Overall - INSTANT BOOKING NOT A GREAT FEATURE! More problems than increased reservations!

[Randy0]

Being that I am consdiering initializing the Instant Book feature I wanted to be prudent and first look to the community to gain concensus about this feature; and honestly there are numerous posts about how problematic it is for hosts.  Tons of posts and threads result under key word 'instant book' show that overall people are turning it off once they've tried it because the tools are NOT actually 'doing' what the host has set it up to do. (i.e., books guests that don't match the hosts requirements).....and all this just leaves hosts irrirtated and having cancel reservations.  Just negative post after negative post...almost no one sings it's praises or declares how efficeient it is or how it's increased their reservations by XYZ%

So if Instant Book was optimized and worked well, there would be no need to offer 3 free cancellations for hosts, as well I would see more posts in the community writing positive remarks about instant booking.  Anyone else feel the same? -Randy

[Genevieve124]

This is very true!

[Nicholas687]

I just had a terrible experience with instabook.  I had a VRBO booking and the date was blocked off on my Airbnb calendar, but Airbnb allowed another booking over top of my blocked off date. I did not catch it in time and the Guest that was supposed to check in through VRBO walked in on my Airbnb guests already staying there. I contacted Airbnb to let them know the problem. They said yes instant book feature does not always show blocked off dates when people want to instabook.  I think that's a huge problem but they don't seem to think so. I think we all know how Airbnb customer services for hosts is. Pretty much non-existent. Unfortunately I had to come out of pocket almost $859 to accommodate my guess that was out of a room.  Airbnb does not care about their host. As the market becomes more saturated with Airbnb listings I hope people start pulling their listings from the site and Airbnb fails as a company.  I think they would be better off having a bot answer the phone for customer service.  The bot could say I understand the issue and we are working on it and then call you back every couple of days with the same response.  By day 5 the bot would call you and say this matter has been resolved.