Does Pre Approval cancel out a guest requirement to go through verification

[Dean-and-Chris0]

Hi All, 

I was wondering if I pre approve an enquiry from a potential guest, if it cancelled out the requirment for the guest to go through verification?

[Deborah0]

No, it does not.  If you require guests to have verified ID, they will still be required to have that regardless if you preapprove them.  If you preapprove a guest without verified ID when you require Verified ID for booking, then if they try to book, their booking will get held up or "stuck in the process" for up to 12 hours while Airbnb asks them to complete verified ID.  During this time your calendar may be blocked for the dates in question --- I believe AIrbnb now asks you first if you want your calendar blocked while guest completes verification, and if you say no, guest would have to re-apply to book after they complete verification. Some hosts are given this option, some seem not to have this option yet.  

So my suggestion is, don't preapprove any guest who hasn't completed verification.  Tell them they need to do that first.  That way you won't have your calendar potentially blocked for several hours by someone who might actually never be able to get verified (that does happen in some cases).  

[Carmen-And-Jim0]

Deborah this happened to me right from the 2nd day listing I preapprove a guest that had not completed the verification process for two nights and I had three requests unable to book even though she never booked. Air walked me through this and basically all I had to do was unblock those dates myself.

I now will not preapprove unless id verified and I am adding to the wording of  my listing plus replies with step by step instructions how to do this. My new to airbnb folks (which it seams are most of my bookings) find this not very intuative, but once I do give them the step by steps they find it easy and they complete it.

[Amanda103]

This was very helpful. Have you had international guests and if so how did you verify them?