Any facing same problem with instant book not working

[Cl4]

My listing is under request to book instead of instant Book 8 days already and contact Airbnb support team few times , but no one can help me this problem , anyone face the same problem and solve it ? 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Cl4

check your setting, maybe you accidently turned it off. If not than maybe you cancelled some bookings lately? Or didn't timely respond to the booking request? It seems this is new way of punishing hosts who do that

[Cl4]

Hi Branka thanks for replied , I'm sure I've turn on the instant book , I cancelled a booking 2 weeks before and already called to Airbnb to solve it since I'm new to host .

The first week I publish my listing , my Airbnb was fully booked at the first week,but after that I didn't received any new booking and empty for 5-7 days.

one day , I received a inquiry to book my place , I just realize my listing is under request to book instead of book .

I tried to contact Airbnb support team , they tould me airbnb is running a new rules I need to observed 7 days period and my listing will become instant book .

But now is already passed 7 days and my listing still not become instant book.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Cl4

yes, Airbnb is very quick to turn it off but then they forget to turn it on again. Be perisistant and contact them every day until they do it. Someone posted that it took them few weeks to turn IB again and not before he contacted CEO .

And btw they never informed us about this new punishment measures, we just find it out by ourselves here on forum.

[Sarah-And-Tom0]

 Hi Branka, I'm just wondering if you could explain a bit more about these "new punishment measures". We haven't heard anything about it but have noticed that our instant book is not working at the moment and co-incidentally we recently cancelled an instant booking where we were not comfortable with the guest.

[Adam58]

Did this ever get fixed? I am going on 6 weeks without my instant book turned on. I had an electrical outage that cost me $8k to fix and I cancelled a weeks of bookings because of it. I am a SuperHost with 5 properties and over 300 reviews. Have never cancelled before.

[Sarah-And-Tom0]

Not yet.  We were on the phone to them again this morning - 4th call.  We received a booking last night that came via an enquiry so we know it doesnt work.

What really annoys us most is that our cancellation was done in conjunction with Airbnb and they agreed that the guest was dodgy.  Then in the backgorund they turn off our Instant book without us knowing.  Even if we look now in settings it appears that Instant book is  turned on, but it isnt.

This is costing us 1000's.

If past history is anything to go by this will take weeks to fix, and many more calls to keep pushing them 

[Ansel0]

5 start superhost. Never received anything less than 5 stars

i'm currently dealing with this issue.  I definitely declined two request last week. One guest asked me to decline. Had I not declined whithin 24 hours, it would have hurt my rating. A second guest sent a request, then canceled their request on their own. They sent another request days later. No ID, no email, only a phone number, I had to decline. 

it was revealed to me that i should always call airbnb when declining a guest. never do it on my own, despite following all the airbnb rules. I asked the manager to review my account and look into the messages from the guest that asked me to decline her request. Had i known i would be punished, i would have never declined the request on my own.

This is crazy. 

The manager said she would review my account and get back to me in 48 hours or less. No instant booking at this time. 

guest asked me to cancel

[Sarah-And-Tom0]

Hi Ansel,

it makes no no difference to the punishment if you ring Airbnb and get them to agree to cancel a guest.  We have called them twice with dodgy guests, they have agreed they are dodgy and cancelled them for us, and we still have been punished.

Unfortunately our experience with Airbnb over 16 months has consistently delivered a poor attitude to owners/hosts.  They definitely, despite all the rhetoric, do not have owners backs. I liken Airbnb’s attitude towards owners to the large supermarkets attitude towards farmers (always grinding them into the turf). Nothing good to say.

[Rachel177]

@Ansel0 as @Sarah-And-Tom0 mentioned it doesn't matter if customer service cancel, you cancel or the guest cancels you still get punished by Airbnb.

My IB has been off & on for the last 2 weeks ever since a guest cancelled his booking because his plans changed. It's the second time that it has happened to me & it is extremely frustrating to be punished for something outside of my control!

The advice I received here on the forum is to make sure you're actively engaging with your listing every day (changing prices, tweaking your listing details etc) and it should turn IB back on in about 2 weeks. Who knows if it is true...

[Sally221]

Dear Ansel,

it's been my experience that any cancellation, by a guest, you or Airbnb will result in some algorythm (sp?) turning off your instant book for a random amount of time. I suspect it is just too much of a hassle for a real human to turn it back on for you. What might work is fussing a little with your listing site everyday- changing prices by $ 5- changing a few words in your description or the order of a few pictures, stuff like that. This is meant to somehow prompt the system into restoring your IB.

  If a future guest asks you to do the declining perhaps you could kindly explain this to them-the reason  they want you to do the declining so they can recoup their airbnb fees. Plently of hosts are being asked by airbnb to return money to guests who cancelled too late for a full refund from the host- why can't airbnb do the "nice" thing and return their fees when a guest cancels? (I hear they have the $$ to do it)

That potential guest sounded very  problematic- hubbie doesn't want to stay in Oakland even tho' they are pretty diverse people? Ick. A bad guest is infinitely worse than no guest at all- may your year be filled with lovely guests and no further drama, Sally

[Sally221]

And, your place is super! If we weren't fellow 510 folk I'd want to stay. What a clever use of space - a queen bed, yowza & yes please. Adorable little one too- if you are ever headed to Tilden's little farm and need a few greens to feed the critters stop by & I'll set you up. I hope Sarah & Tom are able to tweak their listing back into active IB- It's like Rachel said- it is meant to work but being that the amount of time one is kicked of seems to be completely random it is hard to tell- at least you feel like you are doing something & all that fiddling might put you further up the viewing pages? It's tough being a host with all the unknown variables! Best to you all, Sally