If you have 'Instant Book' turned off (within the 'Booking Settings' for your property), do a test booking to see if its still working. Mine isn't. Now people can instantly book my property, without me allowing it.
Within the last few days, a new section has appeared under Availability>Trip Length that states the following: 'Guests can instantly book stays of between (your minimum) & (your maximum) nights; any requests for longer stays will be manually reviewed'. So, in other words, 'Instant Book' is NOW TURNED ON, even if its supposed to be OFF.
You can check if 'Instant Book' is off within 'Booking Settings' ... the option 'All guests must submit a reservation request' will be selected. Problem is, this is now being ignored by AirBnb and 'Instant Book' allowed regardless. I can't do anything to turn it off again, because its ALREADY marked as off (even though it isn't behaving that way ... its ridiculous).
I don't know if this change has been made to all accounts, or just some (I'm in Australia). I have called AirBnb on 855-424-7262. The customer service person seemed surprised & had no explanation. Hopefully its a bug, not a sneaky new policy to make Instant Book mandatory for all hosts. If this has happened to your account, please contact AirBnb to report the problem. The more people who complain, the quicker it will be flagged as an issue and fixed. I'm sure there are other hosts out there like me who are only willing to use AirBnb WITHOUT 'Instant Book'.... so this is a big deal for us. (BTW, just lowering your maximum stay to prevent instant bookings will penalize your listing - it won't appear in search results if guests are searching for properties with stays longer than your specified maximum).