Instant book for long term reservation

[Lara276]

I was under the impression with long term reservations that Instant book is not possible regardless of your setting, yet a guest Instant booked my place for 48 days. I wanted to keep Instant book on my listing even though I am only renting for 30 days or more (due to my home owners insurance restrictions - a separate question) because the info I see when I try to turn Instant Booking off is that not having Instant Book will cause my listing to not show up in searches as advantageously. Which seems a little messed up to me but at any rate I wasn't worried about it because I was told by a customer service agent that I didn't need to worry about being able to choose who I book because with long term Instant Book is impossible. Apparently that is not true as a guest was able to Instant Book a long term stay. Then she tried to cancel within 48 hours which my listing indicates she can but couldn't because of long term stay cancellation policy.  I wouldn't have approved her to book to start with had she requested because she only had one iffy review and didn't review her one host. (or apparently she had one host she may have had more she didn't review). At any rate if anyone has insights into this let me know and yes I will contact customer service when I have time. 

Thanks in advance for any insights.

[Lara276]

I was informed by a customer service rep that Instant Book is in effect for a long term stay if in settings one has included a max # of days for the stay. After that (few days later) a case worker told me that I had previously been misinformed that Instant Book is not disabled for long term reservations at all and it has nothing to do with the minimum or max. Has anyone else received conflicting information regarding Instant Booking on long term stays?

[Emiel1]

@Lara276 

The 48 hours "free cancelation" period is part of the "strict with grace period" cancellation policy attached to your listing. But for a stay longer then 27 nights   the "long term stay"cancellation policy is automatically applied. The Airbnb help says (quoted):

"Trip length: Avoid reservations that are too long or short by setting your minimum and maximum night stays. If you don't set a maximum number of nights, we'll automatically apply a 14-night maximum stay to your listing."

See:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/484/how-can-i-control-which-reservations-i-get-with-instant-book

Long term stay reservations offcourse are only possible if your settings allow this: max. stay option set above 27 nights or min. stay set from 28 nights on. I personally would never use Instant Book for long term reservations only. Please note it is mandatory to have a monthly discount applied in the listing to show up in searches  for long term stay (27 nights and more).

If you are unhappy with the recent reservation, call Airbnb, maybe they can cancel penalty free for you and the guest, also as a result of receiving conflicting information from CS:

Contact Airbnb - Community Guide [Updated]

Best regards,

Emiel

[Lara276]

Thank you so much Emiel for responding. I did figure out from this experience that Instant Booking is not a good idea for me.  So I turned it off. Just interesting to me that I got conflicting information from customer service. At any rate, I want to have control over who is going to be in my home for that long for sure that was always my intention. I'm not sure I wouldn't want that control even for short term stays under my circumstances. Luckily the guest who Instant Booked ending up canceling as I allowed her to get a refund. She realized she had made a mistake booking it and wanted to cancel but then for 36 hours beyond the 48 hours she was waffling and by then I wanted her to cancel for various reasons but I was fearful of canceling her after reading a lot about that. But I was able to give her a deadline to get a refund and she canceled. Customer Service was very helpful orchestrating that - it was all done through a case worker. I wonder how often guests Instant Book impulsively and the listing isn't really right for them?

I do have a monthly discount for my listing. Good to know that is actually mandatory to show up in the searches - that I didn't know. 

Thanks so much for the information. I am finding the host insights a most valuable resource. 

Best, Lara

[Sarah977]

@Lara276  Completely conflicting information is pretty par for the course for Airbnb CS.

[Lara276]

@Sarah977 I'm starting to get that impression. 

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Lara276 

If you have IB on, then guests can IB any length of stay as long as it is within your set min/max requirements. 

Also.... i'm not sure but I am under the impression that long-term bookings do not have the 48hr free cancellation window available to guests. Do you happen to have any documentation regarding this? I'd appreciate if you could share if you do. Thanks!

[Lara276]

Hello @Jessica-and-Henry0  I don't know that I have documentation per se but all I know is my guest was unable to cancel within the 48 hours even though I had selected that policy so apparently with a long term stay that is over-ridden by the long term stay policy. But to me this is confusing to guests since the listing indicates 48 hour window even with a minimum 28 day stay so as a guest it would be natural to think you could cancel in that window. Not sure how Airbnb could fix that but it does seem misleading to guests.