Decline or not to decline

[Terri129]

Actual scenario: host receives booking inquiries for dates that are already blocked or booked. Host declines the bookings. Airbnb threatens to suspend host for declining too many bookings.

[Lisa723]

@Sarah977 yes. It was general advice as she seems to be having an ongoing problem.

[Terri129]

Thank you, this is helpful.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Terri129 depending on your settings Booking requests/inquiries can be made for blocked dates.

[Mark116]

@Mike-And-Jane0  What settings allow guests to make a request for a blocked date and where are they?

[Lisa723]

@Mike-And-Jane0 really? How? Where? (And how would that make any sense, given Airbnb's stance on host declines and cancellations?)

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Mark116 @Lisa723 it depends on the reason for blocking. If you demand min 2 days notice there is an option to tick that allows guests to request a stay at no/shorter notice. We have Instant Book so this works for us as if we are ready we allow a booking, if we are not then we don't.

[Lisa723]

@Mike-And-Jane0 OK, IMO that's a completely different thing. Those dates are not blocked, they just don't meet your IB advance notice requirement.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Lisa723 I only mentioned it because the OP was not detailed in which dates were being requested.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Mark116 @Terri129 @Lisa723 @Mark116 @Mike-And-Jane0@Sarah977 

1) Airbnb mix requests with inquiries. I got a request the other day and on the top was written something like " x sent you REQUEST" and on the bottom was written something like " blah blah... you have 24 hours to respond on this INQUIRY"

2) I told my guest to withdraw the request, she said she will but she never did. I was busy so I forgot to decline and it expired. I looked at my "insights stats" and there is no stat for "acceptance rate" or anything similar anymore. At least I couldn't find it. For super host status, the only important stuff is "cancelations" and "response rate" . Neither of the two has changed.

@Terri129  Laura wrote a similar post today, she also got a few requests for nonavailable dates. Maybe it's a glitch.

In my settings, I allowed requests for tomorrow even though I have 2 days of prep time and I also allowed requests for stays longer than my maximum stay. But I've never seen an option to allow requests for blocked dates 🙂

[Lisa723]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 @Terri129 's and  Laura's posts are different. Laura reports guests sending inquiries/requests for available dates when they really want other, unavailable dates. This is a common occurrence. But I've never heard of inquiries/requests for unavailable dates being possible. (Unless an Airbnb bug has made them available when they were previously blocked.)

[Emilia42]

@Terri129 please post a screenshot of the inquiry/request so we we can be sure of which it actually is.

[Terri129]

Here it is. We always block New Year's Eve days. These dates were blocked when I received the request. Then I received the email from Airbnb threatening to suspend my listing for declining requests.

[Lisa723]

@Terri129 have you checked to see whether the dates are still blocked in your calendar?

[Terri129]

Yes, I checked right away when I got the request. They were still blocked.

[Colleen253]

@Terri129 You say “ …suspend my listing for declining requests.” This suggests you received other requests for dates not available. Were the other dates blocked by you as well, or were they booked dates? 

Do you have any other blocked dates on your calendar?