Airbnb Plus Is Gone. The Standard Didn't Go With It.
We first published a version of this checklist in 2020, when we were still operating as High Rocky Homes. At the time, Airbnb Plus was an invite-only program: an inspector visited your property, walked a 100-point list, and if you passed, your listing got a badge that lifted it in search.
Airbnb formally retired Plus in November 2023. In its place came Guest Favorites — no inspector, no application. Airbnb's systems evaluate listings automatically and highlight the homes guests rate highest: a strong review count, an average near 4.9, and consistently high marks for cleanliness, accuracy, check-in and communication.
That change matters less than it sounds. The badge went away; the standard didn't. Guest Favorites measures the same things the inspector was checking — it just measures them through guests instead of a clipboard. If anything the bar is now permanent, because an inspection was a moment in time and a rating is re-earned every stay.
What follows is the full list we use when we onboard a property in Colorado. It is deliberately exhaustive. Work down it once and you will find things.
Download the printable checklist (PDF) — three pages, every item below with a tick box, plus space for the property name and who walked it. Made to be printed and carried round the property rather than read on a phone.
Personal Belongings & Clutter
Everything else on this list is something to add. This section is the only one about taking things away — and it is usually where an owner-managed property gives itself away. The home has everything it needs and still reads as somebody's second home rather than a place a guest can settle into.
- Personal belongings removed, or stored securely in a locked owner closet that guests cannot access. Keeping a closet is completely reasonable — but it should lock, it should be stated in the listing, and its square footage should not be part of what you advertise. An undisclosed locked door is an accuracy complaint waiting to happen
- Valuable, sentimental or irreplaceable items removed. Heirlooms, art, jewellery, the nice bottle of something. Assume anything left out can be broken or walk, and that neither is worth the conversation afterwards
- Shelves, countertops, dressers, tables and the tops of furniture clutter-free, with plenty of open space. Guests need somewhere to put their own things, and clutter photographs badly — it reads as unclean even when the place is spotless
- Excessive family photos, personal collections, paperwork, mail and medications removed. The photographs one surprises owners, but guests consistently report it makes a place feel like they are intruding
- Closets and drawers cleared, with adequate space for guests to store their things. A guest who opens a drawer and finds your clothes in it feels like a visitor rather than a customer, and one who has nowhere to unpack lives out of a suitcase all week
- Half-used consumables binned — opened toiletries, ancient spices, the freezer archaeology. Anything you would not want to find yourself
- Excess furniture removed. Rooms live and photograph better with space in them. If a piece has no function for a guest, it is working against you
- Décor kept intentional, simple and welcoming rather than overly personal. You are not stripping the place of character — you are leaving room for someone else's
The point of all of it: guests want to feel at home, not like they are staying in someone else's home. A clean, uncluttered space with thoughtful décor is a more comfortable and inviting place to be. A useful test is to walk in through the front door as though you had just paid to be there, and stop at the first thing that tells you this is somebody's house.
Furniture
- Beds, with mattresses and linens for every sleeping position the listing advertises
- A sofa or proper seating area — comfortable seating for everyone the home sleeps, not just most of them
- A dining table and chairs sized to the listing. If the home sleeps six, the table seats six. This is one of the most common mismatches we find
- Dressers or closets, so guests can unpack rather than live out of a suitcase on the floor
Appliances
- Refrigerator
- Stove and oven
- Microwave
- Toaster
- Coffee maker
- Dishwasher — optional, but strongly preferred
- Washer and dryer — preferred, and close to essential for longer stays
Worth adding if you have the space: a slow cooker, waffle maker, or pressure cooker. None are required, all get used, and they show up in reviews from families who cooked in rather than eating out every night.
Kitchen Supplies
- Cookware — pots, pans and cooking utensils. Avoid Teflon and other non-stick coatings: they scrape and peel with rental-level use, and a flaking pan is a guest complaint and a replacement cost
- Dinnerware for maximum occupancy — plates, bowls, glasses, cups, silverware. Matching, and nothing chipped
- Sharp cooking knives and a cutting board
- Mixing bowls, a baking sheet, and a colander
- Basic pantry items — salt, pepper, cooking oil, everyday spices
- Coffee and tea, with a starter supply of both
- Bin bags, and a bin with a lid
If Traverse manages your property, we supply the dish soap and dishwasher detergent.
Bathrooms
- Bath towels, hand towels and washcloths — counted against how many the listing sleeps, not how many bathrooms there are
- A bath mat, and somewhere to hang wet towels
- Toilet paper, with a spare roll visible rather than hidden in a cupboard
- A hairdryer in every bathroom, not one shared between floors
- Clear counter or shelf space for a guest's own toiletries
- A mirror with usable light
If Traverse manages your property, we supply the hand soap, shampoo, conditioner and body wash.
Bedrooms
- Bedsheets, pillowcases and blankets for every bed
- Zippered mattress encasements and pillow encasements. These are not optional in a rental — they are what stands between one incident and replacing a mattress
- Two pillows per single bed; four for a full, queen or king
- Extra pillows and blankets, accessible without asking
- Hangers for clothing storage — at least four per guest, and not wire ones
- A bedside surface, a reachable light, and a power outlet on each side of the bed
- Blackout curtains in every bedroom. In a ski town with snow-glare mornings and late summer sunrises, this is not a nicety
- Optional but well received: an alarm clock, a full-length mirror, and a white-noise machine — inexpensive ones work fine and quietly solve thin-wall complaints in condo buildings
Cleaning Supplies
- Vacuum cleaner
- Mop and bucket
- Broom and dustpan
- Cleaning cloths or sponges
Guests will clean up their own spills if you make it possible. Without these, a small mess waits for turnover and becomes a cleaning-fee conversation.
Safety Equipment
- Smoke detectors in every bedroom and in the common areas
- Carbon monoxide detectors outside every bedroom, or in the hallway, and at least one on every level — if the home doesn't already have them
- Fire extinguisher, or more than one in a larger home
- First aid kit
Check the dates. An expired extinguisher or a detector with a dead battery is worse than none, because everyone assumes it works.
Utilities and Amenities
- Heating, and air conditioning where the building has it
- Reliable wifi, with the network name and password written somewhere obvious in the home
- A TV with streaming services or cable
- Iron and ironing board
- Trash cans and recycling bins
- Two or three fans. Most Colorado mountain homes have no air conditioning, and a warm July week without a fan generates reviews that mention it
- Portable thermostat-controlled heaters for rooms that run colder than the rest of the house — usually a corner bedroom or a room above a garage
Guest Comfort
- Extra blankets and pillows
- Window coverings throughout for privacy and light control
- Blackout coverings specifically in bedrooms
- A small welcome amenity — bottled water, local snacks, coffee. Inexpensive, and disproportionately likely to be mentioned in a review
Worth Adding If You Can
- Outdoor furniture — a patio set or deck chairs
- A BBQ grill
- Board games, books, or other rainy-afternoon options
- A crib, high chair, or pack-and-play if you want family bookings. Families filter for these, so listing them widens your search exposure as well as your appeal
The Two Things No Inventory List Captures
You can tick every box above and still sit at 4.6. Guest Favorites weights two qualities heavily that no shopping list covers.
Cleanliness is the most-cited reason for a sub-five-star review across the whole platform, and it is rarely about dirt. It is hair in a drain, dust on a ceiling fan, a sticky remote, a fridge shelf someone missed. Those are turnover-process problems, not effort problems — which means they are fixable systematically rather than by trying harder.
Accuracy is the quieter one. A listing that oversells produces a guest who arrives already disappointed, and disappointment lands in the rating no matter how good the rest of the stay is. Every amenity you claim should be present and working on the day. If the hot tub is seasonal, say which season.
What This Looks Like in Colorado
Running 200+ listings across Crested Butte, Leadville, Vail, Avon, Granby and Twin Lakes has added a few items no national checklist mentions:
- Somewhere for wet gear. Ski boots, snowboards and soaked layers need a designated spot. Without one they end up on the carpet, and that becomes both a cleaning problem and a review
- Altitude basics. Leadville sits above 10,000 feet and Crested Butte is not far below. Extra water glasses and a humidifier in dry months materially change how a guest feels on night one
- Real winter parking instructions. Not "parking available" — which space, what the garage code is, and what happens when it snows
- Layered bedding. Mountain nights swing hard, and an extra blanket per bed prevents the thermostat war
- Honest lift and trailhead proximity. "Walk to the lifts" means something specific to a guest carrying skis. If it is a flat five minutes, say so; if it is uphill in ski boots, say that too
Where to Start
If you only do three things this week: count the pillows, count the towels against maximum occupancy, and re-read your own listing description as though you had never seen the property. That trio catches more rating damage than anything else on this page.
If you would rather walk the whole thing properly, download the printable version and take it round the property with a pen.
If you would rather someone else look at it, we do that for free — no commitment, and you don't need to be considering a management change. Paste your listing link into our free listing audit and a member of our Colorado team will send back a written read on your title, photos, description, review themes and trust signals, with the highest-impact fixes first.
Or if you would rather just talk it through, call us on (970) 533-3583.