Awaiting verification

[Adrienne67]

Recently in the past month I have had two guests book my apartments. The booking did not go through because they were waiting verification. one was for a credit card payment the other one was for a driver's license to be uploaded. Neither guessed end up booking. The guests have been there request the day before their stay. The verification process puts a hold on the property for 12 hours. Both times the guest withdrew their request after several hours or the time ran out after 12 hours.

This left me with two empty apartments.

Is there any way that Airbnb may consider producing this allotted time to complete the reservation? I think 4 hours would be reasonable. I realized that without new guest and new accounts Airbnb would not survive. New customers are very important. also when I have spoke to customer service about this issue they have said they are unable to reach out to the guests and help them complete the reservation because the reservation is not confirmed. Is this something that could be changed as well?

Of course both times this has happened I have pleaded with the guest that hijacked my listing for the night to please finish processing it or withdraw the request an entirety. I absolutely love the Airbnb platform and this is the only thing I would change about it. It's a very frustrating scenario. It also leaves my apartment blocked so that other potential guest traveling cannot book last minute. 

I sure would appreciate it if someone could review this from Airbnb.

Thank you so much!

Adrienne

Chattanooga Tennessee

[Karen700]

Hijacking is a perfect word!  This just happened to me & I cannot for the life of me understand why someone who has not completed the ID verification process can even attempt to book/request to book a listing.  It makes no sense.

[Tommy103]

This has been an issue for me today. I think the policy is fine if the booking request is 7 days from the check in date but not for last minute bookings. However today, I had guest book my property for tonight and tomorrow night. No payment was made but AirBnB gave them 24 hours to make the payment. I will miss out on a last minute booking for tonight and more than likely tomorrow night as well. When I spoke with AirBnB today they said I would be penalized if I canceled the reservation. It seems like it would be an easy fix or at least give us the option to wait for the guest to make payment or move on. This will cost us roughly $500 but locking our calendar which is unacceptable. 

[Jeff-and-Ashley0]

This issue is currently happening to us for a last minute booking for tonight and tomorrow night. Going to lose around $700, if not more because I’m open the next 4 nights and it’s a Friday. Has anyone had any luck with resolving this calendar hijacking issue? This seems like a violation of my rights as a host that some unidentified person can block nights and withhold earnings from Airbnb or any other platforms which have the shared iCal calendar without any repercussions. 

This also contradicts their policy that I “can always decline any booking inquiries or reservation requests”. It seems like this only applies to identified guests, and not unidentified guests where hosts lose all control of being able to decline or cancel the request and all control of being able to book the property to another guest.

"Can I decline booking inquiries or reservation requests?

You can always decline any booking inquiries or reservation requests that you can’t accommodate, but you should do so within 24 hours. Whether you accept or decline, the amount of time it takes you to respond to requests is factored into your response rate. Rejecting a large number of requests can have an impact on subsequent search results, as well as reservation rates."

[Sarah977]

@Jeff-and-Ashley0  Yes, it's quite rude to hosts to make them wait with a blocked calendar because the guest hasn't bothered to have their info verified before they try to book a place and that Airbnb allows that.

The only way to avoid this is not to take last-minute bookings- set your advance notice to 2 days.

[Judith692]

2 days advance notice does not favor my search rating vicibility. Also, over 90% of my bookings are same day bookings. 

[Sarah977]

@Judith692  I know hosts are really concerned with search ranking, but I've never been high in search (because I won't use IB), but guests still find me. 

However, if last minute bookings are most of what you get, then of course requiring advance notice won't work for you. It's just the only way I can think of to keep from being affected by this up to 24 hr. waiting period.

[Judith692]

I came to the community center searching for this topic to see if others have addressed it since I've been trying for months with Airbnb to revise this process of holding hosts hostage while verifying guests ID or awaiting payments. I don't think host calendar should be blocked for this process, it should be done aside. 4hrs wait would still get me into losses. If my same day bookings close at 2100hrs and guests under this circumstance tries at 2015hrs, it's a guarantee loss while I may have received another booking. It's happened 5 times this month - 4 were same day bookings and I made losses. There was a time between year 2019 to early 2020 I would call and request Airbnb to retract which they would. 

[Karen700]

Thank you for sharing your experience with this here.  It happened to me today and I just don't get it.  The system is flawed and not in favor of the host...   NO GUEST should be able to "instant book" or request to book and lock up the dates for 12 hours if they haven't completed their profile . It should not be up to a host to tell them to do it it should be policy for Airbnb.  Period. I explained to the support rep that this is a business and I'm essentially having to close my business for 12 hours and not allow any more customers come in and potentially buy something because another "customer" kidnapped my product/store for 12 hours.  And I have to wait for them to prove they can afford or are really willing to buy my product AND be nice and patient about it.  THIS MAKES NO SENSE.  It's theft essentially and Airbnb is allowing it.  12 hours is absurd.