Awaiting Payment

[Virginia363]

Good afternoon community!

My husband and I have been hosts for over a year, and throughout the last few months, we’ve had issues with Awaiting Payments. We have a lot of last minute bookings (where guests book for that same night). The issue is that when a guest books for that night and doesn’t pay, we don’t get any compensation and other guests are blocked from booking that room. Also, in a lot of cases, the guest will cancel in the morning after their “stay” and receive no punishment for doing so. Does anyone have any advice for this situation?

Thanks in advance!

[Jeff158]

It takes airbnb 24hrs to process a guests payment.

Simple answer is not to take same day bookings @Virginia363 

All I can suggest is add $3 to your nightly rate and every 10 nights you have the money for 1 night not payed.

[Sarah977]

@Virginia363  Set Advance notice for one or two days. It will lose you same day bookings, but it sounds like you're not getting paid for a lot of them anyway, so it's not much of a loss. Sounds like you're getting played by nasty, savvy guests who know how to work the system.

[Wendi27]

Completely absurd Airbnb gives guests who can't pay or don't have their payment info setup 24 hours to get their payment situated. It should give them an hour to get their sh*t together and pay. Ridiculous our calendars have to be blocked for guests that can't pay. Everytime this has happened to me the guest is not able to pay so my calendar is blocked until the 24 hours is up, or if they have an old credit card on file they immediately update it when they get the message that their payment hasn't gone through. So my point is, guests that actually want to keep the reservation do not need 24 hours to get their payment situated. 

[Krysten0]

Has anyone heard of any solutions from Airbnb? I like to try to give people the opportunity to try Airbnb as a first time user. I know how hard it was to get in as a host. Once I had my first guest it was a breeze. After this experience, I will make my own requirements for guests a lot more strict and will not longer use instant book

[Mohibba0]

This has become a scam now

Payment Awaiting:

This just happened to me, I am fairly new to hosting. A guy booked the room same day and did not pay. I called airbnb support 2 times during his stay, reminded him nicely(which he acted like he is calling airbnb and fixing the issue right there and then). The guy checked out, reservation is retracted because of no payment in 24 hours. and I can not file a claim, I can not request money, I can not report his profile and  I can not write him a review. The whole reservation has been wiped off of my calendar. At the end Airbnb just offered to call the guy on my behalf and request money which he isn't responding to. They can not red flag the profile, write up on the back end what he did, can not penalize him in any way or suspend his profile. So I think this guy keeps doing the scam and airbnb won't do anything.

[Virginia363]

@Mohibba0 It's frustrating because nobody else can book while the unpaid guest has the room reserved, but for safety reasons, we don't allow guests in our home if they haven't paid. It won't even allow us to send check in instructions. Did your app let you send information to the guest?

[Jeff-and-Pam0]

The ONLY way Airbnb is going to eliminate this completely flawed "Awaiting Payment" policy which does not exist in any other business (think hotels, airlines, etc.) is for hosts to Submit Feedback to Airbnb over and over again. If Airbnb insists on having an "Awaiting Payment" period for guests, the following should apply. Feel free to copy and paste and include in your feedback.

Go to the Airbnb site and type in the basic URL plus a slash plus feedback to get the page to submit feedback.

1. When hosts receive an "Awaiting Payment" notification after accepting a reservation request, Airbnb should allow hosts to "Cancel Pending Reservation" WITHOUT penalty.

2. Guests should have no more than 90 minutes to take care of their payment, or the reservation cancels automatically.

3. A host's calendar should NEVER be blocked until a reservation is paid for and confirmed.

4. Guests should be penalized when they submit reservation requests without verified payment and the reservation ends up canceling. 

Best solution: The platform should be setup so a guest CANNOT even send a reservation request without his/her payment methods being verified and ready to go. 

[Andrea-and-Glenn0]

@Virginia363