Please do away with REQUESTS to BOOK.

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

Why, oh why, does Airbnb allow guests to hold dates without having a valid payment?

It's completely unfair to hosts. No other platform does this.

I was forced to call AirBnB this morning and waste more than half an hour of my valuable time to get this sorted.

Newbie guest did not respond once they finished what they thought was a completed booking.

It wasn't, because the payment was not valid, and in the meantime, I'm left with my dates tied up, preventing someone who actually meets the requirements and has a *valid* payment from booking, and I'm also left facing penalties for not accepting a Request to Book.

It's not right, and it's infuriating to have to deal with this in this way.
No other platform does this.
If the payment isn't valid, the booking is simply not made, which is how it should be on AirBnB, too.

They should do away with requests and just go with inquiries, instead of trying to force hosts to accept bookings from guests that don't meet the requirements to book or isn't a good fit.
Had I accepted this Request, I likely would have been out the full amount, since the payment did not go through, and the reservation was for a check in today.
I was never sent the initial Request to Book email, which usually lists why a Request was made, instead of an instant book (except in the case of invalid payment, which lists no reason for why a Request instead of an IB was made), so unless I called in, I would have had no idea that the payment didn't go through.

We have requirements for a reason, and AirBnB shouldn't be trying to force us to waive them.

[Anonymous]

@Michelle-and-Ray0   

"Once you reach a certain number of rejections, you will start to have your dates blocked and they may even start to fine you for it."

I don't think this is correct. Could you please link to the source of your information?

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

"Rejecting a large number of requests can have an impact on subsequent search results, as well as reservation rates."
"Reservation rates" is a round-about way of referring to blocking your dates.

https://www.airbnb.ca/help/article/360/can-i-decline-booking-inquiries-or-reservation-requests

[Anonymous]

@Michelle-and-Ray0  "Reservation rates" in this context means "occupancy rates." What they're saying is that a lot of declines may cause your listing to have a less favorable position in search results, which could indirectly lead to fewer bookings. They only block the specific dates associated with a request if you fail to decline it within 24 hours, or if you accept and then cancel it without just cause.

My acceptance rate has never gotten above 70% - that's normal when you're in a market that attracts a lot of wacky requests - but the only consequence I've experienced is some annoying hollow threats (which still unfairly made me feel penalized, even though nothing actually came of it). And it would be totally illegal for Airbnb to levy fines without disclosing them in the Terms of Service.

The one circumstance I can think of in which a decline could have the consequences you describe is when the guest invokes the Anti-Discrimination Policy. Hosts have had their listings suspended because a declined guest complained that they were being discriminated against, and that's especially problematic when combined with their bizarre rule that it's discrimination to turn away an "emotional support animal" even though that's just another term for "pet."

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

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[Inna22]

@Michelle-and-Ray0 as far as I know, a request to book only comes through when what guest wants is outside of what you offer. For example, I have gotten requests to book same day even though I do not take same day reservations. I do not know when and how the algorithm decides to do it. I have certain rules in place for a reason and do find it annoying. Request to book does not block your calendar. 

As for the guest not providing payment details- that would be a pending reservation, not request to book. That is the only scenario I am aware of when dates are actually held blocked against host's will. I do find that feature annoying as well however I understand that from a marketing prospective they want new bookers on the hook. They want the booking process to be simple and painless. After the guest is on the hook and envisions staying at your place comes time to submit ID, verify CC etc

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

Request to book absolutely *does* block your calendar, every time.
At least that's how it's worked with me, whether they are requesting to check in outside my scheduled check in time, bringing children under 8, which we don't accept, or wanting to skirt around any other of my requirements to book, without exception.
Dates get blocked.
Every. Single. Time.
And I didn't say the guest didn't provide payment details. The guest did, and the payment did not go through, yet the reservation was held and would have continued to be held for 24 hours, since that's how long AirBnB gives the guests to make good on the payment, which is ridiculous, in my opinion. The guest would have already been occupying my place without payment and I would have never known.
That is not OK.
Ever.

[Anonymous]

@Michelle-and-Ray0   These appear to be two separate issues, both of which have their downsides:

1)  A pending Reservation Request locks the dates in your calendar until you take the action of either or accepting or declining it. If you decline, the booking dates will be released again, but in the interim between the request and your action, the listing is shown to other prospective guests as unavailable.

2) A booking without a completed payment can advance to Confirmed status if it is accepted, holding your calendar hostage for an additional 24 hours until the guest's payment method is successful. Most annoyingly, the host is not notified about the payment issue until after accepting the booking - so you have to make the awkward choice between waiting for the guest to finish a bungled transaction and potentially losing a valuable booking to a system failure.

These are both totally valid concerns, and I  think you make a persuasive case for why hosts should have more options for how a booking is confirmed. Some hosts might prefer to exclusively accept Instant Bookings from guests who meet their requirements and not field inquiries or requests, and I see no reason they shouldn't have the right to do so. Other hosts are actively screening their guests with correspondence and don't want to do Instant Book, but would still like to have to ability to require a verified payment in order to submit a binding request. Both scenarios represent different hosting styles, but they still boil down to a flaw in the system that deprives hosts of control over how they manage their booking process. 

My proposal would not be to eliminate Requests (these are essential for so many situations where hosts need to assess their prospective guests individually) but rather to create more options to customize the bookability of our listings. If you don't want to waste your time fielding non-binding inquiries from people who don't want to travel on available dates or accept your prices and rules, that function should be within your power to disable. If you don't want people to occupy space on your calendar before their payment has been approved, that choice should be available to you. And if you'd like full access to the tools that Instant Book hosts have (e.g. guest ratings) while judiciously screening your guests for your own safety, you should also not be deprived of that data. 

Are we on the same page here?

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

What you say absolutely makes sense. 
Give us the choice to have Instant Book or not, or Requests or not.
They shouldn't be forcing us into an awkward no-man's-land somewhere between the two, which is the way it is now.
And, incidentally, since you mentioned it, another complaint I have is not allowing hosts to see reviews unless it's Instant book.
That just idiotic.
How the heck does that help anyone?
Reviews are supposed to help hosts decide if the guest is a good fit for their unit or not.
How can hosts do that if they are prevented from ever seeing the very reviews that are supposed to help them determine that until the place is booked?
That kind of defeats the whole purpose or reviews, doesn't it?
Because at that point, it then becomes an issue of whether it's worth it for the host to have to waste an hour of their time trying to persuade some poorly "customer service" rep reading from a script in some other country that you shouldn't be penalized for cancelling the reservation that the guest made against your house rules or who has proven by past reviews to likely be a problem guest.
That's not right either.
The whole system is broken to the point where it's a huge dumpster fire that needs to be completely scrapped and redone by someone with some common sense and basic coding skills.

[Anonymous]

@Michelle-and-Ray0 Without Instant Book, hosts can see guests' written reviews. What they can't see is the star ratings.

I don't agree with this game of peekaboo - I think if Instant Book were truly worthwhile, they shouldn't have to make arbitrary disincentive against not using it. But the overarching problem for me is that they're creating illusory choices to manipulate the outcomes rather than offering real choices that let hosts adapt the product to their business needs.

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

"What they can't see is the star ratings."
And that's just as important, if not more, than the written.
I've seen reviews that were 1 star but the written part was something along the lines of, "They were OK."
Why AirBnB plays this game of manipulating what we can see and what we can't is ridiculous.
It makes no sense at all, much like how many of their CSRs apply the policies.

[Pat271]

@Michelle-and-Ray0 

I don’t have Instant Book turned on and I can see a potential guest’s reviews before booking.

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

No, you can't see the whole thing, only the written part. Star ratings are just as important, if not more and they are not presented to you before booking.
These are the individual ratings that rate things like cleanliness, communication, etc, which is sometimes more important than the comments because it can reveal things like a guest who leaves a placeless than clean or has communication problems, things that most people want want to be aware of before they have a booking in place that they either can't cancel or won't cancel due to penalties.
That's just forcing less than good guests on us.

[Sarah977]

@Michelle-and-Ray0  

As a host who has never used IB, I don't care at all that I can't see star ratings. They are totally subjective-what one host may consider a 5 star guest, another may consider a 3 star guest.

The star ratings hosts leave are no more reliable than the star ratings guests leave. What one host may find objectionable another host may not. Some hosts expect better communication from guests than others, some hosts may expect guests to leave the place messy and just consider it part of being in the hospitality business, other hosts may downrate a guest because they didn't leave the place super clean and tidy. Some hosts leave 5 star ratings for any guest who didn't trash the place, others are harsh raters.

I have no way of knowing why a rating was given. The written reviews actually tell me something concrete.

Judging from all the posts I've read on this forum over the years, it's actually guests who book through IB who cause the majority of problems. Relying on star ratings and Airbnb's verifications seems much more risky than being given an opportunity to read a guest's reviews and communicate with them before approving.

Since you are used to using IB, you just might not understand this and think it's riskier, but it isn't. 

But I certainly agree with your original point that a host's calendar shouldn't be held hostage if a guest's payment doesn't go through right away.

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

@Sarah977  Yes, you can read the review, but no, you can't see the star ratings, which are equally as important, if not more.

[Sarah977]

@Michelle-and-Ray0  It doesn't seem like you read anything I said. I disagree that star ratings are equally as important, if not more, than written reviews. I have no idea why a star rating was given, therefore I don't consider them valuable info.