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.

[Sarah977]

@Michelle-and-Ray0  As a host who has never used Instant Book, I would most definitely not want them to eliminate Booking Requests. It facilitates a booking, as the guest is charged as soon as the host clicks on Accept.

The issue is the dates being blocked if a guest doesn't have all their verifications and payment method uploaded before sending a request. This happens with new users. Most of my requests come from guests who have used Airbnb before, so all their info is already verified and the booking gets charged and confirmed right away.

So what needs to change is Airbnb blocking the dates if the guest doesn't have their booking requirements in place, not doing away with requests.

You could always try asking the guest to withdraw the request and send an Inquiry instead if you need to hash things out with them before deciding whether to accept. And some hosts have reported that they contacted Airbnb and got them to unblock the dates if a booking doesn't get confirmed right away, and been successful.

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

Booking INQUIRES are more than sufficient instead of REQUESTS. There is no need to hold hosts hostage the way the Requests do. You accept the Inquiry and the guest goes ahead and accepts as well.
No one is out anything, even though there is one more step in the process for guests.
The way it is now is far too cumbersome for hosts.

"You could always try asking the guest to withdraw the request and send an Inquiry instead"

-As stated above, the problem is that the guests do not bother to respond, leaving the host to face possible penalties and keeping the dates blocked in the meantime, unless they take the time out of their day to call AirBnB to deal with it. 
Not all hosts can do this right away, as things like being out of the service area and jobs can get in the way.
As I said, there is simply no reason to do this to hosts. It's patently unfair and punitive to hosts.
Not a very welcoming thing to have happen and could potentially chase away good hosts from the platform.
I know I am leaving as soon as I can sell off my units, and this is only one reason why.
The platform is far too punitive to hosts.

[Russell49]

I agree. I get tired of getting requests from guests who do not pass the test in the first place. Then if I decline it, the guest gets upset and I am somehow the bad guy in someone's eyes. Airbnb should have an "opt in" option for this. If guests do not meet my requirements then I do not want them here. Also, I am getting tired of their notifications at 3:30AM reminding me to give further details because a guest will be arriving. WTH is that about???

[Sarah977]

@Michelle-and-Ray0  As I said, I have never had an issue with Requests tying up my calendar because the guests I've had have had all their required info already in place.  I've hosted since 2016, I like receiving Requests and it does facilitate the process for guests.

If Airbnb just stopped blocking dates if a guest needed time to verify their info, or didn't allow guests to send requests unless that was all done, you wouldn't have this issue.

You can also just decline the request if a guest doesn't answer your messages, which will free up your dates. Poor communicators aren't a good bet anyway.

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

Declining the Request eventually leads to penalization, so I won't do it. 
It's unfair to hosts to have that over them.
As for not having payment in place, it should have never gone to a Request, because, as I pointed out, had I accepted it, the guest would have been free to stay, LITERALLY!
No payment would have been made and I would not have found out about it until it was too late and I would be out the money.
They whole way they do this needs some serious revision.

[Sarah977]

@Michelle-and-Ray0  Absolutely guests should be required to have all their info cleared before being allowed to send a request. Airbnb could send them a message when this is all verified, saying "Congratulations, all your information has been verified- you are now free to book a listing".

Hosts shouldn't be held hostage because a guest doesn't bother to create an account until the time they want to book something, or because their payment method isn't valid or they have exceeded the credit limit on their card.

[Pat271]

First of all, I have never been penalized for rejecting a booking request, and I have rejected a few. As long as you respond as soon as you can, and as long as you don’t deny bookings too often, you won’t get penalized or have your search placement affected.

The real problem, as @Sarah977 said, is that when accepting a booking, sometimes the payment doesn’t go through (at times for innocent reasons like an expired credit card), which blocks the dates for 24 hours, preventing others from booking the dates. Airbnb say they do this blocking to give the guest time to sort out their payment, which IMO is a little too much hand-holding.  I would certainly never expect to have dates reserved for me if I provided invalid payment for any purchase, and I don’t think guests expect it either.

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

You actually *have* been penalized for rejecting requests. They just don't tell you.
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.
They also move you lower in the search results.
The problem is, we don't know exactly how many rejections it takes to reach that point. We don;t know what the magic number is.
And I agree, it should absolutely be no payment = no booking.

[Sarah977]

@Michelle-and-Ray0  I'm not sure what Pat means that he's never been penalized, because declining a request certainly lowers Acceptance rate. And I know that hosts receive warnings from Airbnb for low Acceptance rates.

As for the search ranking, there are so many non-transparent factors that are factored into the search placement algorithm, I don't think any of us can know exactly how severely declining affects ranking.

[Pat271]

@Sarah977 I’ve probably never been penalized because I haven’t denied enough “Requests to Book” to hit the presumed low acceptance rate threshold. My acceptance rate is currently 91%, with Airbnb’s “target” at 88%.

[Sarah977]

@Pat271  Me too. I don't think I've ever had to decline a request. Almost all my guests have been experienced Airbnb users who know that if they have questions, they should send them in an inquiry, not a request, and most know how to send an initial message with a booking request that's informative, friendly and articulate, so I don't have qualms about accepting.

Even the ones who were new to Airbnb seemed to be the sort who actually read the listing description, etc., and don't ask for things that are clearly not offered or against the house rules.

[Pat271]

@Sarah977 How you manage to get all experienced users, no requests you felt compelled to decline, and all 5-star reviews has always been an enigma to me. You could reap massive rewards bottling and selling that magic.🤗

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

RIGHT???
The biggest problem I have is guest who DON'T READ ANYTHING, including the first line in all caps, in an effort to get them to read at least that.
Just a few weeks ago, we were booking for essential travel only and I had it written in all caps as the first line in the description, both in  the "Listing Description" and "The Space", as well as in the booking message and the House Rules.
Guess how many leisure bookings I got from guests whom I later had to cancel on who claimed they "didn't see it"?
And each time I had to call AIrBnB and wait on hold for half an hour or more, and then wait some more for them to transfer it to another department, and then wait again, usually for several hours or even days for them to actually cancel it and free up my calendar.
There has to be a better way of doing things.

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

@Pat271 

---

@Pat271 wrote:

@Sarah977How you manage to get all experienced users, no requests you felt compelled to decline, and all 5-star reviews has always been an enigma to me. 

---

I've had many crappy guests over the last 5 years and even more so since the pandemic hit.
AirBnB actually provides the worst guests to us. They tend to be picky, needy, entitled, and demanding and want something for nothing.
BDC guests are much better. They come, they stay, they leave great reviews which are fair and when they aren't( very rare), they don't impact my listing heavily. They follow the rules (and I don't have to list common sense rules ad infinitum, either. They just "know".) and rarely, if ever, complain or demand things of us that we don't provide.
I'd love to have nothing but perfect, 5 star-leaving guests!