Reservation request expiration

[Jeff57]

I had a reservation request and was out of town, so couldn't check my planner. I responded to the request within hours telling the potential guest that I would get back to him when I got home the next day. He was ok with that, and as soon as I got home and checked my schedule, I accepted the request. Yet airbnb is knocking down my response rate because I did not accept or decline within 24 hrs. I would consider my communication to have been a responsible response. The guest knew what was happening and was fine with it. This is completly different than not responding at all, which is how it appears to other potential guests. How can I resolve this?

I couldn't find any place on the airbnb site to address this situation.

Thanks for your help,

Jeff [surname removed]

[Pascale46]

Jeff, I have been searching around trying to find a resolution to exactly the same problem. I asked the possible a guest a few questions and was waiting for her response to see whether the rental was a mutually good fit. She replied 3 hours after I received the message about my request expiring. She did end up booking and I was waiting on her, yet it seems like I am getting knocked down for a poor response time. I am confused too and have no idea how to change this. I am going to call unless someone else on here knows how to resolve the problem. I am sure it is common.

Thanks for posting and I will wait along with you.

Pascale

[Heather78]

Yes I agreed. I found my super host had been taken away even though I have got 5 stars reviews but I just respond by message straight away and didn't realise I had to 'accept or decline '. Impossible to contact Airbnb to ask why ... Very frustrating!

[Elaine-and-Duane0]

 As long as you respond within 24 hr your response rate will not be  affected. Airbnb keeps sending emails to accept or decline, which is annoying and misleading. You responded so you should be good to go. I called Airbnb about this last month. I felt as you do, that I had to accept or decline. It should say, accept, decline or respond. 

[Rick86]

I need support help as a host from airbnb.  Does anyone have a number I can call?

[Alisa6]

I recently had a simular problem, a quest made a request on what looked to be on friday for 6 people, but I never recieved the email from airbnd until Sunday morning...totally missing my chance to make the deal..don't know what else to do. I just let the quest know about the problem and excused myself for the airbnd problem..

[Taryn4]

I agree- I accepted a host without fully vetting them (because I became fearful of my rating). I had a weird feeling but had no real reason to mistrust (they had a good review and were verified). After I accepted and they started to be really needy about check in times, has extra guests that they didn't list in booking (had to send them a price change). Long story short- They damaged my house (ruined rugs, blood on wall and bedding), smoked inside (not just tobacco!), left the durgs on the counters, vomited all over toilet and towels, ground chewing gum into chessboard. They contacted me every night at 10pm to tell me they had a problem (many were unable to be proven). 

Still waiting for AirBnB Resolution to call me back (after 3 calls to them and as many emails). I'm hopeful they'll take care of me but i feel we all could have maybe avoided some of this if I maybe had more time to ask questions and wasn't so fearful of my ratings or forced to accept or decline immediately.  

[Tina63]

I raised the exact same question months ago with Airbnb; nothing has changed. Unless you accept or decline your response time IS affected. It's the hard sell from Airbnb; nail the booking within 24 hours or move on. SELL SELL SELL! What is frustrating is that the host might have responded to the initial enquiry and entered into a conversation with the potential guest (which Airbnb incidentally encourage you to engage the enquirer) but the host is then penalised if the enquirer doesn't reply within the 24 hr window.

[Nicholas42]

I initially sent two messages to the requester about having him upload a gov ID and then also asking him of his arrival details, of which he didn't respond and then 24 hours came up, during which time there were three messages about asking me I needed to respond. I thought I was, but then after the 24 hours I got a message from AirBnB that the next time I don't respond I would have a penalty of having the request period blocked for a week. Really pissed. I did respond. I just didn't accept or decline, because I was waiting for the the requester to respond to me. Or should I have had to monitor it for 24 hours to see if the requester responded before I declined it in the end? Frustrating and pissed off. Dunno where to direct this to.