Reservation request but with a question

[Anne9971]

Hi, I would appreciate some advice with this one: a prospective guest has sent me a Reservation Request but accompanied by a question (about parking) that suggests he may not be happy with the only answer I can give him.

I have messaged him with the answer and told him that if he is happy with the reply he should let me know and I will immediately accept his request.

I haven’t heard back from him and meanwhile the Decline/Accept clock is ticking. I don’t want to be penalized by Airbnb, but I also don’t want to annoy the guest by accepting if he’s not happy - and of course I don’t want to lose the booking. 

Any suggestions please?

Thanks, Anne

[Sarah977]

@Anne9971  I would message the guest again, asking for a prompt answer as to whether the parking situation is okay with him, saying that you need to either accept or decline his booking by XX time, and that if you accept, his credit card will be immediately charged, so if he isn't okay re the parking, he should withdraw his request so he's free to look for another listing.

[Anne9971]

Thanks very much to for the good advice!

[Emiel1]

@Anne9971 

Ask the guest to retract the booking request within 2 hours if he does not want to continue, otherwise it will be accepted. This is the opposite approach of "if he is happy with the reply he should let me know and I will immediately accept his request."

[Anne9971]

Many thanks, much appreciated!

[Vaa0]

1. this is a serious issue, it seems that airbnb only accepts accept/decline for your respond time and does not take in account the fact that you have responded. We had a listing with specific rules and during national holidays we got many request that could not be hosted as the listing discription specified. We had to deny one after the other and AIrbnb removed the account for to many denials...

[Sarah977]

@Vaa0 It has always been the case that hosts have 24 hrs to either accept or decline a booking request. If you get requests where guests are asking to contravene your rules or guest count limits, etc, after explaining to them why it's impossible, ask them to withdraw the request ASAP so they will be free to look for another place which suits their needs.

For inquiry messages, all you have to do is message back, you don't have to either preapprove or decline.

And maybe you need to make things clearer in your listing information to cut down on inappropriate requests.

[Vaa0]

inapprotriate requests!!! if guest dont want to book but have a question they should use contact host. Clearer, the platform itself is run by experts I think they make it very clear when you make your listing they ask you how many you can host and i guess the guest sees this aswell, if i wanted more i would have listen more.

[Vaa0]

listen is listed