Reservation policies and timing

[Gil-Joyce0]

Good day

I'm trying to find out the options/preferences.  I have instant booking on now, but we want to have the option to review the booking before approval in case we are unable to confirm the booking as we are sometimes off island and may not see our emails right away and therefore make arrangements with our adult children to recieve the guests if needed - which may take a day or so.  Therefore we wanted to posisbly have the flexibility to accept or decline the reservation if we are unable to work things out - in case we are not on island.  However I see that we we turn off instant booking there is a penalty for canceling a reservation, and we only have 24 hours to respond.  With instant booking  - is there a penalty for cancelling in case we needed to? as I didn't readily see information in that regard? What's the best option?

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Gil-Joyce0

don't ever cancel reservation on Airbnb bc you will be penalized with blocked dates, f50-100$ fee, automated review and you will lose the superhost status for a year. your search position can also be affected.

If you have very good reasons for cancellation without penalty then you should contact Airbnb and ask them to cancel for you. It could be illnes or natural disaster or other extenuating circumstances or.... if you have instant booking turned on, if your guest doesn't respond to your messages , are rude or intend to break your house rules.

If you can not plan long time in advance you can open your calendar for next 3 or 6 months only. Or even less but then you have to block/unblock it manually. While your calendar is open for bookings , instant or not, you should be in wifi zone, able to receive notifications and answer to messages. 

[Clare0]

@Gil-Joyce0 If you have Instant Book turned on, you will not have the opportunity to accept / decline reservations UNLESS you have set the requirements for Government ID and previous positive reviews from hosts.  When a guest does not meet these requirements, a guest can still send you a Reservation Request where you can decide whether or not to accept.  

When you are not able to host, or suspect you are not able to host, you should indicate how far in advance someone can book.  So if you need a day or so to determine if you are available set the the advance section to 2 or 3 days.  Airbnb presumes that you can host for all the days available on your calendar.  

These links should help you with the Instant Book settings: 

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/523/what-is-instant-book

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

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2022/how-do-penalty-free-cancellations-work-for-instant-book-hos...

Hope this helps to figure things out!