[Guide] How Pre-booking message works for Instant Book?

[Tariq52]

I think it's important to establish communication with guests, to ensure that they are responsive in the event I do need to contact them. I'd like to leave the instant book setting on, but no communication from guests makes me nervous. The Pre-booking message seemed like a viable option, so I reached out to Airbnb Customer Support to understand better on how it works. I had concerns if guests see this message BEFORE they instant book, or if they simply see the message after the booking is approved?

What I got to know is : When you enable the pre-booking message with Instant Book, the guest will receive the message as soon as they reserve. The reservation will be in Pending status until they reply, to which they have 24 hours to respond. 

So, technically they are pre-approved until they respond - pretty simple. I think it's a great way to make sure that you've established communication with the guest, while still allowing them to Instant Book. To learn more about Instant Book, you can also refer to these help articles : Everything about Instant Book.

[Paula]

Hello @Tariq52, what a beautiful property you have in Squamish 😍.

Squamish is my favourite place in British Columbia so far; it's wonderful to see the mix of landscapes between the ocean and the mountains 🍃

Thank you so much for sharing this guide within our community; it will help so many Hosts.

All the best,

[Tariq52]

Very kind of you to say so, Paula!

[Donald385]

That's not been my experience using pre-messaging. Having had such difficulty with guests not reading the full listing and house rules, I set up a pre-message advising guests to be sure to do this prior to booking. To get them to respond (and mainly to assure that I know they read the message) I also included a simple request to also re-confirm the number of guests accompanying them. I quickly discovered that the instant book pre-message does NOT place the booking in pending status, it merely pops up as a message prior to the guest finalizing (paying) for their booking, but it in no way prevents them from continuing onward and completing their booking. Guests plowed right through, with perhaps 1 or 2 out of 10 actually introducing themselves and confirming the number of guests. In effect, it seems more like pre-messaging is not a viable way to get a guest to answer any question asked. To get a guest to have to respond to questions prior to booking, you would have to switch off instant booking and require each guest to do a booking request. So, instead, with the main concern being that guests just don't fully read anything in a listing, I changed the pre-message to a thanks for your interest, we would love to host you, etc., and that they should be aware that by booking they are affirming to Airbnb that they have fully read and agree to House Rules (and then I listed the major pertinent points of the entire listing in House Rules) so they should take the time to be sure that what they have read matches their expectations. I closed the message with an invitation to ask any questions at any time. That seemed to work. Guests book instantly, and I know they have at least seen that message. Why Airbnb makes it seem like a pre-message requires a guest to respond during instant booking, I am unsure, but they need to clarify this to hosts.