If I respond to an inqury and I don't hear back, do I have to decline to not hurt my response rate?

[Deborah1]

yes, you have to pre-approve or decline or your dates may be blocked!!! This is something relatively new.

[Ange2]

@Deborah1   Where did you read that? Can you supply a link please.

I have open enquiries from people who never respond to my questions and do not make a reservation.  I do not click anything, I leave as is and it has never made a difference and the dates have not been blocked.   In the past when I did click decline for an enquiry, because they didn't get back to me or had children, pets etc. my listing suffered to the point of disappearing for weeks.

[Deborah1]

I don't have the link handy but you can probably search for it. There are lots of postings about this since there was no communication and does not make sense. I think it is relatively new. I don't like it either.

[Sandra126]

The dates WILL be blocked if you don't and your response rate will suffer. Also your search ranking.

[Gina48]

I do not beloved it hurts your rate .
Cause no one booked and you did not cancel them.
Just approve or decline . If the are ok in what they asked me i approve . And some came late like week later and booked . If you decline you are ok . You have that right . You are good .

[Nina75]

Where are you guys reading this that dates will be blocked if you do not pre-approve or Decline the reservation? Ive been hosting for 4 years and I have never had dates blocked because I didnt approve or Decline the reservation. 

Case in point: Recently, a Guests said that he wanted to book 5 guests but as many as 10 or 11 may come and stay at the house. I told him to let me know when he gets the correct number of Guests and I would pre-approve him at that time, I also did not want to Decline him.  ( of course I felt that he was lying) the request is a month old and the dates have not been blocked? Where are you guys getting this information? 

[Deborah1]

It is new. Maybe not done in all areas yet???

[Ange2]

...

[Ange2]

@Robyn34   I did find this, and yes your (click here for article)  Response Rate is damaged.

But as for being penalized and having the dates blocked for not accepting, declining, pre-approving an inquiry (that a few hosts have said is policy) it is new to me and I could find no article by Airbnb that states it as policy.

But it does say this:

But that is not the case, in my experience. I have sent guests a message within a few minutes  (but not hit any button), they have not responded and I now see they have ended up in my late/no response messages, contrary to what the Airbnb article states. As mentioned earlier I have also been penalized with my listing placement and visibility for declining inquiries and bookings with children, pets etc, which I clearly state I do not accept.

So to conclude who really knows the answer or is a very messy algorithm in charge !

[Kittie-and-Chris0]

Reading all of the responses, I see that we are all confused about this very important issue that could greatly affect us. I had the most wonderful, productive summer but we've seen our inquiries and bookings completely disappear as of a month ago, so we've been looking at everything we could have done to have brought this on. We most certainly do decline inquiries if there has been back & forth conversation between both the prospective guest & us and we're not willing to be low balled, or allow big parties, or increase the number of guests allowed. If that has hurt us, I'm just not sure what we are supposed to do