Pre-approval

[Elema14]

Hi. Firstly, I've had quite a number of potential guests requesting pre-approval to book, despite selecting automatic booking in my settings. Why can't guests book automatically? Is there something I'm missing?

Secondly, once I give approval, none of them have ever responded or booked the place despite showing great interest. Is there something in the system causing them not to see my approval or allowing them to go ahead and  book?

Mystified!

[Shelley159]

Hi @Elema14 

There can be a number of reasons for this. First of all, it's possible that you have "good track record" turned on as a requirement. Guests without a good track record, will have to request a booking as it will not go through automatically:

(This is in the Listings tab)

Secondly, if the bookings are fairly last-minute, they may fall inside the "advance notice" period that you've selected, meaning they come through as requests instead of instant bookings:

(This is in the Calendar's Availability tab)

Another possibility is the opposite: if the dates are far away and your availability window is set to only allow bookings a set number of months in advance, any requests for dates beyond your availability window will not come through as instant bookings:

(This is in the Calendar's Availability tab)

Lastly, guests may have chosen to message you instead of booking (they would have entered the dates that they're messaging about, so it will look the same on your side):

If people are asking about the place but not booking, there's unfortunately a chance that they were hoping to scam you (scammers sometimes specifically target new hosts, and scammers will send requests instead of parting with actual money by booking instantly). Never send your contact details, videos of your place, or your full listing address, and keep all communication in the Airbnb message thread (as it sounds like you've correctly been doing). Hopefully there's a flood of genuine bookings coming your way soon!