Declining a request conflicting with house rules

[Diego554]

Hi, 

it's the very first time we find ourselves in the position of having to decline a booking request, by someone with a dog. It says in our house rules that our place is not suitable for pets, and we do not wish to get minus points for declining requests that explicitly violate our house rules.
How do we do this? Shall we just decline it and you make sure that we don't get penalized?

Thanks,

Diego & Denise from Tromsø, Norway

[Anonymous]

@Diego554 There's not a penalty for declining one request. You get an annoying alert on the dashboard when the acceptance rate goes below 88%, but nothing is going to happen. Obviously declining this booking is the right thing to do. 

[Sarah977]

@Diego554  You can also try messaging the guest saying something like "Hi XX, as you can see from the house rules in my listing info, I don't accept pets, sorry. I'd advise you to withdraw this request so you'll be free to find another listing that cn accommodate your needs." 

That may prompt them to withdraw it, and if they don't, you'll have to decline before the 24 hours runs out.

I assume you're aware of the difference between an Inquiry and a Booking Request? If the guest communication comes in the form of an Inquiry, rather than a Request, all you have to do is message back. You don't have to either pre-approve or decline an Inquiry and you can safely ignore the prodding messages from Airbnb to do so. There are no penalties associated with simply messaging back to an Inquiry without clicking on anything.

[Mark116]

@Diego554  You have 3 options.

1) Decline and take the  hit to your acceptance rate.

2) Tell the guests you can't accept due to the pet, and ask them to cancel the request, we always tell them they can cancel free of charge w/in 24 hours

3) Accept the reservation with the written caveat that they cannot bring the dog, tell them if this doesn't work for them, they can cancel free of charge w/in 24 hrs.