Cannot pre-approve a reservation even though dates are supposed to be available?

[Wd0]

I blocked availability of my unit on July 14th for maintenance reasons. I then have a request for my unit  for July 13. The Guest will checkout at July 14 very early in the morning. I figured no problem, so I pre-approved the request. But now in my inbox it says  "You can’t pre-approve this guest because these dates aren’t available on your calendar."

I then removed the availability block on July 14, since I thought this was the problem. But still, the it seems that my guest is still not preapproved. Am i doing something wrong? Please help, and thanks in advance.

[Alice333]

A way to get around this for now is to send a special offer in the app. 

[Alex1179]

Just got off the phone with Airbnb.  The only reason for this is that the guest isn't verified yet with Airbnb.  You'll only see that when you actually click on Calendar and click again on the guest dates.  You'll see a message there that says:

============

Verification Pending

The guest must complete Verified ID within 12 hours to confirm the reservation

============

The rep agreed that it's confusing and suggested it as an update.  If guest verification is the reason they are unable to book, it should 't say that it's because the dates are unavailable.

Anyway, don't worry- as soon as the guest is verified, you'll be able to pre-approve or approve.

FYI- there's no workaround to bypass this and approve as suggested in the previous comments.  It's between the guest and Airbnb.

[Sarah977]

I just had something happen with a guest who sent an Inquiry - I preapproved her, then got a notification from airbnb that they were awaiting her updating her payment info. I didn't hear back from the guest, but got a notice from airbnb that the pre-approval had expired, so I just assumed that the guest had changed her mind, or had trouble with her payment verification. Which seemed odd, because she wasn't a newbie- she had 4 excellent reviews, so has obviously paid successfully before and knows how to navigate the platform.

Today, 5 days later, I got a message from the guest saying "Oh, no!"   She had been away from her computer for a few days, but had her phone and the Airbnb app, but had recieved NO NOTIFICATION from Airbnb re a payment problem, nor any notification of the message from me telling her that I saw her payment seemed to be having problems, and that if the pre-approval ran out before she could sort it, to just put another request through for her dates. She rebooked, and it is now confirmed, but I really don't know if it was a glitch, or she really had to update her info.

But it is for sure a glitch that she recieved no notification of the fact that her payment method wasn't going through, nor notification of a mesage from me.

[Letti0]

@Sarah977  There is a glitch and it's usually gmail or yahoo, not AirBnB. They send the AirBnB emails to spam or junk mail. This happens alot to people who have had credit cards compromised and a new one issued who need to pay the second payment. The notice from AirBnB gets sent to spam, they don't add the new payment method within 24 hours and their reservation gets cancelled.

[Sarah977]

@Letti0  Thanks. I don't quite get why people don't check their Spam box. I check mine daily when I check my emails. Most of it is junk, which I immediately delete, but there's some stuff that ends up there that shouldn't, not just Airbnb.