So, we all now see that CouchSurfing is slowly rebranding itself into the CockSurfing identity that was always lurking in the dark corners of its ecosystem. The flags are there:

• Sexual preference questions
• Personality/compatibility questions
• Astrology woo woo stuff
• Introduction of sexually-related color palette elements (purple and orange combination is quite telling)
• Focus on one-on-one meetups
• With the appearance of references from previously banned people I assume they're unbanning people that were taken out due to using CS as tinder previously.

The decision financially makes some sense, and CS just threw their old ID aside to get a chance of getting horny travelers to pay them money; as from the safety POV using CS instead of tinder will filter a lot of security risks that the later has when traveling, and might become the default for travel.

Who don't likes it, we move to Couchers, TrustRoots, Bewelcome, Seravas.

For the ones that remain in CS only, or just decide to keep it as an extra dating app to be bundled with Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, etc, the need arises to address the elephant in the room:

What will be the new etiquette on the site with the interactions stemming from it?

Because with where things are heading, stuff that wasn't accepted previously due to the expectations of the interactions stemming from a hospitality/friendship-based platform, the power imbalance in the equation, trust/safety, and just personal boundaries people built when having a CS experience with a host/surfer, etc; will be basically now the new "norm".:

• Expectations will surround dating/"adventures". Even if its not the main objective of the app, now that they somehow allow it, it will just have the most intense gravity and attract the crowd towards precisely that.
• Flirting will be the go-to mode people will default to (and probably expect)
• Advances will be not a rare thing now if someone stays at someone's place. And weird reactions to them will be seen as "you went to a netflix&chill and only expected netflix?"
• Meetups will not be your friendly gatherings to share some laughs and have some drinks and party. It will be a bunch of people looking for hookups.

And since CS management decided to weasel their way into this and not clearly state the change of audience and mission of the platform to all their users; if we don't resolve this beforehand as a community, the transition will be quite painful for a lot of people that weren't paying attention, that will end up in quite bad situations that will be shitty for everyone involved.

This is a discussion we need to have.

🚨 OFFICIAL MEGATHREAD: Couchsurfing New Update - All Issues & Complaints

(Updated 5pm CST)

ACTIVE SURFERS AND HOSTS: To get rid of INACTIVE accounts: SELECT ALL of the available interests (like 150, I know) and ACTIVE hosts should pop up like it looked before this mess up. report back your findings. Ive only tested it on my account)

This is the central hub for the recent Couchsurfing redesign. Comment with new bugs, missing features, safety concerns, or screenshots below — I’ll keep updating the master list here.

Summary
The latest update has turned Couchsurfing into a frustrating, less usable platform. Major safety/privacy risks, aggressive paywalls (even for recent subscribers), searches flooded with dead profiles, and a design that feels more like a low-quality dating app than a hospitality community. Active users are getting buried.

Compiled Issues (as of May 7, 2026)

Safety & Privacy

1. Hangouts now shows your exact location — serious safety risk.
2. Couchsurfing automatically shares your full address with guests 1 day before arrival (no confirmation step).

Monetization & Paywall

1. “Verified” status locked behind $29.99/year (~$8/month).
2. Recent subscribers (even 1–2 months ago) and yearly members still hit with repeated payment prompts or login blocks.
3. “Restore purchase” often fails; stuck in “manage subscription” loops.
4. Token expired errors and forced re-subscription flows.

Search & Discovery

1. Flooded with old/dead/inactive profiles — active hosts nearly impossible to find.
2. No “Maybe accepting guests” toggle — everyone appears as a host.
3. Missing filters: last login, response rate, most active, references.
4. Distance/radius filter gone or broken.
5. Age shown only in vague ranges.

Profile & Content

1. Bios capped at just 300 characters.
2. Photos broken (upload issues, poor quality/compression).
3. “Places you’ve visited” is a messy mix of cities and countries.
4. References truncated on mobile; sorted oldest first (impractical).
5. References from previously banned users reappearing.

Messaging & Requests

1. Message templates removed.
2. Confusing request flow: separate “Accept chat” + “View Request” steps that often fail.
3. Inbox search limited to names only (no keywords or locations).

Technical & App Bugs

1. Frequent “unable to connect”, token expired, or random logouts.
2. Cannot change password.
3. Android permissions (location/contacts/notifications) won’t save.
4. App noticeably slower and more laggy.
5. Android app icon changed to plain white circle.
6. Events map cluttered with irrelevant entries.

General UX Complaints

• Feels like a cheap dating app instead of hospitality/travel platform.
• Poor communication and rushed rollout (no proper beta testing).
• Support largely unresponsive.
• Many users demanding a full rollback.

Call to Action

• Upvote this post to keep it visible.
• Comment with new issues + screenshots.
• Report bugs in-app and email support@couchsurfing.com.
• Leave honest reviews in the App Store / Play Store.
• Hold off on new subscriptions until fixes arrive.

If we all speak up together, we have a better chance of getting a rollback or meaningful fixes. Please keep comments constructive and on-topic.

LA host here, havent received any requests since the new update. Before the update, I received requests everyday. I hung out with a traveller and she isnt able to find hosts with many references or recent references.

Is this a serious bug here? I think so.

Many users are currently confused about how to set their profile to “Not Accepting Guests” on the new Couchsurfing design, so here’s a practical explanation.

Previously, Couchsurfing had three very clear hosting statuses:
• Accepting Guests
• Maybe Accepting Guests
• Not Accepting Guests

Those options have now disappeared entirely.

Honestly, I don’t think that’s accidental. Whether someone actually hosts travelers or not has become secondary on the new design. Hosting isn't the platform’s central focus any longer.

As a consequence, every user is now treated by default as a potential host, including people who have never hosted before and have no intention of ever doing so.

At the moment, the only known way to temporarily stop appearing as available to host is surprisingly convoluted:

1. Wait until someone sends you a hosting request.
2. When the request arrives, you’ll first see “Accept” or “Decline.”
3. You must first click "Accept". That's crucial. Why, you may ask? Because confusingly, “accept” at this stage actually means “accept the chat conversation”, not the hosting request itself.
4. Once you accept the chat, you’ll then be able to decline the actual hosting request by clicking "Decline" at the bottom of the screen.

At that point, Couchsurfing will give you several “declining reasons”:

• I don’t want to host right now
• I can’t host because of my living situation
• I don’t live in the desired destination
• I can’t accommodate the dates or traveler number
• This person made me feel unsafe or uncomfortable
• Other (please explain)

If your goal is to stop appearing as available to host, you must select:
“I can’t host because of my living situation.”

Doing so seems to remove your profile from host search results for six months.

However, there are several important issues with this system:

a) The duration is completely fixed and cannot be customized. It’s currently six months because Couchsurfing decided so. If they silently change it tomorrow, users will most likely not even be informed.

b) There is no visible countdown or setting allowing users to check when this six-month period expires.

c) Once the six months are over, your profile will quietly return to host search results automatically, meaning you’ll potentially start receiving hosting requests again and have to repeat the entire process from scratch. Rinse and repeat every six months.

d) You can still receive stay requests even when you're not appearing in search. Why? Because any user coming across your profile will still be able to send you a hosting request, even if you recently clicked "I can’t host because of my living situation".

e) The decision is irreversible during that period. If you suddenly want to host again two weeks later, there is no way to reactivate hosting visibility manually.

f) Users do not receive any confirmation, notification, or email stating that they have been removed from host search results.

g) As long as you haven't received any hosting request, you are treated by default as a potential host, and there's nothing you can do about it (besides... deleting your account, of course.)

The old system was simple, intuitive, transparent, and user-controlled. The new one is confusing, indirect, opaque, and quite restrictive.

That said, I suppose that makes sense somehow if hosting travelers is no longer considered the platform’s primary purpose.

I posted a public trip 3 weeks ago to a big city seeking people to hang out with when I am there. 

My trip is due for tomorrow. I was getting an average of 9 messages in a day from people offering to host and hangout.

Usually this number tends to keep going up as my dates approaches, and peak a night before my trip. 

However since this new design was rolled out 6 days ago I haven’t received a single message! People I was chatting with are no longer responsive as they have either abandoned the app or they are locked out by a paywall/poor UX.

People are truly gone.

Try to sort out travelers and it shows travelers in random order as opposed to the former chronological order. For God’s sake how am I supposed to find people traveling same dates as me?

Every time I open the app it onboards me all over again, asking me to fill 10 screens even if I open the app 20 times in a day!

How many people have the patience to deal with that?

During the covid mess of subscriptions I was one of those who stuck around as a frequent host and occasional surfer but this time I am truly done.

I can no longer connect to the app, the lack of regards for its users, its buggy UX or what it now represents.

First, let me clarify something: I personally dislike this redesign intensely. I dislike the bugs, the broken features, the incoherencies, the endless loading errors, the removal of useful hosting tools, the bizarre focus on sexuality and lifestyle signaling, and the overall “Tinder-meets-Meetup” atmosphere the platform increasingly gives off. I genuinely hate it.

But what I think, and what many longtime users think, is ultimately irrelevant from a business perspective.

Uncomfortable as it is to admit, this redesign will probably make Couchsurfing more profitable in the long run.

Why?

Because most of the platform’s most active users, especially those with hundreds of references accumulated over many years, are effectively locked into the ecosystem. In theory, people could massively migrate to alternatives like BeWelcome, Couchers or Trustroots. In practice, however, only a tiny minority will actually abandon years of history, references, trust, and community presence for platforms with dramatically smaller user bases.

That’s why so many people complain while relatively few leave.

And from a purely financial perspective, the company likely considers that entirely acceptable. Even if a portion of experienced hosts and longtime users disengage, the platform can still increase profitability if it succeeds in boosting subscriptions, engagement, visibility, social interaction, and user activity among newer audiences.

The uncomfortable reality is that the traditional hospitality-exchange model itself isn’t where the money is.

A broke backpacker trying to save money by finding a couch for two nights is not a particularly lucrative customer. What is potentially lucrative, however, is transforming the platform into a broader social-discovery ecosystem centered around Hangouts, chatting, “connections”, visibility, and endless interactions.

That’s also why the platform increasingly feels less like a traditional HospEx network and more like a hybrid between a social app, Meetup, and a dating platform that carefully avoids explicitly calling itself a dating platform.

The redesign, the marketing language, the removal of most hosting-focused tools, the emphasis on “mingling”, “vibes”, “sharing something real”, sexuality fields, Hangouts, and engagement mechanics; all of it points in the same direction.

Many longtime users are angry because they still see Couchsurfing as a hospitality exchange platform. But the company itself views it as something else entirely.

And financially speaking, I’m convinced this strategic shift will work.

This redesign isn't incompetence. It is simply the logical outcome of a company optimizing for engagement, subscriptions, monetizable social interaction, and growth metrics rather than for hosting culture, trust, transparency, or community values.

I hate admitting it, but from a purely corporate perspective, this strategy may ultimately prove very effective, even if it alienates some of the people who helped build the platform in the first place.

In short, they already proved in the past that they could ignore users’ wishes, feedback, and concerns without suffering any serious consequences... and they will probably get away with it again this time.

The harsh reality is that our naïve little hospitality-exchange utopia was never particularly profitable. Hosting broke backpackers (no offense meant here) does not generate highly monetizable interactions.

Social discovery, endless chatting, visibility, flirting, and dating-app dynamics, on the other hand, absolutely do.

Patrick Dugan knows that. Hence the new design.

Couchers do not have hangout feature and not likely to have one anytime soon. But you can work around it. If you’re a Couchsurfing OG you’ll be very familiar with this.

If you’ve already created a profile on Couchers, find a “community” tab. Click on the tab. And then under “Find a community” find the community you’re in. It can narrow down to the city you’re in or the city you’re going to.

When you’re a member of a community, you can start a discussion. Under “discussions”, start a new topic. In the discussion title, write a subject like “Free to explore Belgrade 1-3 June”. And then you can write in detail what you’re planning to do.

Trust me, it’s going to be better than hangout. I know a lot of people in my city who are on hangout for the whole day but actually only available after work. They make themselves available on hangout early in the hope that they be connected with someone and then make plans to meet later in the day. But this seldom happens.

However, if you’re in a discussion thread, you can start gathering a group and start meeting plans.

Try it. It may not get the crowd yet but if you’re in a big city with a big number of couchers, it will eventually work.

Thanks to @nabramow, they said that you can create a group chat on couchers if you vibe with people on community discussion and can take it from there to plan for meet ups.

Hi to the Couchsurfing developers of the app,

It is a REQUEST to ROLLBACK the current version to the OLD VERSION.

It was better and stable. New app is very difficult to use.

We don't want CONTACTS SYNC in Couchsurfing, no personal data, sorry!

I have been user of the app for several years now and being very young, I find the new app difficult to use.

Can you imagine how difficult it will be for the OLDER people on Couchsurfing? It is NOT user-friendly app anymore.

So the conclusion - either the app is ROLLBACKED to previous version or all people are shifting to another platforms.

The app looks purely built with AI with no human coding.

It is a WIN for your competitors and you are LOSING all your PAID customers as well!

Rethink on your decision, why is it taken? Even the blogs you have written are not sounding great.

You have a limited time to take the decision or LOSE all the people!

Your competitors are enjoying your downfall, I am very sorry to say but we are seeing it in all the threads and posts everywhere.

I would continue only if they keep the old features and version.

Hi everyone,

First, this post is not a criticism, I believe we all want to better understand the situation and work together to find a way forward.

The CS team doesn't seem to care about the chaos they’ve created. They appear to accept the exodus of their most loyal members, which suggests a deliberate shift in strategy. It seems CS is pivoting toward a different community: younger users primarily interested in social meetups while traveling, rather than the core experience of hosting and staying with locals. It’s a total paradigm shift and since hosting is not a priority, hosts will have to find a way out.

I should add that, in my opinion, there is no equivalent to CS in terms of notoriety, quality, and active membership. CS held a monopoly, which is why members feel like they are being held hostage. We all know that moving elsewhere means losing years of history and connections (though some might be forced to).

Most long-term members are reluctant to accept this new model, not just because they dislike change, but because the lack of transparency feels suspicious and incorrect to them.

The app, as many have mentioned, feels rushed, "vibe-coded" via AI prompts and clearly wasn't ready to go-live. As far as I know, there was no beta testing, no prior announcement of such a major overhaul, and GDPR was not respected. It all happened so fast that no one could save their templates, photos, or bios. This was a massive and avoidable mistake. Changing a company's core mission is a decision that deserves better execution.

The pivot toward a dating/meetup-centric app is understandable from a financial perspective (those apps are profitable), and we can agree that Couchsurfing needed a refresh, and attract another generation. The question is: wasn't this done with too much haste?

I know asking to revert to the old website is likely a non-starter for the team: it would mean admitting their work was flawed. However, would it have been so wrong to run a beta test before releasing it to production? I do believe it is not too late to spend a bit more time before an official launch where everything works well.

Since last week, we’ve only heard from the staff once, with a generic message telling us everything is fine and we’ll "get used to it." Meanwhile, comments on Instagram have been blocked. This communication failure shows a total lack of respect for the members. The team seems small (which explains a lot the mess obviously) and ill-equipped for crisis management: watching a community leave in anger is never a good sign.

It’s possible CS is being sold to a larger group or that there’s more going on behind the scenes, but right now, we are all in the dark.

To the Community Manager reading this on Reddit: we deserve real answers. Not a vague blog post, but a detailed explanation and a genuine dialogue. It isn't fair to leave thousands of people in limbo. Every day that passes, more people leave, and the chance of bringing them back vanishes. Soon, it will be too late. We want the same as you and if you care about this website as much as I do, please communicate with us.

Since the previous megathread poster deleted their post, we are reposting a megathread here for people to discuss any issues with the new Couchsurfing.com update which was recently released. Feel free to share thoughts or feedback on the update here in this megathread.

If you have travelled to any city in the last two years and opened hangouts - its basically grindr app. With some dudes putting it explicitly in their hangouts. It's all love to the LGBTQ+ community but they been took over. I remember when it would be like ten people from all backgrounds hanging out randomly. I haven't seen it in a while.

The new base will pay for the new updates, subscriptions and messages. Cs doesn't care about broke backpackers anymore. Time to move on... Glad for the good times. Need a new app.

The more I think about it, the more frustrated I get.

At first, it was just incredibly annoying, as everyone here can clearly see from all the posts. But for a brief moment, I tried to stay open-minded. I thought maybe, just maybe, they could improve things. Sure, they’re never bringing back the old Couchsurfing days, but maybe they could at least modernize the platform. As long as I could still connect with people and make new friends, that would’ve been good enough for me.

Wrong.

I don’t care what funky colors, trendy UI, or redesign they add. They removed the single most important functionality: DATES / RECENT ACTIVITY.

Why are they so afraid of reality? So afraid of their inactive user base, and old references. Show some transparency, don't be afraid!

Not being able to see when someone was last active makes the platform almost useless. Now I’m wasting time messaging people who probably haven’t logged into Couchsurfing in 10 years.

Hiding exact ages behind vague age ranges is also ridiculous. It honestly feels like it’s designed to make the platform look more active or appealing for people using it like a dating app. More people for you to date!

And even if you try to work around that by checking references to see if someone has hosted recently… nope. The dates are gone there too. Everything just says “+1 year ago.”

Thanks, Couchsurfing.

If it's the last thing I ever do, I'll get everyone on the other platforms!

A long and detailed list of issues had previously been posted by another user, but both the thread and the account disappeared. Make of that what you will.

In the meantime, I’ll try to rebuild a comprehensive list from scratch. If you’ve encountered additional bugs, inconsistencies, missing features, or strange design decisions, please reply below and I’ll keep updating this post.

At the moment, these are some of the many issues users are reporting:

CONNECTION, PERFORMANCE & GENERAL STABILITY

• Many users are still unable to access their accounts. Some receive an “Unable to activate account” error, while others constantly get “Network unavailable” pop-ups despite having a perfectly functional Internet connection.
• Some users report being unable to log in at all. After receiving a login link by email, they are redirected to an account creation page instead of their existing profile, as if the platform no longer recognizes their account.
• Some users can successfully log in but are then met with an “IdentityNotFound” error, leaving most of the platform unusable. Profiles, messages, events, and other pages appear empty, while many buttons fail to function entirely.
• Even users who successfully log in are frequently greeted with “Something went wrong on our end. Please try again later.”
• The website and app are noticeably slower than before. Opening pages, loading conversations, or navigating profiles can take several seconds.
• Both the Android app and the website frequently become slow, unresponsive, or display repeated connection-related errors.
• Some members who recently paid for their subscription are suddenly being prompted to subscribe again.

PROFILES, BIOS & PHOTOS

• Bios now appear to have a very restrictive character limit, making detailed self-descriptions nearly impossible.
• Users can no longer add captions or descriptions below photos.
• Reordering profile photos or selecting a new main picture often fails entirely, with the app displaying: “Could not reorder photos. Please try again later.”
• Some users report that profile photos they previously uploaded have disappeared entirely after the redesign, with multiple pictures missing from their accounts for no apparent reason.
• On the desktop/laptop version, only the first 7 profile pictures are displayed. Users with more than 7 photos cannot view, reorder, or delete any pictures beyond the 7th position.
• Photos suffer from multiple upload and display issues.
• Exact ages have been replaced with vague age ranges.
• The “Places You Visited” section now mixes cities and countries together in a confusing manner.
• The old world map showing previous hosts and surfers' location has disappeared and has been replaced by a much less informative list of flags.

HOSTING SETTINGS & AVAILABILITY

• Everyone now appears to be considered “available to host” by default. The old and very clear hosting-status system (“Accepting Guests,” “Maybe Accepting Guests,” “Not Accepting Guests”) appears to have vanished.
• The hosting calendar has disappeared, meaning hosts can no longer clearly block unavailable dates.
• It is no longer possible to search specifically for hosts available during particular travel dates.
• Hosts’ addresses are now automatically shared with guests 24 hours before arrival, with no apparent option to disable or customize this behavior.
• There appears to be no clear way to cancel an already accepted hosting request, even in situations involving safety concerns.

SEARCH, FILTERS & DISCOVERABILITY

• Search results are heavily dominated by inactive profiles, while active hosts become difficult to find.
• It is no longer possible to sort hosts by useful criteria such as last login, hosting activity, response rate, or experience level.
• Several extremely useful search filters appear to have vanished entirely, including filters related to distance, hosting activity, last login, response rate, and availability.
• When searching for hosts on the map, results are centered aggressively around the city center. Hosts living slightly outside the center may become practically invisible unless users manually resize or move the search area.
• Bookmarks are gone.

MESSAGING, REQUESTS & COMMUNICATION

• Some users report that conversations are no longer sorted chronologically and instead appear in a random or inconsistent order.
• Email notifications for new messages appear to have disappeared or become unreliable for many users.
• Inbox search now appears limited to usernames only and no longer works properly for keywords, cities, or locations.
• Message templates are gone.
• Hosting requests also appear severely limited in length, making personalized requests much harder to write.
• Couch requests malfunction frequently. “View Request” often fails to load or throws an error message.

REFERENCES, TRUST & SAFETY

• References written by users who were banned for serious safety violations reportedly became visible again after the redesign.
• References written during the migration/update period seem to have disappeared for some users.
• Members are now being asked to disclose their sexuality in order to “tailor preferences.” While optional for now, it is unnecessary and inappropriate on a HospEx platform.

HANGOUTS & EVENTS

• Group hangouts have been removed.
• In Hangouts, group chats have been replaced by direct messages only. Many users are concerned this will encourage more inappropriate one-on-one behavior and reduce transparency.
• Hangouts now reveal users’ exact locations, raising significant privacy and safety concerns.
• Some users report that previously blocked members are visible again in Hangouts. If blocked users can once again see each other’s profiles and activity, this may create significant privacy and safety issues.
• Hangouts location data also appears unreliable at times, with users being shown in cities or even countries they have already left.
• The event map is cluttered with numerous irrelevant events unrelated to Couchsurfing or the local community.
• Event descriptions cannot be edited properly after publication.
• Public trips cannot be edited properly.
• Incoming trip information is inaccurate for many members, with old trips appearing as future trips or vice versa.

MISSING FEATURES & OTHER REGRESSIONS

• The 3-month verification reward previously earned through hosting is gone.
• Password changes reportedly no longer work properly for some users.
• For many Android users, the app icon is now simply a solid white circle.

Unfortunately, this list is probably still incomplete. If you’ve noticed additional bugs, missing features, regressions, inconsistencies, or questionable UX decisions, feel free to share them below and I’ll continue updating the thread accordingly.

Thank you for your collaboration.