Need advice please

[David6]

A guest has stayed 3 times. Each stay, he’s messaged prior to booking to ask for a discount. As he had a set budget from his ‘company.’ Each booking been ok. I just don’t like the guy. 

Each occasion, I’ve kind of been okish with going with his offer at its £15 or so. Last week he messaged requesting a much larger discount for 3 nights .

I actually told him, I didn’t appreciate his bartering approach and refused his offer as it was £45 lower than list rate. I also declined his enquiry. 

Tonight he’s just booked anyway for exact same dates. I thought by ‘declining’ he would not be able to do this? 

i really do not want to host this guy. I don’t like his approach and I’m sure he’s going to get his ‘revenge’ with a scathing review, haha Any advice appreciated! I haven’t contacted CS yet... 

[Sarah977]

@David6  You just declined his Inquiry (I wouldn't do that anymore, if I were you, as declines count against you- Inquiries don't need to be either Pre-approved or Declined- just messaging back is all that's required)- that doesn't prevent him from either sending a Booking Request or Instant Booking.

[Yadira22]

@Sarah977 

Unfortunately this is not correct. When an enquiry comes through, responding to the message Is not enough. You need to decline/ pre approve- I did this once and my response rate was affected. 

@David6 please just block him after this stay. If you feel uncomfortable you can call Airbnb and explain this and they will cancel the reservation penalty free (as you probably already know). 

To block you need to select the flag on one of the messages on the website shared with said guest. The system would prompt you to select option such as inappropriate behaviour- you can say something like guest is ok or whatever but his approach to request discounts is very forceful and makes me uncomfortable. If done on google chrome and on a desktop the next screen would ask you “would you like to block this guest” and select “yes”. Thank you! 🙂

[Sarah977]

@Yadira22  This has been talked about many times, in many threads on the forum, and @Lizzie , the moderator, confirmed maybe a year back, that a simple response is all that's necessary on an Inquiry so as not to incur any penalties. Maybe she could confirm that again, or let us know if that's changed?

[Yadira22]

Oh yes please Lizzie (sorry can’t tag you)- thank you both ( @Sarah977 xx). 

[Sarah977]

@Yadira22  If someone's name doesn't come up in the box, just type their name in your post, after hitting the @- a list of users with that name will come up and you can click on the correct one. That's how I tagged Lizzie here. Occasionally a name doesn't come up, but mostly the new system seems to be working pretty well.

[Ange2]

@Yadira22    That is not what is written in the article. It says  a message suffices  as a response if it's an enquiry but it must be within 24 hours.  I always  refresh the page to check the clock has stopped ticking to make sure it has been recorded properly, sometimes I have to redo it until the clock does stop ticking - Airbnb has a slow server.   But having said that I have been penalized for a message only response to an enquiry - I was told it was  a glitch!

Improving response rate

1. Accept or decline reservation requests
2. Pre-approve or decline trip requests
3. Reply to new inquiries from guests

[Ange2]

delete duplicate

[Yadira22]

Thank you @Sarah977 tried doing that before and no luck (probably a small tech bug in their system) 

@Ange2 thank you for this! Will try it out when the opportunity presents itself. 🙂

[Helen3]

Hi @David6 

If you didn't want repeat business from this guest you should have just blocked him, so he couldn't book with you again.

Declining an inquiry doesn't stop someone from booking with you.

[David6]

@Helen3  Travelling at moment and only using the phone app. I flagged his profile (thinking this was a block) as can’t see the actual block option on my phone.

And mistakingly  i was under impression declining  a request for certain dates would not allow them to  book for those exact same dates. My mistake. Anyway luckily CS supported me and the guest is cancelled. 

[Helen3]

Hi @David6 

Glad Airbnb supported you on this.

No, flagging the profile doesn't block the guest, you need to go in and actually block them. Airbnb can do this for you too.

[David6]

@Helen3 Thank you. I really should know these things after years of hosting, haha

[David6]

Phoned CS. Answered within 5 rings and the agent listened, offered empathy and cancelled the booking  penalty free. Also advised me to block this guest as she could read his ‘requests’ to cut my rates & agreed it would be uncomfortable to host him after these previous interactions. 

[Rowena29]

Hi @David6 

So glad CS supported you on this

I've had plenty of frustrating experiences with Cs - as I know you have - BUT when I was a very new host I rang CS abut feeling uncomfortable re a guest and their service was nothing less than superlative.

 cancelled the guest for me penalty free.

The only (very significant) downside was   a well known glitch in the system was then caused me to lose IB because of the cancellation.  Happened to quite a lot of other hosts at the same time.  CS not remotely interested in helping that time - was gone for 4 weeks.  Just giving you the heads up - because on my settings IB showed as active, but for guests it was not available, so it took me sometime to realise what was happening..... Hopefully they've fixed the gremlin!