Un- reviewed guests being blocked

[Jacqueline869]

Hi I was wondering if any other hosts experienced this issue.  I host a property myself, I started this year and once we were able to take guests had a very successful summer. Two weeks ago I tried to book a small cottage for my husband and myself - it took 5 unsuccessful attempts involving 5 charges, followed by refunds, but I eventually managed to book. During the process I contacted support to try and get them to help with the booking as neither the host nor myself could fathom out the rejection. Two weeks later I had this response from support. 

Hi Jacqueline,
My name is Pedro and I'm an agent of the Airbnb's Customer Service.

I hope you are doing well.
I am sorry for our late response.

The reason why you could not book that listing is because we recently implemented restrictions that prevent guests with fewer host reviews from making reservations for entire homes.

While we know this may be an inconvenience, you still have options. These restrictions do not apply to hotel or private room listings and we suggest you search for those types of listings instead.

Do you have any other questions for me?
I am glad to assist you.

Waiting for you reply,
Happy holidays and a great afternoon,
Pedro

does this mean that un-reviewed guests are automatically blocked from booking our properties.

I have taken many unreviewed guests during the summer, I take time to find out a bit about guests beforehand and would hate for great guests to be rejected because they were unfortunate not to have a Previous review- my house sleeps 10 so they will get blocked from booking entire properties, but it would be very hard for them to find houses with enough spare rooms to Book! Any ideas! 

[Ricardo85]

@Jacqueline8alals 

List your cottage also as "private room".

Ricardo

[Jacqueline869]

Thank you I will do this 

[Jacqueline869]

Further to this I have checked my own profile, as a traveller I have two great reviews from different hosts, so I’m wondering what quantity of positive reviews do guests ( myself included) require before I can hope to be considered a good enough guest to book an “entire property” without rejection! I am a bit shocked and rejected! 

[Helen3]

Did you try and book for New Year for a short stay ? @Jacqueline869  which Airbnb block because of party fears. You need 3 reviews or more. 

If so that’s probably why you were blocked from booking. 

Unless you are being blocked because of Covid restrictions in the Uk as much of our country is under no travel guidance here for all but essential travel  from Boxing Day. 

[Marit-Anne0]

@Jacqueline869 I did get bookings from newbies during the summer holidays for a two different properties in France, so maybe this is a recent stunt from airbnb to promote their hotels ? But who would book a hotel when they are looking for a cottage ? My booking settings are not the strictest though.

I have 14 reviews and I had no issues booking apartments in October/November, but I actively look for those with Instant Book to avoid what you experienced and to have an immediate confirmation. I also tried on a different platform with various success, hosts doing bait and switch, never return with a response to the request etc. In the end I succeded with a direct booking.

[Colleen253]

There is a clue as to what's going on here, in "These restrictions do not apply to hotel...listings". Just another thinly veiled tactic to drive bookings to Airbnb hotels. There are several posts on the CC about this. Below is one.

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Is-Airbnb-replacing-Hosts-with-Hotels/m-p/1273241

[Helen350]

@Jacqueline869 Were you by any chance trying to book New Year's Eve? - If so the anti-party algorithm may have kicked in..... apparent newbie guests being held in high suspicion....?

[Jacqueline869]

Hi Helen, no it wasn’t new year it was two weeks ago, and fairly last minute but I had plenty of communication with the host who pre-approved and communicated that she was happy with our booking, it was the payments that were instantly refunded 5 times, I tried the following day and it was then accepted ( all prior to the communication from support ) I’m just shocked that if I communicate with a guest that I am happy to accept their booking but the system rejects them, it reflects badly on my decision to host them! 

[Jacqueline869]

as a follow up to support, I asked them to clarify exactly how many positive reviews guests need in order to book my place and indeed how many I needed for me to book an entire place as a guest, it turns out you need 3, Here is the message I received:

Hi again Jacqueline,

Guests may need more than 3 positive reviews, as in feedback received from hosts, in order to book an entire place at our platform.
I should though advise you that the fact of not having enough reviews does not guarantee that
a guest will be blocked from booking a listing.

If you wish to check the reviews you received as a guest you may visit the link below:
https://www.airbnb.co.uk/users/reviews

There are as well other reasons that may indeed block a guest from booking a certain listing:
1- A restriction related to the guest's age and the risk of parties(number of reviews as a guest)
2- The verification of his Identity is not complete
3- His payment method is invalid

We are always looking for suggestions to make our platform better for both hosts and guests, and insight from members of our community is immensely valuable to us.
I invite you to send your suggestion, by filling your feedback on this website:
airbnb.com/help/feedback

Support advised me to book private rooms or hotels to bump up my reviews in order to qualify to book an entire property! This is a whole new set of conditions for me and now makes me realise that my property is possibly missing out on many guest bookings but how will I know? Are we able to see the Quantity of rejected bookings on any report . I think I am definitely going to concentrate on getting my own website up and running in 2021 as I can’t rely on Airbnb allowing perfectly decent bookings slipping through the net.