Pre-Approval

[Lenny70]

Hello, we pre-approved a request and it asked if we wanted to block the dates. We said yes but when we review our listing the dates are not showing blocked. Is there something else we need to do in order to block the dates until the guest completes the booking?

[Ann72]

I had this happen last year @Lenny70.  Although I rarely pre-approve, this was a special circumstance.  The dates were not blocked and sure enough, another guest inquired for some of the dates.  I was lucky he didn’t Instant Book, and he took it well when I explained the situation to him.  I was able to complete the booking with the first guest, but it was annoying, as the dates should have been blocked.

If you have an active request I’m not sure it’s possible to manually block the dates.  I would briefly explain to the guest what’s going on and tell them the only way to save those dates is for them to withdraw their request so you can manually block them.  Much more efficient than trying to get through to customer service.  I would also put a time limit on the blocking.  If the guest can’t pull the trigger it’s his loss, and you don’t want to lose any potential bookings.

[Sarah977]

@Lenny70  You need to understand the difference between Inquiries and Requests. 

There is no "pre-approval" option for a Request. That option is for Inquiries. An Inquiry is a way of guests asking questions without commitiing to a booking. If you pre-approve it, that just means the guest can go on to book if they decide to. But many inquiries, you will never hear from again- they may have sent out Inquiries to a dozen hosts.

Never block dates for an Inquiry. It will make those dates unavailable to others who are serious about booking.

Also, you do not need to either pre-approve nor decline an Inquiry- all that is required is that you message back within 24 hours.

A Request is different- you have 24 hours to choose the option Accept or Decline after communicating with the guest and checking their reviews to determine whether you want to accept it or not. 

When you accept a Request, Airbnb proceeds to charge them and the dates will be automatically blocked.