STOP TURNING INSTANT BOOK ON!!!

Answered!
Pete2785
Level 3
Owings, MD

STOP TURNING INSTANT BOOK ON!!!

I am SO sick of AirBnB arbitrarily turning Instant Book in for my listings without notifying me. ONCE AGAIN, I had to cancel a reservation because they were somehow able to instant book our house. 

 

AirBnB, are you listening? OPEN YOUR EARS! DO NOT TURN IN INSTANT BOOK FOR ANY OF MY LISTINGS EVER AGAIN! I'm so GD'd tired of having to be the bad host and cancel a booking that should have NEVER been made.

 

Time to pull you your big boy/girl pants and quit it with this amateur hour BS. It's a bush-league garbage business practices, and we're going to be looking for alternatives for which we partner with in the future.

1 Best Answer

@Pete2785 

 

It's a common, ongoing issue - Instant Book turning itself on, calendars becoming unblocked resulting in bookings received for unavailable dates, bookings received that don't adhere to parameters hosts have set (ID verification, guests with previous good reviews etc), bookings received for fewer nights than host's minimum, last minute bookings received in contravention of hosts' set preparation times, bookings received at much lower rates than host had set etc etc. Some hosts will put themselves through the torture of dealing with customer support to try and have the unwanted, unexpected bookings cancelled - but many will just go ahead and (reluctantly) honour the booking, for fear of  being penalised, losing Superhost status and so on

 

Airbnb will invariably lay the blame on glitches, but others might say it looks suspiciously like channel stuffing - a deceptive business practice used by a company to artificially inflate its sales and earnings figures by deliberately sending vendors along it's distribution channels, more products (goods or services) than they are willing or able to sell to the public. A ruse typically employed by a company that desperately needs to convince people that its finances and operations are in much healthier shape than they actually are. Such as when there's an IPO coming up, for example. 

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24 Replies 24
Joy1187
Level 1
Chattanooga, TN

nothing but problems with Airbnb so far 

Josiah21
Level 2
St Charles, MO

We have settings that require prospective guests to have profile pictures and prior reviews, and we get tons of reservation requests from people without profile pictures or prior reviews. Airbnb is going downhill.

@Josiah21  There are no settings that require guests to have prior reviews for requests. There is a setting for requiring a profile photo for a request, but you can't see a guest's profile photo when they send a request, it is hidden. You only see it after a booking is confirmed.

 

You seem to be thinking that the settings you have for Instant Book also pertain to requests?

 

If you use Instant Book, you are getting these requests because the guests don't qualify to Instant Book according to your IB settings. 

 

That is how it works and has always worked. 

Faith153
Level 2
Dana Point, CA

so upset that Airbnb turned on Insta book and now i have an unverified 4 guests and 2 pets  :((((

Airbnb charging $50 to cancel because THEY turned on Insta book.

I had my first booking and could that have generated the switch on?

I am doing promo 1st 3 people to book get discount, i think that turns it on???
I am VERY UNHAPPY W AIRBNB. 

Chance22
Level 2
Woodstock, GA

Can anybody confirm or deny the severity of the SEO damage there is after turning off instant book? There are many many reasons why hosts don't want instant book and I don’t like the fact that my listings performance  may suffer just because I need more control of my home’s booking calendar. 

Valerie926
Level 2
Fishhook, AK

I just had this happen to me.  I had turned on IB one day and then had surgery the next, and hadn't blocked off dates because the surgery was much more severe than I had realized it would be, and I failed to block off additional dates because I was so out-of-it.  I immediately turned off IB when they tried to fine me $500+ for canceling the booking.  I KNOW I turned off IB immediately because of this extreme stress (that was in Sept 2022).  Then tonight I suddenly got an IB reservation, to my shock.  I went into my account and saw IB was turned on.  I turned it off AGAIN and took a picture of the screen.  I also sent a notification in writing to CS and stated that I had turned it off, and if they turned it on again I would not be paying a penalty, and I saved a .pdf of that screen.  If I have to take them to small claims court I now have proof that I turned it off and am not liable.  I also sent a link to this page so they can see I am not the only one this has happened to.

Dana1156
Level 2
Carnation, WA

This just happened to me with our listing for the first time. I'm somewhat in shock that this is possible for Airbnb to do. 

Yes, it is happening to me too for months. 

 

I've opened 10-20 tickets that Airbnb says they are escalating but it doesn't get fixed and the ticket gets closed.

 

I have to spend 2-3 hours to get the guest or Airbnb to cancel and sometimes Airbnb STILL "Cancel by the Host".

 

They finally reverse the fees but NOT the week long listing suspension.

 

 
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1. Instant Book keeps to turning on # A10783753/double bookings

2. Calendars not sycning error # A10783753/double bookings

3. Refund and reverse penalties of multiple reservation. # A9116186/double bookings
 
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Instant booking turning on automatically 4-5 times a day on the below listings.

I've (both Airbnb & Lodgify) AND Airbnb have turned them off and back on.
 
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**[Content removed in line with the Community Center Guidelines- Please note that it is not allowed to share Airbnb investigation and private conversations]
 

**[Identifiable listing removed in line with the Community Center Guidelines- Please note that is not allowed to post a listing link unless posted by a listing owner]

 

Rosa3984
Level 2
Grand Rapids, MI

Could it be an integration turning it on?

It started happening to me right after I integrated w/ lodify. 

Sylvia905
Level 2
California, United States

That happened to me last night.  I know I had instant book turned off and then and then this morning I see that a guest booked 5 nights during very desirable dates at a much lower rate because of course that is also happening that in spite of me increasing my rates for those days and saving them, they have been arbitrarily changing my rates also which caused this problem as well, luckily I had taken a screenshot  and video of my second attempt at changing my nightly rate last night and again this morning the rates are all wrong.  I do have proof of this pricing error because I called Airbnb yesterday to complain about this problem and there are messages from the rep saying there was a "bug" and she was escalating it and as usual nobody has called me back.  So frustrating with Airbnb!!!