I have instant book on my Airbnb listings mainly for a convenience to guests who are caught off guard and need a place to stay. Perhaps their flight is cancelled, car trouble etc. I’ve always felt comfortable providing the feature and it’s been a win-win up until a week ago. I had a guest book 15 minutes before the cut off time for a stay. By the time I saw the booking it had been half an hour since the guest booked and left a message, “I will be there in 10 minutes”. I quickly looked up the guest’s previous reviews and was horrified that they had stolen items, damaged property, started fights, and police were called. The guest lives in the same city I host so another red flag went up. I called the guest-no answer. I messaged the guest-no response. I called Airbnb and luckily they were able to cancel the reservation because I was uncomfortable with a number of previous bad reviews. I made my way to the property to ensure the guest had left and change the door codes and lock the windows. The guest managed to dirty the towels, steal some lost and found items, and use up supplies. I was still relieved that I hadn’t had any major damage or theft by the guest. Although the guest had plenty of negative reviews they also had some positive reviews. This allowed them to instant book even with the additional requirements of government issued ID and recommendation from other hosts. I’m worried it could happen again in the future and would like to see the instant book feature taken away from guests with a terrible track record. To top it off, the guest left me the worst review possible and my 5 star has dropped to a 4 and half. The review is unfair, and states I discriminated against the guest. I’ve reported it to Airbnb to have the review removed and am hoping that it will be, but in the meantime I’m left with an abnormally low rating and potentially bad algorithm? When I phoned to report the review it got upgraded to another Airbnb representative because of the discrimination comment. Also it looks negative on my reviews and I don’t want the discrimination accusation stopping other great guests from booking with me. Is there anything I can do moving forward to stop a guest like this from instant booking?
