"Awaiting Payment" blocks calendar for days

[Simon364]

Hey  community

i have had a problem with Awaiting Payment before,  in once case the person almost turned up before the payment had been confirmed and  I had to escalate to support

Ive been told that sometimes the card doesnt go through, but the booking appears confirmed - "but the card confirmation will appear within a short time. This is due to different cards from different countries"

Its  happened a few times now , and I would say that somehow, its allowing bookings to proceed - and its more than a few hours . But in this case I have just found out that my calendar has been blocked for a few days for a guest that never came but it is still showing as awaiting payment!! They were due to come on the 22nd . Its 25th now . There seems to be a glitch here. Has anyone else had any "awaiting payment" issues. Ive potentially lost a booking here. Many thanks

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Simon364  Many have complained about the wait for payment blocking their calendar. Your situation seems to have gone one step further - My guess it is because the start date for the stay has passed so the system can't free up the calendar - but it is a guess and clearly an issue with the platform.

[Simon364]

thanks for your  reply. I will keep a check for this happening in the future and escalate if the Await doesnt resolve after the guest arrival time  

[Helen744]

@Simon364 It generally means the customer has failed to pay , in other words their credit card or other card has insufficient funds. I am not sure how this happens but maybe IB and final payment take a little while or the customer books ,removes funds and simply fails to replace said funds before being due to arrive or has made a split payment and the second half fails to matarialise. It would be worse to host a guest that fails to pay . some people are annoyed ,especially new hosts when they do not receive a payout once the guest arrives because they fail to check how payments work on the dashboard. they often think their guests have not paid when in fact they have. H

[Helen744]

Why did you not speak to the guest when they failed to arrive?It seems they changed their mind and simply stopped payment  H

[Michael6934]

@Simon364 

Yes, as soon as i accept a booking and I get the ''Awaiting Payment'' status I reach out to the guest so that they can update the payment method and if they can't call do it to please call Airbnb to figure it out.

If this is still happening after 3 or 4 hours, I call Airbnb and ask them to cancel this resevation since ''this is blocking my calendar and guest show no response to solve the problem''

When is a last minute booking, i give them half hour to figure it out and give Airbnb a call.

[Renita15]

Has Airbnb ever done any thing about it? I have had this issue and all they tell me is that they have a technical glitch because of which they cannot retract the booking.