I don't know how to get this message to the right person, but I BEG you to offer more options under House Rules > Suitable for Pets. Currently there are only 2 options: YES or NO.
This is causing huge problems for me as a host. I accept *small* dogs and non-oily, non-shedding dogs. If I say "NO pets," people who search with the pet filter on won't see my property and I won't get bookings from the many people with dogs I DO accept. If I say "YES" to pets, then I get people with large dogs I do not want to accept and then I have to decline or cancel, which negatively affects my ranking in search results.
So I have left it as "Not Set" and CLEARLY state in my House Rules:
"No pets unless approved prior to rental (please message me PRIOR to booking if you would like to bring a pet)."
But this doesn't solve the problem either, because people will Instant Book and send a message "Oh, BTW is it OK if I bring my two dogs?" I always respond **immediately** and ask what breed and size, but then people don't get back to me within 24 hours, so I am left in limbo. And not selecting either Accept or Decline causes the request to time out, which is then considered by Airbnb as a "Decline."
This is a serious problem that is negatively affecting my Acceptance rate and thus has caused my listing to appear lower in the search results.
My lower Acceptance rate also apparently caused my Instant Book to be *disabled* even though I have it enabled (when I look at my Dashboard settings it is ON, but for guests it is OFF and they can't Instant Book). There are whole discussions about this problem in the Community Forums.
Again, this causes my listing to be lower in the search results even though I have 100% positive 5-star ratings.
Allowing an option "Suitable for SOME pets - please contact host prior to booking" would prevent hosts like me from being penalized when we get continual requests from people who don't take the time to read the House Rules.
Thank you!
