Getting requests from unqualified guests with Instant Booking ON

[Don-And-Emily0]

Hi there lovely hosts,

Two months ago, we have decided to turn on Instant Booking  and somehow we get a lot of requests from members with no reviews and/or members who completely disregard our basic house rules. 

It is very time consuming to try and go through the process of vetting potential guests manually, when IB settings like “must have recommendations from other hosts” and “no negative reviews” etc  should take care of it.  Trying to ask the guests qualifying questions and then spending time with Abb on the phone is very time consuming lately.

We want this feature to work as it is meant to be, but somehow most guests ignore the rules.

For example we have a 6 person max, no children under 12, and no pets policy. We just had a potential guest send a Thanksgiving inquiry for 1 person who did not want to write any details  about her trip/group. 

After A LOT of back and forth communication, turns out she had 8 guests and 3 kids under 11… and ended her message with “you don’t have to worry about us, we are good people”. 

Guess  in her world, people who lie and try to deceive others are “good people”

We are aware that dismissing such requests is an option with IB, but after doing so once and getting penalized for it, we are very reluctant to repeat it.

We’d love to hear from some of you who use the IB setting, and how you deal with this issue.

Thank you in advance.

[Sarah977]

@Don-And-Emily0  IB does improve visibility. It's actually about the only thing that puts you higher in search ranking.  Airbnb does this in order to pressure hosts into using IB.

There are many locations with a huge amount of competition where hosts say they couldn't compete at all if they didn't use IB. 

But it's also a trade-off. You may get high occupancy, but that doesn't help much if it's offset by getting crummy guests who take advantage, leave a mess in their wake, cause damages and make your hosting really stressful.

No setttings are irreversible. Unless a host is totally dependent on having full occupancy to make ends meet, they can experiment with turning IB off for a month or two and then assessing whether they really need to use it or not.

[Susan1188]

Yes I recently had a very big problem guest who was able to instant book despite missing profile photo.

My IB message is thorough and mentions house rules.  I asked him to confirm he read rules before giving check in instructions.  He arrived and was surprised that we did not allow: smoking, music on the terrace, and 3rd party visitors from outside.  
He was also able to instant book with no profile photo (required in my parameters).

[Don-And-Emily0]

Hi @Susan1188  Thanks for your comment. A lot of guests missing the IB requirements as set by the hosts are getting through.

As a rule now, we ask them if they had a chance to read the Additional Rules (they are kind of hidden from view) then text them a screen shot of all the rules and ask them if they agree to all. 

Next step it to tell them we have surveillance cameras front and back of the house.  Usually the ones who agreed to 6 top occupancy but plan on bringing more, never text back. 

We’ve learned the hard way to ask a lot of direct questions.