Guest Requests

[Chris12416]

Wondering if anyone could help me -

I keep getting a trend of guests doing the following in order to be able send me a message so it seems?

They send me a request - normally by selecting the next available date on my calendar.

They do this just to be able ask me if I have any dates available for eg. next week etc.

Rather than just see my availability on my calendar. 

What do I do in that situation - I want to decline the request, but I’m assuming I get penalised for that? There is no option if declining that says ‘Guest wanted different dates’.

Can guests just message me or must they put in a request? 

It is frustrating as I then have to preapprove even though these are the dates they don’t want. 

Is there a way around this that I’m missing? 

[Nanxing0]

If it shows "inquiry" on your side then you don't need to click anything. Just make sure you responded to the guest then there would be no penalty at all. IF you don't feel comfortable with the guest just tell them it's not available in the message. 

[Sarah977 · Accepted solution]

@Chris12416  Sounds like you are confusing Inquiries and Booking Requests.

Inquiry- choices are: Pre-approve, Decline, or simply message back within 24 hours. No penalties arise from simply messaging back. It's stupid that guests have to enter dates just to ask a question in an Inquiry, but that's how it works. So the dates for an Inquiry may often be dates other than the ones a guest actually wants.

Request- choices are Accept or Decline. You must do one or the other within 24 hours. But during that time before the clock runs out, you can message the guest, explaining why you won't be able to host them at this time, and ask them to please withdraw the request, so their funds won't be held. If they withdraw it, that means you won't be faced with having to decline.

[Chris12416]

Yes you were right!

Inquiry is what I was talking about. 

So I don’t have to pre-approve or decline, just respond with a message?

I think the frustrating bit is guest using this inquiry and just selecting any old dates just to be able, so it seems, to contact a host. I’ve had this over 20/30 times, when it just seems far easier to have a message host function. 

[Sarah977]

@Chris12416  Correct, you only have to respond within the 24 hours. You'll get prodding reminders from Airbnb to pre-approve or decline, but you can safely ignore those. If you clear your cache, they should disappear.

That is the "Contact host" function. There just isn't any other way for guests to contact hosts, it's not the guests' fault. 

There have been threads here before about how ridiculous it is that guests have to input dates simply to ask a question, and I'm sure Airbnb's received plenty of feedback about it- I know I sent some. But they don't seem to care.

It's far better for the host to have a guest send an Inquiry if they have questions, rather than a Request (which some do even if they are asking for things you don't accommodate), even if the date thing bugs you, since all you have to do is message back, instead of having to make a decision on whether to accept a Request within 24 hours. 24 hours sounds like plenty of time, but I've found that if the guest is in a wildly different time zone and the host and guests have some things to work out before proceeding with the booking, 24 hours can be not long enough.

[Chris12416]

I guess its not the end of the world, seems better that I only need to respond to the message than what I thought to begin with. 

Maybe they’ll look into the message function, perhaps bringing the guest to a ‘commonly asked’ screen before letting them send the message (Which could be made up of questions/responses the host has answered before). 

Well, thank you for your help, appreciated!