penalized for for cancelling instant booking whilst waiting on pre-approved specail offer

[Rhalda0]

I have Pre-approved a guest who wanted to book for 6 days and asked to add more guests.I send her a Special offer.

Then suddenly I get an Instant booking for 3 days in the middle of these 6 days. It all happened very fast. So I cancelled immediately, and offered them another date . Then I noticed  that the Pre-approved  person was trying to write to me. This communication  between us was overnight and she responded long before the 24 hours was up.

Airbnb cancelled the instant booking and blocked the dates as penalty. Oh and took away my Super host staus!!

Its the first time that I cancelled. And i did so as soon as the booking came through, and the person was quite happy with my explanation.

Now not only did I loose a 6 day booking , I am loosing , not only the 3 blocked days ,but also all the other dates around it beacause the gaps in between are too short.

Perhaps Airbnb can hold back Instant bookings when there is a Pre-Appved booking, just for the 24 hours that they are given to reply.

I feel really robbed ,and I was really relying on this much needed income. 

Please help.

Rhalda

[Sarah977 · Accepted solution]

@Rhalda0  An Instant Book will always take precedence over the Inquiry or Booking request. I don't use IB, so don't know all the ins and outs of it, but if you have a legitimate reason for cancelling, you should always contact Airbnb to do it for you, and assure you there won't be penalties, like blocking the dates, which they always do if a host cancels on their own. 

There is a feature that you can click on when you've pre-approved an Inquiry- there's a block dates button in the pre-approve/decline box above the message stream with the guest. That will make those dates unavailable on your calendar for anyone else to book, and if the Inquiring Guest decides not to book, they will open up again on their own once the 24 hours has passed. There may be a way to unblock them before then, but I don't know it.

You should call airbnb and explain what happened, and that the guest who sent the Inquiry does indeed want to book- plead confusion and they may open those dates for the Special Offer guest.

[Rhalda0]

Thank you Sarah. Your answer is very helpfull. I do not like the Instant Bookings ,especially if one has more that 3 days to host.

[Sarah977]

@Rhalda0 I've been hosting for 2 years and I've never used Instant Book- I want to know something about the guests who will be sharing my personal home. I know I'd get more bookings if I used it, but I'd also have more problems- all my guests have been great, almost zero issues. And I'm not intent on making as much $ as possible from hosting. I'd rather have less guests, but ones who are a good fit for me and my place.

I hope you can work this little issue out with Airbnb.

[Rhalda0]

i totally agree, thank you for that.Airbnb push for it so much that i eventually gave in and my very first experience with it is so bad.

[Helen3]

@Rhalda0

Oh dear,  what a mess, it seems that even though you were a superhost you are still not that familiar with the basics around how Airbnb works.

1. You chose to have instant book turned on - that means anyone can book if your calendar is open

2. If you were negotiating with your first set of guests you could have easily pre-approved their booking and used the tick box on the pre-approvals to block out these date so no-one else could book the dates - you chose not to

3. Then you (not Airbnb)  cancelled guest 2,  who had instant booked. Surely as a super-host you know that hosts have penalties imposed on them for cancelling the bookings??  It even tells you this as you go to cancel the booking. You should have honoured the second booking as you hadn't blocked out the dates in your calendar and informed the first guest that someone else had booked while she was deciding whether she wanted to stay.

In answer to the point you raised. Airbnb do offer you the option to block your calendar for 24 hours where you have pre-approved a booking. You just unfortunately didn't exercise this option.

I am sorry this happened to you, but you do need to take some responsibiltiy for not being up to speed with the basics around how Airbnb works.

Why not wonder over to Airbnb Help Centre and read through their Q&As and also the useful guides and tutorials on these forums.

[Cor3]

Hi @Helen3,

As far as I know: The option to block the calendar on a Pre-Approval is only present in the App.

Not on the Website 😞

[Helen3]

Sorry @Cor3 that's not true I have used it at least three times in the last year to block out dates for pre-approvals using my laptop.

[Sandra856]

Me too 🙂 

[Rhalda0]

Hi Helen, Thank you for you message.

The instant booking is new to me and yes , it happened so fast, I panicked, in stead of first reading all and making sure I understand all. There are various other ways I could have handled it.

Ignorance is no excuse. 

I did not how ever see the tick box, and did another Pre-approved today and still have not found it.

Thanks to all for all your helpful comments!

[Sarah977]

@Cor3  I've never used the feature, but I know I've seen it there on the desktop version. I don't even use the app at all.

[Cor3]

Hi @Helen3, @Sarah977,

It could very well be you are both right.

I hardly ever use Pre-Approval (As they can always book me via IB).

So I used it only twice in about the last 6 months or so (1 from the desktop and 1 from the app).

In the App, I was explicitely asked for this (recently).

And I don't recall having it seen, on the desktop.

As stated before, I could be wrong though.

[Sarah977]

@Cor3 On desktop version, I recall it appears in the Pre-approve/ Decline box above the Inquiry message, but one doesn't get prompted for it, as you say you did on the app. 

I get mostly Inquiries before the Bookings (don't use IB at all), so I'll pay attention to where it is on the next Inquiry.

[Cor3]

Hi @Sarah977,

Please do! As I really didn't see it (So I must have overlooked it or something. And I really did try to pay attention. As I read something about this, just before I send out that pre-approval).

When I did send a Pre-Approval (about a week ago), I got an intermediate screen (In the App), explicitely asking me for this.

[Sarah977]

@Cor3 So I got an Inquiry yesterday (which resulted in a booking, yah!) and looked for somewhere it would allow me to block the dates (she still had to book her flight before committing to the dates) and no, I couldn't find anything that would allow me to do that. I know for sure I've seen it before, because I remember not wanting to do it in case the Inquiry came to nothing and I got a Booking Request in the meantime, so it seems they've removed this option. I'm going to send a message to CS after the holidays asking about this.