Airbnb communication delay?

[Jigisha0]

Over the past weekend, I had problems with 2 reservations. The first reservation had a request that I could not accommodate and the 2nd made a reservation with incorrect dates. I reached out to Airbnb well in advance to get them involved to cancel the reservations since neither guest cancelled on their own, even though both indicated that they wanted their reservation cancelled. However, Airbnb took an eternity to respond to my messages. The communication is so slow and Airbnb did not cancel the reservations until check-in time. I did not want to cancel the reservation from my side out of fear of penalties. Since Airbnb delayed their communication with me and my listing remained closed, I lost revenue. How is everyone else getting in touch with Airbnb for urgent matters? 

[Emiel1]

@Jigisha0 

IMO you should be able to solve the issues without Airbnb CS to be involved

- How can a guest make a reservation you can not accommodate ?

If this is the case, then the guest must cancel. If not, the reservation continues.

- If guests booked the wrong dates, they possibly can use the "change" option on the reservation to reschedule to the right dates ?

If not possible, then guest must cancel the reservation or reservation continues as booked.

Guests are responsible for their own actions, if they make mistakes they have to correct it themself or with help from Airbnb.

[Jigisha0]

@Emiel1 

The first guest had a request that I could not accommodate and I informed the guest about this. She ended up being nonresponsive, which is why I wanted to involve Airbnb. The second guest was technologically challenged and ended up calling me to fix the dates. When he realized that booking for 3 days did not mean 3 nights, he wanted to cancel the reservation all together. I tried to get him to cancel but he never did, so again I tried to involve Airbnb. Any suggestions on how to deal with nonresponsive or technologically challenged guests? As you know, if these guests do not cancel, my listing remains closed and I end up losing time to resell the unit. 

[Trude0 · Accepted solution]

I had a very similar experience this last week.

A guest sent a request to book, for check in the next day. I have 2-days advance notice set, an a ”no” on ”without 2 days advance notice, can a guest still send a reservation request?” - so the guest should not have been able to request to book.

Did not want to decline from my side, didn’t trust that this would not ”hurt” me. 

I replied quickly to the guest. No response. Contacted Airbnb through the Help function in the app. Got a nonsence reply from a Community ”Expert” (does anyone agree these experts often know less about Airbnb, than we do?). Told the ”Expert” his/her information was - as far as I knew - incorrect. Was informed the case would be escalated to ”someone who could better assist me”. 

Then nothing from Airbnb for 3 days (!!!). The guest did not retract the request, even if I messaged him 2 more times within the 24 hours. I also pushed Airbnb for those 24 hours, trying toget them to intervene/cancel. So the request was left to run out - and I received the ”shame on you message” from Airbnb. So frustrating.

After 3 days, I was contacted by a case manager, who apologized for not replying sooner, confirmed I was right about the booking (i.e ”Expert” was wrong), and she had ”waived the effects on my hosting and listing performance”. 

I realize now I should probably have called instead - I used to get help quickly through the Help function of the app, but now they seem to be seriously understaffed. 

[Jigisha0]

@Trude0 Thanks for sharing your experience. It makes me feel a little better knowing that I am not the only one suffering from poor Airbnb customer service.

[Trude0]

@Jigisha0 : I’m sorry for the “rant”, you were asking for advice, not other peoples’ stories…😂 I guess my advice to you, and to myself, is to call Airbnb, not try to contact them through tha app. They don’t seem to be staffed to manage cases quickly enough , but maybe it is easier to get them to act if they are on the phone with you. 

Since Airbnb did not step in in time, I assume you’ve received warnings about letting booking requests run out without responding? As this will probably hurt you in terms if response rate, searches etc, I would continue to try to get in contact with them, to get them to make sure it does not.  

Hope it works out!