Same day booking - significant system problem

[Scott1066]

I am a Superhost with a 5 star rating that ALWAYS responds to inquires and reservation requests within minutes. I have never not responded within 24 hours. 

We have also elected to not accept same day bookings, but we do allow guests to inquire in case the home is available same day. 

The other night we received a booking request at 11:00pm for that night and the next. I responded within minutes to confirm if the dates were in fact correct in wanting to book that night. At 11:45pm, the guest responded and confirmed they did in fact want to book that evening. 

I wrote them back right away and advised that we couldn't have the home ready that quickly and that they were welcome to book in the next day after 4pm.

The guest responded and told me no problem and that they will find an alternate. 

Shortly after midnight I tried to go in and decline the guest and wasn't able to. If I clicked (Approve/Decline) the next screen stated "Not Possible". I assume because it was after midnight and you can't approve or decline a booking from the day before. 

The next day I received reminders to respond within 24 hours. I tried again to decline the booking and I got the same message 'Not Possible"

I looked up Help on the subject "Not Possible" and it states that as a Host I have nothing to do and that Airbnb will let the guest know that the booking is not possible. 

After the 24 hours expired, I received a nasty email from Airbnb stating:

-I am required to respond within 24 hours

-Reminding me of the importance of guests being able to finalize their plans within 24 hours

-That I am being penalized for my poor response time and my listing is being negatively impacted

-If i do it again, airbnb is going to block up to a week in my booking calendar.

Oh, and they sent me a video on how I can be a better host

I called Airbnd and the agent had no clue and told me that because my account is otherwise  in good standing, this issue won't effect my rating all that much. I couldn't believe it. I then asked for a supervisor to call me.

A supervisor called me and again confirmed my account has been negatively impacted and offered me ways that I could improve my hosting. I couildn't beleive it. 

I have now asked for a manager to call me. I am going to go nuts here. If it is ok for Airbnb to threaten me with blocking a week if this happens again, I will be asking for the same from Airbnb. 

There is clearly an issue with the system with late same day bookings that needs to be resolved or this is just going to happen again. 

[Yadira22]

@Scott1066 

I feel you on this one- it so annoying.

in this cases I would have asked the guest to remove their request and say that this would help in avoiding their card being charged and then sent them an updated reservation offer.

I would also suggest you implement a cut off time for same day reservations- this has helped us in avoiding this situation.

Good luck to you! 🙂

[Scott1066]

Thank you. 

[Scott1066]

If Airbnb can’t resolve this within their system, I’ll remove the option for guests to even inquire about same day bookings and I’ll list the house on another additional site with the option to inquire about same day booking. That way, the option will still exist and Airbnb can now share all my rental business with a competitor rather then have it solely. 

Nothing like running a billion dollar company on a Commodore 64. Honestly? This isn’t rocket science..it should be as simple as a code change given the system was intelligent enough to know that the booking was ‘not possible’ after midnight. The booking systems and the response system are clearly not coordinating and as a result, coughing out unfair penalty’s. 

One interesting point: Had I been able to host them, I still had no way to approve the booking. The booking was doomed either way due to the late hour of one day changing to the next T midnight. 

[Andrea-and-Francis0]

We have a cut off as well for same day bookings up until 9pm. This prevents guests trying to book & check-in last minute or late at night when we are sleeping & has worked well for us.

[Scott1066]

Thank you, I have made that change, despite it being a bandage fix for an Airbnb coding problem.

The issue being, if I use a 9pm cut-off, I only have 2 hours and 59 minutes to respond and decline or approve them and not 24 hours as the system is supposed to allow for. I will again be back in the same boat as 'Not Possible' will pop back up when trying to respond after midnight or the next morning, despite being within the 24 hours timeline to respond.

This suggestion might help reduce this problem if I am able to act quickly, but its certainly no fix. 

[Morten42]

Hi, here is the instruction what to do in situations like yours if you need to accept or decline a request after midnight https://airbnbase.com/how-to-approve-a-reservation-request-after-midnight/