Disable 'Instant Book' - can't find option anywhere.

[Jan54]

After using AirBNB as a traveler on my last holiday I decided to join the hosts and offer my own apartment.

One problem;

After creating my listing and looking at the preview I saw quests can book my apartment without prior agreement; the so called 'Instant book' option. I check all the help pages, but every answer points me to options that are no longer there, or at least not for me.

I would still like to have some kind of control over the guest, for example when because of work the guest schedules and mine doesn't match up for exchanging the keys.

I really am *NOT* up to letting people book without a quick exchange beforehand. Is there some way to disable this instant book setting? Or maybe a way to contact the airbnb team about this?

This is really frustrating, even more so since everybody else in my town is able to host without instantbooking enabled. I was looking forward to hosting, now not so much. 😞

My option screen without a single option to disable instant book.

Thanks for any help.

[Jennifer310]

super helpful. Thanks so much!

[Bernadette41]

Thanks Clare. I've been trying to turn off instant book for a while now. Shouldn't be this difficult!

[Anna163]

same issue! i donot feel comfortable having no control over my bookings, i prefer to talk to people first andi wouldnot be comfortable with some guests, and,without instant booking you can choose the guest if yuhave multiply requests for the same date.

[Serafina0]

This is a distressing change in policy.

I wonder if this isn't Airbnb testing out the feasibility of forcing Instant Book on hosts as a backdoor way of addressing the trending #AirbnbWhileBlack issues. If hosts can't select their guests, it levels the playing field and reduces the possibility of racial discrimination?

I tried Instant Book last year and didn't have issues with it, but (a) I far prefer having more personal control over who is going to be sharing my personal space, and (b) not all my bookings are with Airbnb and sometimes the dates I block off get mysteriously reopened. I don't want to chance double-booking.

[Anonymous]

It seems this new policy would be a stillborn project (at least in Europe): Brussels UE authorities are on the way to adopt global rules for Europe, with less regulation but with a slight difference:

"dès lors que ces derniers (les utilisateurs) perdent leur liberté de fixation de prix ou de choix de leurs clients, ils pourraient être considérés comme salariés des sociétés, ce qui constituerait un coup très dur pour le modèle économique de ces dernières."

'Since users would loose they free right to set prices or to choose their client, they should be considered as platform employees, what would constitute a hard blow for their economic model'.

From www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/tourisme-transport/021982951514-uber-airbnb-bruxelles-veut-en-fin...

[Clare0]

I would suggest to all who posted disapproval of the new Instant Book policy to send feedback to Airbnb: 

https://www.airbnb.com/help/feedback

@Anonymous, @Jan54, @Thomas95, @Serafina0, @Anna163

[Jan54]

Thanks for all the comments. At least I am not alone in this; I have send AirBnB my feedback. Totallyy not happy with this.

[Paul0]

The Airbnb Mothership continues to make more quantitative decisions rather than qualitative ones... this is disappointing given the uptick in inexperienced Hosts... and Guests - we are not rental stock for their marketplace.

How are we suppose to feel comfortable letting people 'belong anywhere' and 'live there' when are not empowered to manage the initial aspects of Accepting / Declining a booking? I do hope the Hospitality team respond positively to this.

I'd suggest they need to improve the Instant Booking product with a 'Super Guest' level of auto-acceptance (that we can all be comfortable with) rather than impose the relatively broken aspects that rightfully have a lot of Hosts leaving it off.

With all that said, I use Instant Booking and in maybe the 5-6 Instant Bookings I've had... zero problems... totally understand other peoples apprehension though.

Cheers,

Paul

[Mynor0]

Also a new host, really unhappy, called, tweeted, filed feedback, and probably won't list until they fix this. The nice rep on the phone tried to walk me through turning off Instant Book (but the options aren't on my page), put me on hold for 5 minutes, came back with deep apologies, and subsequently sent an email with a link to a feedback page with a drop down menu where you can choose Instant Book: https://www.airbnb.com/help/feedback?type=instantbook

Here's a thought, though:

Since as hosts we can cancel if they break the House Rules, what about this rule?

#1: YOU MUST CONTACT HOST BEFORE BOOKING. AirBnB will not let us turn of the Instant Book feature at this time.

[Dave-and-Deb0]

@Jan54, @Daphne7, @Mynor0, @Paul0, @Andrew83

I may have a workaround for many of you new hosts or hosts with new listings that have been forced to have Instant Book turned on.  Apparently this is an experiment in which they are applying this to 25% of the new listings created and well, you were one of the unlucky ones.  I have heard of something you may be able to do to avoid this or get rid of it.  You can delete your listing and then create a new one and hopefully you will be in the 75% who are not forced to have IB turned on.  If you cannot turn off IB, try again until you successfully create a listing that you can toggle on/off IB.

David

[Mynor0]

Thanks for the tip! I will give it a go tomorrow, although I'm not very happy to have to start over when the 1st page is ready to go!

[Mynor0]

Sorry to say but this didn't work. If the 25/75% is true, maybe where I fell into the 25% was as a new host and it wasn't associated just with my 1st listing. I've created 6 listings now and none of them feature the ability to turn off Instant Book. During the process of adding a listing you have to click "I Understand" that guests who meet your criteria can book days that are open on your calendar - there's no way to get beyond it without agreeing.

So frustrating! My property won't be actively listed until this is resolved.

[Dede0]

@Dave-and-Deb0 An interesting idea (which I hope will work), but what a huge pain for new hosts. This whole thing -- forcing IB on some hosts -- is probably the worst experiment ABB has ever conducted. Nothing subtle or inobtrusive about it. It's deceptive and abusive at the least, and far worse than just that if you ask me. So many hosts have valid reasons why this will effectively force them out of business.

As I've mentioned before, I have friends in the software biz (which I was in, including a couple of very successful startups, and is why I was able to retire before I was 50) who have insider knowledge. Those friends have corrected my initial interpretations of ABB's coding practices (my interpretation of their horrible practices was that they were using the lowest bidders from overseas). Instead, my friends say, ABB has a "cowboy culture", where there's little top-down planning or control. Every group of hot-dogs and/or bad programmers is, more or less, given free rein to code as they wish, experiment as they wish, testing and quality-control be damned. All that said, I think this IB experiment is larger than most, and has to have been approved, if not driven, from fairly high up. It's clearly a "business decision".

[Ruth1]

Interesting. So the idea is to write the house rules so that it effectively serves as a filter, allowing many options for the host to be able to cancel without penalty.

Of course the house rules would have to be legal, and not discriminate against a protected class. For example, I could write into my rules that redheads are not allowed. Haha, just kidding.

Really though, creatively I could just put something like "Guest must contact host precisely 33.5 minutes after booking, via a landline rotary phone routed through Las Vegas." Being that it would be nearly impossible for them to achieve that, it would leave me with the option of canceling based on the guest NOT following the rules.

Of course guests might be turned off by this and not book, but it wouldn't be long before they collectively understand that its just a safety feature hosts have been forced into by AirBnB, in order to preserve their ability to filter guests to their liking.

[Clare0]

@Ruth1  I don't think it would acceptable to Airbnb if you put into your house rules that guest have to respond 33.5 minutes before booking.  If you were to cancel an Instant Booking before the guest even arrives, Airbnb would not waive the penalties.  Read more about Instant Book cancellations here:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/990/how-do-host-cancellation-penalties-work