Iām currently looking for an HE in a fairly large area, although few properties are available.
Of the ones who are available, I have already noticed several which:
have a GP amount that would suggest the use of an entire apartment
however when checking the profile, it turns out that all they offer is the use of a room and with shared use of bathroom and kitchen
and for that matter, the rooms on offer were nothing special. E.g. one room was small with just a bed and not much else. The other had a single what-looked-like a camping bed. Etc.
Now I donāt necessarily mind staying in a room and have done so many times in fact via AirBnB. However Iām not going to use my relatively scarce GPs against the use of a simple room as if Iām exchanging an entire apartment.
I contacted one of the home owners to express my interest, although noting the unusual high GP amount for a room and asking them if there was a specific reason why it was so high. Their response after a few days was that they were not available for my dates, even though their calendar specifically lists that week as the period theyād like to exchange against GP.
Are home owners misusing the GP calculation to bump up the number of points to what they would get for the entire apartment while only offering a room?
Or does the GP system not really allow for calculating the GPs for only a room rather than the entire place?
Thank you for your comments on the Forum. It is certainly possible to add a room in a home for hospitality stays, and the amount of Guest Points should reflect this. There is a complicated algorithm that is used to calculate the number of Guest Points for a property. Unfortunately yes some members do manipulate this to their advantage, however we do actively encourage members to report any homes where you believe this to be the case. There is a little flag on each listing that says āreport an abuseā. However to a certain extent there is an element of supply and demand. If members do artificially inflate their amount of Guest Points then it is unlikely they will get many requests.
In the above case, I noticed actually that several of these home owners do get sufficient guests because there are very few other HE properties in their area, hence not much competition. And guests are positive about their hospitality skills, hence that keeps the flow going.
Nonetheless, that still doesnāt make it feel right to offer a basic room with a single (camping) bed in a fairly small European city, at least 1 hour or more by train to a larger more well-known city, and ask about a 100 GP a night for it (as an example).
I live in a relatively large and well-known city, in a very central & convenient location, with a super well-known city a 45 min distance by train away. And according to HE my entire 3-bedroom apartment should be worth about a 100 GP.
I donāt understand GP in the least. Sometimes there are more GP but there was nothing obvious they had done to increase GP. The manipulation like you see is reportable. I occasionally see people who donāt want to separately list a room that will mention they can make one available. I donāt fault these people at all because the offer the whole place but make it clear that they will make just a room if that is what works. Then GP needs to be adjusted and I think that would happen when you contact them. Technically it is wrong but not a bad intention. It sounds like the people you are talking about just offer a room and it is not an aside.
Room only on offer indeed. I was also thinking: maybe this is for the entire place, and they also offer a room and will adjust GPs accordingly. But no, one of them even made it clear that they have a separate listing for when they make their entire apartment available (at a yet higher GP amount).
And I just noticed a potential trick that one of them has been applying to up the GP amount for their room: old historical apartment, no elevator, no aircon (southern Europe), BUT theyāve listed an In-House Movie Theatre!! I donāt think soā¦
Hi @CapBimet, thatās at least in part my impression as well.
I had a closer look at some of these room listings, and indeed, they list all the amenities/facilities of the entire house/apartment even though some of them are of limited relevance to the guest and at the very least are shared and therefore should not receive full GP points.
E.g. great, you have a smart TV and a fireplace in your living room? A private backyard with a veggie garden & a BBQ? But the guest room is with access to a shared kitchen and bathroom only. And because you offer a single-bed room, do you think that those extra 29 GPs (!!) for a kidās playground nearby are really relevant to your guest?
Those are some of the things Iām seeing. And I donāt think thatās really a āfairā means of upping the GP number of a room, because even though GPs arenāt money, roughly a 100 GP can be seen as worth more or less about a 100 Euro. I would not pay a 100 Euro on AirBnb for a simple, small single-bed room in a minor city.
And Iām not keen on handing over 100 GP/night for such a room either: I need to rent out my entire 3 bedroom apartment in an excellent area of a well-known city for 1 night in order to gain enough GP for staying 1 night in someoneās small room with shared facilities in a small city elsewhere in Europe.
People fudging points is nothing to do with the algorithm. They are getting points for things they donāt have or offer. house points for a room. I do think amenities in a home when you can use them of course can count towards a room whether or not you do use them as you may not use them if you take the house as well. There is also a minimum below which people wonāt bother hosting because it isnāt worth the trouble.
All that said the algorithm explanation I would not expect the ambassadors on this forum or even support to explain to you or I. Another programmer, yes. The problem aside from falsified values is GP value doesnāt seem to have face validity. It doesnāt seem to measure on the surface what it is intended to measure. However behind that issue is what is it intended to measure? I think that is more the root of the issue.
Yes, and some home owners recognise this and put a fair GP value on their room.
And others list indeed the complete amenities & facilities of their place as part of their guest room listing, regardless of the fact that at the most I will only have shared access to them or I may not really have any meaningful access to them at all.
@CapBimet I think in the end though the problem is there is no real notion of what GP stands for. It is supposedly not a proxy for money. There is increased GP value for increased amenities and increased bed capacity but no increased GP value for the season of use but there is an increase GP value for location. So some correlation to money but not for everything. I think again and again they answer this question that multiple things contribute and there is a ceiling but the problem is with the concept itself not being well defined and executed. Sure you could add an FAQ but I donāt think that would solve the issue because when people go to travel they perceive their GP as not accurate.
@Bluehorse I think most people for rooms would list the amenities for their house and it is not right if they donāt let you use them but I canāt think of one thing listed in my house a guest in a room could not use. Now your point about a playground I see your point if they list a room for one only because a child doesnāt travel alone and if they list a swimming pool you arenāt allowed in that is wrong. I do think they need to define āhome theaterā. I almost think for a room there should be a small range for points after which nothing you do adds more.
The gp algorithm is being worked on by the staff now to be adapted, so maybe @Melissa.HomeExchange could forward some ideas here like the limitations for a room addition.
Yes as I previously mentioned this is an area that is currently being changed. I will pass on your thoughts to the product team to take into consideration.
I have just been speaking with the product team and I can confirm that this issue is definitely being considered within the changes to GP calculations that are underway. The private room feature and associated GPās will be changed. It will no longer be possible for private rooms and entire houses to have the same GP amount.
And maybe a few āif not X, then not Yā could be introduced as well.
For example, someone offers a room with a single bed. And checks childrenās playground in vicinity of the home, because this single feature can get them 29 extra GP. However when offering a room for 1 person, it should not be possible to tick a feature thatās only relevant if staying with at least 2 people.
Good to know, i think it should be more flexible. For example I live in Tokyo and recieve TONS of request, but as is a small space I have very low GP, but all the spaces are small in Tokyo. One hotel around my area is around 300 usd at night and Im having 148 GP.
The thing is guest points will not be the same amount as the currency you would receive if you rented. Our GP are not nearly what our space would rent for in $USD. This is a bit of hard part about GP. It should be a relative value to what you can use it for somewhere else to house the same number of people but sometimes it does not seem so. Standards regarding size are also different in different places. They are working on it.
Hmmm, I think such an approach would definitely open up a can of worms, because there would be no measuring stick any more at all. Hence I would expect plenty of āabuseā of the system with some HO going wild on their GP amounts
Sure, but the āmarketā would ensure people self-correct, or just donāt get exchanges.
If members want to offer 500 points a night for a 2 bed place in Edinburgh during the Festival, they should be able to. Itās well worth it! Same for NYC, London, Hawaiiā¦ the reality is that not all places/times are equal. And at least it is open and transparent - people are basically doing a form of this anyway with their fake beds and amenities.
In my mind the only approaches that work are: each home has the same/no value (which I love!), or you let hosts create accurate listings, with clear max occupancy and set their own points. As HE is such a commercial platform, that even lets people buy points, I think the second option is more aligned with their values (and profits!).
Iām afraid the āmarketā doesnāt always self correct, which is why I started this thread. Simple single bed guest rooms in small cities having GP amounts that normally would give you an entire apartment, and they can get away with it, because apparently very few people in that same small city are on HE.
Which in my humble view undermines the spirit of HE. If someone e.g. wants to make a lot of $$ during the Edinburgh Festival, then they should go on AirBnB. Iām not going to give them more GP. In my case if I were to look for an HE exchange in Edinburgh in August, itās rather unlikely Iād actually go there for the festival. Iād go there because the weather is usually pleasant that time of year. That it happens to coincide with the festival, is ānot my problemā in terms of GP exchanged.
E.g. I cat/house sit a lot as well, and if someone happens to look for a sitter while a major event is on in their town, well, then either Iām lucky -or unlucky- to be there at the same time, but still we will not exchange any money for the opportunity.
