i just had a very long conversation with airbnb support (for the 3rd time) about why my listing isn't showing up on the map. she finally figured out that airbnb had turned off my automatic booking settings so that people had to send me an inquiry first. first of all, airbnb never told me they did this. and 2ndly, when i check my settings, it says it is turned on. isn't this fraudulent that it says it is turned on but behind the scenes airbnb has it off??
i asked her to turn it back on and she says she can't. they have automated weekly checks and if host response time improves, based on how quickly inquiries are answered, they turn it back on. how am i supposed to get inquiries if my listing isn't even showing on the map? my response time has been great right from the start, and i just became a superhost 3 days ago so this makes absolutely no sense to me.
it all started a few months ago and it seems this is the new way of punishing hosts in case they cancel the booking (even with help of Airbnb CS and for a legit reason ), for declining too much booking requests (God knows what they consider as "too much" or if they don't respond quickly on every inquiry and request (again "quickly" is of course very relative )
Some hosts who had their instant booking settings turned off, reported they got it back in a 3-4 weeks.