving her from Baltimore to Kinsale one day and then to Dingle and back, as the whim took her. He’d fall out of the car almost to his knees every evening. She’d then demand he take her out for dinner, and he’d say ‘Yes dear’ and drag himself back to the car once she had done herself up in her finery.
She refused breakfast each morning with a derisory glare at my spread of cereals, toast, juice and continental meats and cheeses and, as he tried to accept a coffee, she would say: ‘Nah, we ain’t breakfast people.’ Then to him: ‘Right, you ready? I wanna cappuccino in Baltimore.’
On their last day, they didn’t check out and disappeared for the day as usual. I had to message him, whereupon he said he thought he had booked that night, but he hadn’t.
I said it was no problem and I would see them later. I took in fresh towels and changed the bed, working around the mess of clothes strewn everywhere.
They came back and she pushed a bunch of flowers at me with a defiant look. I said thank you but really, don’t worry. I’d booked them in on the system which had taken the money. ‘They wanted a free night,’ said the BB. ‘You gave them an amazing deal, but they wanted a better one.’
When their review came in, he rated us four stars, which plunged our overall rating to 4.90. With a calculator, I worked out it would take a run of 24 five-star reviews and no fours to climb back to 4.95, and 400 five-star reviews in a row to climb to 4.99, according to the algorithm. I gave up trying to calculate the number that would get us back to five stars. I don’t think Nasa has computers that can work it out.
He said he had to mark me down because we didn’t have a doormat. Also, he could have done with ‘more hanging space’. I got the right to reply, so I said, ‘Come on, it can’t be that bad,’ which I thought was quite witty.
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