Instant Book cancelation

[Robyn55]

I am a relatively new host and was not aware of the Instant booking rules and that it was active on my listing. I have had someone book dates which are not available for arrival and have to date always received a request to accept or decline. On this particular enquiry booking was automatic and now we have a situation where the booking that came in before this one cant be accpeted. I canceled the Instant Booking, and explained to the potential guests, all is resolved but now those dates are blocked. I tried educating myself on this a bit more and found out you get 1 grace cancelation for Instant Bookings. Can anyone tell me how I go about getting those dates unblocked, so I can accept the booking that came in first?

[Carmen23]

First you must remove the "Instant Booking Option" in this way you only accept the ones you want.

The booking that came in first (if it was a confirmed booking) gives you the guest's phone number

Phone and explain that you are accepting their booking.

I am afraid only Airbnb can unblocked your Calendar (They are rather slow about it) Contact them.

Instant bookings can their pros and cons. I have them on all my ads ONLY because I have 4 bedrooms available.

I check with them if they can accept a different bedroom should the one they booked is occupied.  I had no problem with this, guests don't mind.

[Carolyn5]

You can message the double booked guest and explain what happened, then ask them to cancel and possibly rebook another date. I would offer a  compensating discount if they do choose another date - it's not their fault Instant Book did this. I don't use IB because there are too many reasons against it, but it is your choice. Disable Instant Book by logging in and choosing Host, Manage Listings, Calendar & More, Booking (from Drop Down menu on left) then select last option requiring your response to request. Red icon will turn gray (indicating IB is off) after 24 hours. If IB is enabled dates are blocked with a "verification pending" message you can't unblock those dates should guests cancel. Only Air BnB can do this.

Cheers,

Carolyn

[Robyn55]

Hi Carol

Thank you so much for your reply and for your suggestions. I will try doing so.

Kind regards

Robyn

[Helen3]

@Robyn55 you might want to 'snooze' your listing while you learn how BNB works as it sounds like you haven't read through the information they provide.

Turn Instant Booking off on your listing so you have the chance to chat to guests to ensure a good fit before confirming a booking.

I am not sure what you mean in your post. If you had a confirmed booking, no-one could have come along on instant book and made a booking that over-rode your an earlier booking.

What is more likely to have happened is that you had an inquiry which wasn't a confirmed booking and in the meantime because you had Instant Book turned on (and hadn't read up about what that meant) someone else came along and made a booking for the same time frame.

Call BNB (search on the forums if you don't have details) and tell them what has happened and see if they will lift the cancellation ban you have received (you also need to read up on what happens if you cancel a booking).

[Em4]

@Robyn55

A cancelation results in an autoreview and blocked calendar dates.  Both can be removed by BNB, although they reserve the right to be persuaded first.  Its obvious you've made a rookie mistake rather than accepted a reservation, allowed 50 days to pass then canceled.

Just to clarify, re IB, currently you get 3x cancelations before being penalised financially as well.

More details you can find at this thread:

https://community.airbnb.com/t5/New-Hosts/Unfairly-penalised-not-just-by-a-public-automated-post-but...