As a host, you may be used to receiving more requests than you can accept. Due to your detailed profile and glowing references, you may receive multiple requests for the same night. Or, maybe you are not receiving as many requests as you’d like because surfers are waiting for responses from unavailable hosts.
As a surfer, it can be frustrating to send several requests to hosts, only to be rejected because they already had surfers lined up for that night. Perhaps you’re tired of examining the profile and references of a potential host, only to learn that they don’t accept guests on Tuesdays.
Hosts, we only want you to receive requests that you are able to accept. Surfers, we only want you to have to write requests for available hosts! We’re excited to announce that we’ve introduced new features to make it easier to arrange your next Couchsurfing adventure!
New Hosting Preferences
When you edit your profile, you’ll notice several new Host Preference options so you can better control who can find you in Host Search. Under the My Home tab, you’ll be able to select:
- If you want to receive last minute (same day) Couchrequests
- The maximum number of travelers you can host
- Whether you can accept requests from multiple groups of travelers at the same time
- What days of the week you can or cannot host
If you do not change your preferences, you will appear in every search, as before (except if you have an accepted/confirmed couch visit during that time).
Host Search Enhancements
Now, when you search for a host in a specific city, you’ll see a dropdown menu where you can select the dates that you are surfing, as well as the number of people you are traveling with. The search results page will exclude hosts that are not able to host your group. This may sound familiar if you live in a big Couchsurfing city, as we’ve been testing this feature over the past few months in a few select locations. This feature will now be available for every city across the globe!
This is just the first wave of features to make it easier for our members to manage their requests. In the coming months, we hope to release more Host and Surfer preference options. We’re excited to make Couchsurfing easier to use so that you can spend less time negotiating logistics, and more time with your Hosts and Guests.
If you have any feedback about our new changes, or other Host/Surf preference options you’d like to see, please send us your feedback here.
Please return the how do I know this person feature and the how well do I know this person feature.
Searching for couchsurfing friends of friends was very helpful .
I have hosted hundreds of people yet I have had very little luck the past few years finding hosts.
I do not have facebook attached to my couchsurfing profile and neither do any of my couchsurfing friends. Facebook is nothing like couchsurfing.
Many hestitant/ new couchsurfers would be more likely to host a couchsurfer if they knew it was a friend of someone they already knew.
A connecting friends of friends would also encourage couchsurfers to be more active in hosting or meeting up. It would connect couchsurfers in a positive way- the way couchsurfing is meant to be, showing how small the world really is.
Without the connecting friends couchsurfing feature you have removed the continuity of connection. Couchsurfing is doomed if you don’t put that important feature back.