Instant booking

[Robin527]

Very frustrated. Have a wonderful guest who wants to extend stay. Thought I had freedom to turn down any bookings while waiting on him to book the extended days. Got a booking I did not pre-approve and see that, were I to cancel,  not only would we get a 100- dollar penalty and some other negative consequences, but I could not book my present guest anyway because the days would be blocked out. We are much more comfortable with this current guest than the unknown. This seems unfair - this is our home. 

[Paul1255]

Hi @Robin527  I hope you are well!

If you have instant book enabled, then anyone who meets your requirements can book your place instantly if you have dates open.

I use instant book too, if I have a guest who might want to extend or stay longer, I block those dates in my calendar and then open them when they have decided to book or not to take them- so in the meantime no one else can jump in and take them.

You're right, if you cancel from your side you'll get financial and other penalties and your original guest won't be able to book the dates anyway.

Best wishes

Paul.

[Robin527]

Thanks, Paul. After it happened, I added govt. ID to my requirements and dis-enabled instant booking so potential guests would need to message me first. I should possibly turn the instant booking back on though since it might slow down business. I think the govt. ID requirement will help with safety. Wanted to ask for host reviews too, but some guests might be new to airbnb, and airbnb sends those reviews anyway. 

[Paul1255]

You're welcome @Robin527 

It depends where you are as to how much not using instant book will affect your bookings.

I am in London, England and there are so many listings as so much competition I have to have it on!

When I was new to hosting I had very loose requirements- I didn't bother with ID, previous reviews and so on as I wanted to get guests in to build my reviews and listings, after I did that I tightened up my settings and became more careful...not that I have had a single issue with any of my own guests so far!

I don't mind guests who are new to Airbnb (I was a new host once, and guests took a chance on my listing with no reviews)

The way a lot of hosts review guests often make reviews not that helpful with deciding if a guest will be good or not anyway, so I am happy to take a chance.