Awaiting Payment - Awaiting Verification detrimental to our business!

[Denis66]

Over the past couple of weeks we have had awaiting payment and awaiting verifications on a daily basis now. Sometimes up to four or five a day. This blocks our calendar and causes a substantial loss in earnings. This is a serious problem/Glitch that airbnb is facing and their support team are doing absolutely nothing about it. This morning we had an accept or decline request from a guest with over 20 reviews and I contacted the airbnb support to inform them that if I accept this request sure as hell it will say either awaiting payment or awaiting verification. The tech support guy asked me what the verification number was. I asked him if he was joking as Airbnb only releases confirmation codes on a confirmed booking. Clearly a company employing staff without any training whatsoever. So he said I must accept the request and sure as hell it said awaiting payment blocking our calendar for the next 12 hours making it impossible for any one else to book the room. As we get most of our bookings same day this is detrimental to our business and it is only a matter of time before someone litigates and sues Airbnb for loss of earnings.  I have had no other choice but to decline all requests from now on and only accept instant bookings and I am now forced to use other platforms to market my rooms.  Is anyone else experiencing this problem?

[David5641]

Just to clear this out to you, awaiting payment is always caused by the guest's bank. When guests book, Airbnb's system will  verify if the payment method is valid, once verified, then this is only time it will charge a payment. This is where the problem with bank's system comes in, although the bank's system allowed Airbnb to verify the payment method, it not allow Airbnb to charge payment. The guest has to sort this one out with their bank because Airbnb does not have access to bank accounts or the bank's system to fix this. This is a common issue vendors like Airbnb encounter due to banks ever tightening security system. Oftentimes, this can be resolved by guest quickly, if they would cooperate. So I suggest to give the guest 1-3 hours to do so, especially if the reservation would be in a week or so still. If you feel that you have given enough time for the guest but has not resolved it, you can always contact the guest first, and ask them to withdraw, or contact Airbnb to withdraw the request of the guest and free up your calendar.

Awaiting verification is also not entirely the fault of Airbnb. All guest right now are being required to submit a photo ID, even hosts are, and there are a lot of users who are not complying with this. So when they will book, the system will ask them to submit a photo ID, and their reservation status will become awaiting verification. Check your account, maybe you are one those who have not submitted a photo ID yet.