Instant booking

[John-and-Jana0]

We have been on Airbnb for 2.5 years, have had no problems with the instant book option until now. Our listing availability is that the guest must book with at least one day notice or send us a request, and that we have one day before and after bookings to clean. We had a guest surprise instant book a couple of days ago. She somehow was able to book late in the evening less than a day before she was to arrive, and arrive the very next day after a guest had left. When I looked at my phone that morning and saw that someone was already booked and on their way, I was really surprised and very glad I had done most of the cleaning right after the previous guest left.

How did this happen, and how can I make sure that something like this doesn't happen again? I reset the availability parameters but don't know if that is enough.

Also this guest has a couple of symbols next to her name in the Inbox - an A in a white box, and a star but not a star in a black box. Another future guest has them also. They only show up on the big screen of my computer and not on the app on my phone.

[Shelley159]

Hi @John-and-Jana0 

If you set your calendar to block a day before and after each booking, those days must physically show as blocked on your calendar (grey days). If they are white they are bookable. To give you comfort that it won't happen again, check your future bookings for these grey blocks. This should be enough, but if you still worry you can go in as a guest and zoom on your property on the map to make sure it doesn't show up when you enter a blocked date.

[Bettye6]

I am following this closely as it happened to me several times. 
One should not be able to get same day bookings & blocking does not prevent the week I have no bookings so how would one block. 
I have 24 notice but @ 7:00 pm (my check is @4:00) I still getting requests to book. One time it was 10:30 @ night! 

I declined the booking but their response back to me was extremely rude. 
I did call support & asked how this can happen? Of course Support agreed with me and  mainly to state my shock of the rude response of taking their money & not allowing a booking. 
I would think AirBnB should not request any payment on just inquiries of this type. 

Bettye6

[Joan2709]

@Bettye6 

I think if you set the optional setting under Availability that guests will have to send a request to book instead of instant book that might work?

[Mike-And-Jane0 · Accepted solution]

@John-and-Jana0 the 'one day notice' setting doesn't mean one days notice (that would be too simple). Basically it means guests cannot just book on the day of check in. As such they can book anytime up to midnight the day before. No idea why the one day before/after didn't work though.

[Bettye6]

I have to disagree. As I said multiple times  have had less than 24 hour notice. AirBnB pushed their request through late @ night on the same day plus charged the guests each time before I was given the chance to accept or decline! I was told they did refund them when I had to wake up to respond. One time it was 2 hours before my 4:00 pm check in. Way far in timing from 24 hours. 

I just don’t understand with their technology they don’t respect the 24 hour notice rule.

Any suggestions highly appreciated as this again happened to me 2 days ago. 
Best regards,

Bettye6

[Emilia42]

@Bettye6 Double check your settings. Did this box get checked? 

[Jana1737]

We were under the impression that one day means 24 hours too. It says one day, not 24 hours, which apparently means before midnight the day prior  in Airbnbspeak.

[John-and-Jana0]

Thank you!  This helps a lot.

We were assuming that for instant booking, one day notice meant 24 hours notice, instead of sometime before midnight the day before. We are changing our notice time frame  to two days. Now that means that guests can only instant book before midnight 2 nights before they plan to arrive or make a request to come earlier.

Also, we are just noticing on the calendar that a person can book to leave on the day before the next person is scheduled to arrive. That must be what they mean by one day before/after.