It is unfortunate but true. The Customer Service Department is no longer in the business of providing Customer Service.
I too experienced the email problem you are currently struggling to resolve. I discovered by chance that there was a pending reservation request in my AirBnB inbox, that had been sitting there for more than 24 hours. The nice folks at Customer Service told me that I must have changed my email notification settings. (Thank you... No... I had NOT changed my settings, and I had double checked those settings to make sure I hadn't toggled anything before I made that call for help) Well then, you must have activated a Spam Filter on your email server. (No... I checked that before calling as well) Are you sure? Did you check your Spam Messages just in case? (Thanks... I checked that before calling. There are no messages from AirBnB in any area of my email folders... I am not receiving messages from the reservation system, nor am I receiving messages that I'm finding in my AirBnB Inbox that should have been forwarded to my email address)
I spent the better part of two weeks receiving no help. Promises of return phone calls never materialized. I was able to communicate with the help desk through email... I was receiving the usual AirBnB promotional notifications (Congratulations... Your prices are too high... guests are booking for less somewhere else... ) But absolutely no notifications about pending requests or guest communications were being sent to my email. I found this exact same problem being discussed on other forums, and when I mentioned that to the Customer Service Representatives, they denied that the problem existed. "It is a problem with your email server... there is no problem on our end... There is no 'Glitch' in the system... This is the very first time that we've heard about anything like this happening to anyone... Contact your email server... Your problem does not exist... Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain... "
Ultimately the resolution was to change the email address that AirBnB uses to communicate with me. Save yourself the time and frustration of listening to them tell you that you are not experiencing a problem. Just change the email address that you use to communicate with AirBnB, and be done with it.
**Special note to AirBnB: If you pay attention to the Community Center, and read posts made by Guests and Hosts on other forums you will find that your once exemplary Customer Service Departent has gone down hill. I, like many hosts, list on other platforms as well. A recent trend is to receive last minute bookings on these other platforms from guests who have experienced a problem with AirBnB. They tell me that they will never use AirBnB again. This worries me. You can't continue to alienate Guests and Hosts and expect to remain a viable business. Please... Pay attention... Fix the problems.