Instant book overrides booking settings???

[Jillian115]

 In my Airbnb settings, I have two days between bookings and one-day advanced notice in place. Yet I received a booking with less than 24 hours' notice.

Airbnb told the guest that the only way to cancel the booking was to state that they were unhappy with the stay -- which never took place. Then Airbnb took the service charge and told the guest to request a refund from me. Shortly after that, I received another booking, 18 hours before arrival, still outside of my booking guidelines.

I called Airbnb to find out what was going on and to request that the first guest's remark was removed from my account, and a full refund was given to both guests, including the service fee.

The Customer Service rep I encountered was rude and, at times, hostile. For her to speak with me, I had to state name, phone, payment method, and last 4 of my checking account number--this is new.

I told her the situation. She responded that the issue is guests can book anytime regardless of my settings because I have an "Instant Book" in place. WHAT??  I told her that "Instant Book" means that guests can book without my approval as long as they meet my booking requirements. She insisted I was wrong. After going back and forth for a while she said I would receive a callback tonight, and she would escalate the issue. I never received a callback.

I am so frustrated with Airbnb the IPO and instant profits superseded the hosts and customer service. I don't know any other hospitality business where you have to wait 45 minutes to speak to customer service to be told you'll get a call back then receive an email instead of 5 days later. 

Has anyone had issues with Instant book overriding their booking settings recently???

[Emiel1]

@Jillian115 

I guess the rude Airbnb CS rep did not read the Help pages:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/484/how-can-i-control-which-reservations-i-get-with-instant-book

[Nanxing0]

Exactly as @Emiel1 said. The CS rep you spoke to is very unprofessional and doesn't know their own term. My only suggestion is that ask the CS rep to speak to his/her supervisor and avoid dealing with this same rude person.

[Colleen253]

@Jillian115  Yes, IB and other glitches are nothing new. Glitches are one of the reasons I turned IB off. And lack of good, well trained CS reps is also nothing new.

I haven't tried contacting CS for anything recently (there is just no point in doing so) so I can't speak to whether they even offer chat anymore, but I normally prefer chat communications over phone calls because you can easily insert the link to the relevant help articles and policies that the CS reps have  typically not read or been trained on.

[Debra300]

@Jillian115,

It would be quite difficult for Airbnb to systematically put in lead times and buffers based upon each listings check-in and checkout time.  The reservation preferences are stated in days and nights, and not in 24 hour increments: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/484/how-can-i-control-which-reservations-i-get-with-instant-book.  A one day notice means that a reservation can be made up until 11:59 p.m. on the night before scheduled arrival in the guest's time zone.  This can sometimes result in a same day booking for a listing that is in a time zone several hours ahead of where the guest is located.

On the flip side, a 2 night buffer between bookings is usually longer than 48 hours, because the typical checkout time is earlier in the day than the check-in time.

[Jillian115]

@Debra300  That is not true; Airbnb does have the ability "to systematically put in lead times and buffers based upon each listings check-in and checkout time." They have this in place currently. My check-in time is at 3:00 PM, and if I get a cancelation at 2:59 PM, the day before they get will get a refund minus the service fee. Due to COVID and the CA fires, I have had many examples of this over the last five months. But that isn't the issue. The issue is the guest did not meet my booking criteria, begin with, and shouldn't have been able to book, so they should not be subject to payments or fees because Airbnb let them book outside of my booking guidelines. 

[Debra300]

@Jillian115,

Okay, I understand better.  You are stating that there were two issues with the reservation.  First, the guest didn't meet your guest reservation requirements, e.g., government ID and host recommendation, and should not have been able to make the reservation.  I have read some other conversations where hosts have reported that much to their consternation Airbnb has allowed a guest to book while their profile information is being verified.  Secondly, you are displeased that the reservation was made less than 24 hours before arrival.

With regards to Airbnb systematically managing booking advance notice in 24 hour increments, I don't think that your example of the refund period is comparable.  The refund period is static, and it is set at the time of booking.  It doesn't change even if a host revises the check-in time after the reservation has been made.  Since the check-in time can be changed at a host's discretion, whenever a revision has occurred the advance notice system would have to dynamically recalculate the 24 hours, and update the listing's availability. 

The search system would need a very expensive overhaul to stay in sync with a dynamic advance notice system, and properly display search results.  For example, a guest who does a search for a next day reservation would get results of listings with a lead time of 24 hours or more.  To allow the guest an opportunity to prioritize viewing the listings, each one would have to display the amount of remaining booking lead time, and the addition of a search filter for time remaining (similar to eBay listings or Amazon's lightning deals).  After the check-in times have passed, or if hosts change their listings to an earlier check-in time after the search was submitted, the listings would have to disappear from the results list.  Most of the travel search engines that I've used are not require built like that, and the submission of a new search is the only way to refresh the results.  If the search system wasn't dynamic like the advance notice system, and stale listings were to remain displayed in the results, guests would have negative search experiences, because they could click on several listings that would no longer be available. 

[Jillian115]

@Debra300 I am aware of the cost of programming.  I have implemented a CMS for a large organization and understand setup-costs, programming, and resources needed. However, I do know that Airbnb has made many changes to the booking platform and cancelation policies since they laid-off almost 2000 employees at the very beginning of the pandemic. The changes and updates to the Airbnb app are almost daily... more than any other app I have on my phone and its the same for the website and probably the reservation and cancellation system. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Airbnb is spending more on software engineering than they are on customer service at the moment. However, I believe the main issue here is the guest(S) did not meet my booking restrictions and therefore both of them should not have been able to book, to begin with, and because of that, they should be able to receive a full refund without having to state that they are UNHAPPY with a stay THAT NEVER TOOK PLACE.

[Debra300]

@Jillian115,

Okay, I understand that you are frustrated, but the bookings are not anomalies, to me.  I cannot speculate on the frequency of or budget for application changes that Airbnb has made in the past six months.  I've had a one day advance notice set at my guesthouse for the entire time that I've been hosting on Airbnb, and have never seen any options for 24 hour increments vs. days.  For me, bookings have always been allowed until 11:59 p.m. the night before arrival.  

The problems with customer service are too numerous, and hope that the new batch that's coming in by month-end are get better training.

[Sarah977]

@Jillian115  One thing Airbnb is the best at is glitches 🙂

I agree with @Colleen253 that unless something is quite urgent, it's best to message rather than call. Messaging also provides a record, so if the rep you were dealing with was rude, or insisted that something was true that isn't, you have a record of that conversation that could be brought to the attention of a supervisor. And if you get a rude or clueless CS rep, don't waste your time arguing with them when you can see it's going nowhere. Just thank them for their time and start over, as if it's a new case, and hopefully you get a better rep the next time.

[Jillian115]

@Sarah977 @Colleen253 I have done both. I called and messaged. I was told I would get a call back last night. I did not. At 4:00 AM, I received a message asking me to repeat the issue. I did. then 7 AM I was told that the issue was escalated. At 9 AM and 11 AM, I was thanked for being patient. Nonthing since. 

[Sarah977]

@Jillian115  If you spend some time reading through a few pages of posts here, you will see that Airbnb CS isn't responding in a timely fashion to anyone's issues now. I'm surprised you even got through to them on the phone, and got any messages back from them at all. Users, both hosts and guests, are reporting their messages going unanswered for weeks. 

So yes, you are going to have to be patient. Either that, or be frustrated and angry.

And never, ever believe them when they say you'll get a call back. It does happen, infrequently, but for the most part, it seems to be one of their most prevalent lies.

[Jillian115]

@Sarah977 I am frustrated because Airbnb has put profits above CS, which is hurting the community overall. Both host and guest are being hurt by the new policies that are 99% about making a profit, and 1% CS. This is not a good model in hospitality. Making cancelations difficult at the expense of hosts and unhappy guests will result in them leaving and likely never returning to the platform, so we all lose. Let's not forget that Airbnb laid off 1,900 of Airbnb's 7,500 employees at the very start of the pandemic. CEO Brian Chesky stated he was optimistic about the IPO, while employees said he gutted the company's once-beloved culture. We are all hurting as a result of the new model. This is why so many hosts are leaving the community and new guest will never return. 

[Jillian115]

@Sarah977My point is I am frustrated because Airbnb has put profits above CS, which is hurting the community overall. Both host and guest are being hurt by the new policies that are 99% profit, and 1% CS-making cancelations difficult at the expense of hosts and unhappy guests, and they will likely never return to the platform. Let's not forget that Airbnb laid off 1,900 of Airbnb's 7,500 employees at the very start of the pandemic. CEO Brian Chesky stated he was optimistic about the IPO, while employees said he "gutted the company's once-beloved culture." It's frustrating I am frustrated, guests are frustrated. 

[Sarah977]

@Jillian115  Hey, you won't get any disagreement from me on that. As far as I'm concerned, they've turned what was once a nice platform to do business on into a money-grubbing machine that seems to think they can turn their outrageous practices and resulting user anger around with some feel-good, BS, PR. 

They also seem to think that there will always be more more hosts and guests to replace the ones who have closed their accounts in disgust. They may be in for a surprise, but even if that proves true, it's still a lousy attitude.

And those laid off employees we heard about? Those were only the ones they paid a reasonable severance package to, so letting us know was a PR move for them, which many people fell for. "Oh, well at least they're being generous to the poor folks they had to let go."

Hush hush they also laid off 80% of their CS staff who got no benefits whatsoever.

No surprise your issue isn't being dealt with in a timely fashion, or that the rep you spoke to was clueless.