What are the reasons as a host to reject booking requests

[Mike1034]

Dear Hosts,

Airbnb inclines to encourage hosts to accept all booking requests. I am curious to know the reasons a booking request is declined by hosts. Here is only for declining a request not for cancellation. I listed a few reasons below

1. Request from a guest with bad reviews

2. Request from a guest with no reviews

3. Request from a guest who ask for something beyond your listing

(1) early checkin or late checkout 

(2) additional amenity not listed in your listing.

(3) extra parking space.

(4) extra person 

(5) Others

4. Booking for some family members or friends

5. Request does not come at a right time. e.g. when you are doing listing update

6. The booking period range. e.g. a request just books weekend 2-3 days, or a request is longer than certain days or shorter than certain days. But they still falls between the minimum and maximum you set up.

7. The booking request may leave one or two day gap between other existing confirmed reservations.

8.  Booking from a guest with no photo

9. Booking from a guest with no verified government ID

10. Booking from a Airbnb host

..,

I do not list the reasons with nationality, ethnic groups, age, sex etc human rights related because those are prohibited.

If you have other reasons, please list there and let us know. I understand that some hosts may not like this topic. But this is faced by all hosts frequently especially those hosts without instant booking turned on.

[Rachel177]

@Mike1034 I've had IB turned on for the last 2 years so rarely get booking requests. The ones I do get are newbies with no reviews & those with thumbs down so they can't use IB. 

I don't decline guests without prior reviews, everyone has to start somewhere. I do read them the riot act about my house rules & my expectations and get them to agree via airbnb messenger before I accept the booking. The guests with poor reviews I check why. If it is a group booking is the poor one & the rest of the reviews are ok then I'll accept (after reading them riot act). If the poor reviews are just for them then I'm likely to decline.

In my early days pre-IB I declined a few bookings & these were the reasons.

1. Third party booking requests (these still come through on occasion via IB but I get them cancelled)

2. The person contacting me made me feel very uncomfortable. He messaged saying he was looking forward to his stay & wanted to go out for a drink with me. As a female host that's a huge red flag.

3. Poor communication. No information or photo on their profile (this was in the days when you could see the photo before booking) & not willing to give me any info on why they were coming to Melbourne & wanting to stay with me.

[Helen3]

Hi @Mike1034 

Surely different hosts will decline for different reasons depending on the type of property, their inclination and their house rules.

Mine are simple, I don't accept

1. Guests who don't meet my house rules

2. Guests who don't meet Airbnb's T&Cs

I don't care whether a guest is new to Airbnb and has no reviews - about 60% of my guests are in this position. I will sometimes offer an early or late check out if it suits me.

I don't care if a guest is a host.

I have my listing set so I only accept guests with profile photos and with government ID so this isn't an issue for me.

[Linda108]

Actually, @Mike1034 , I like this posting because I think it is at the heart of many hosts' dissatisfaction with the Air BNB platform.  Hosts want to have maximum control over guest reservations for safety and damage control with a wide range of what each host considers important.  Meanwhile, this platform is attempting to provide a one size fits all design.  Obviously the shared home environment requirements are very different than the hotel environment requirements.

In my case, most of your list would apply, but I seldom experience reservation requests with problems.  I do have IB which has worked for me.  If a guest is unresponsive or not forth coming to my first message in response to the request in which I review the basics of the listing, I will decline.  

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

1. Request from a guest with bad reviews

...

3. Request from a guest who ask for something beyond your listing

4. Booking for some family members or friends

...

[Mark116]

@Mike1034 

The only reason we really decline a request is if the timing for what guests are asking for, e.g. an early check-in or very late check-out is not possible and guests don't cancel on their own.  We do sometimes try to discourage guests from booking if there is a sense of potential problems based on their communications, either a lack of general information, lack of any information on their profile, a sense they will be super high maintenance or that they are focused on issues such as parking that are likely to be unsatisfactory for them.  We have accepted before guests with negative reviews and have a lot of guests w/no reviews.  In fact, reviews are not much of a guideline because some of our worst, most entitled guests have come with a long list of positive reviews.

[Ann489]

@Mike1034  is this post somehow related to your other post about having been delined a booking in Anaheim?    😉

As far as your question is concerned:  I pay attention to how the potential guest communicates.  Aside from all those things that were mentioned above by others, I usually go by my "gut feeling".     I don't buy into Airbnb's pressure to accept every reservation that comes my way; I want my guest to be a good fit for my property.  If I don't think they are, then I won't accept.  Simple.