Awaiting payment and keep apartment during 24 hours is a big Problem!

Nam1053
Level 2
Hanoi, Vietnam

Awaiting payment and keep apartment during 24 hours is a big Problem!

 i don't understand why the guest who made the reservation request will have 24 hours to successfully update their payment info before the reservation can be confirmed. It's need be shorter like 30 minutes or 1 hour. 24 hours is too much when the apartment be pending and other guest can not have a reservation during this time.
I have some guests like that, they had a request to book apartment and not complete payment on the check-in day and i waited 24 hour to open available the apartment and of course i loss revenue on this days beccause no one can have reservation at last minutes or over the day.
So if airbnb do these action it will be better:
- Replace the time from 24 hours equal to 30 minutes for the completion of payment or verify ID when they have a booking request.
- Add payment method more and more popular like fintech (mobile money, bank transfer, request or payment via inbox message like whatsapp, wechat do ...)
Thanks so much!

11 Replies 11
Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Nam1053  The 24 hr. wait is something that has been discussed here before and is just as annoying to other hosts as to you. 

 

This seems to happen with newbie guests who try to book a place before they have uploaded their payment information, verified ID, etc. I have never had it happen with seasoned Airbnb guests who have all their info on file already- their booking gets charged and confirmed right away.

 

Airbnb could easily address this by requiring guests to have a full profile and payment method uploaded before they are allowed to try to book. But Airbnb doesn't want to put any impediments in the way of guests booking, so it is not likely to change.

 

This is just a discussion forum for hosts and guests- you aren't communicating with Airbnb here. If you want to send them feedback about something, you have to do that on their main site.

@Sarah977 Not only newbie guests. I've seen some guests use this to trick the hosts and the system. There are many local booking requests and those local guests know they get declined very often (apparently, no viable reason to book other than "get away" and high risk to hosts), so they make multiple booking requests without making the payment and then there would probably be some hosts accept them while others decline. Then they'd pick one to pay and leave the rest as "awaiting payment". 

@Nanxing0  Wow, that sounds like a lot of trouble for them to go through. If they send out multiple requests for the same dates, and several of the hosts accept the booking, they'd be charged for all of them and have to stop payment on all but one. Seems tricky to do, but then I don't have the mind of a scammer.

 

It seems like the sort of thing Airbnb would boot a guest off the platform for. After all, if the guest stops payment, or uses a payment method that gets rejected, not only does the host not receive payment, Airbnb doesn't get their service fees either.

@Sarah977 Not necessarily. I'm not familiar with the guest side interface, but what i see is that guest can easily make a reservation without payment, and Airbnb will allow the guest 24 hours to make the payment (even if the booking is for same day). When the 24 hours passed, the reservation is automatically cancelled and the guest receives no penalty -- not even a review showing failure to make payment. I have received repeated requests from a few guests who I have record of failure to make payment.

 

The problem arised long before the pandemic. I have several host friends here that have experienced bad guests from throwing parties, causing damages or missing items, not to mention we frequently get the room filled with weed smell, mostly from those local guests. We found that whenever we take a local guest, we would be really grateful if he/she left the room reasonably clean, while with travellers we never had any issue. We had some talks about this and most of us agreed we should not accept local reservations unless there's viable reason to do so. Then in turn those local guests found they get rejected a lot and then they started to find ways to trick the system.

Exactly the guests are taking advantage of a trick of the trade in booking multiple places and selecting the very one and Airbnb can figure this out… But like I said if Airbnb does not get the payment then don’t allow the booking. They can I have computer programming that only allow a room to be reserved if they get a payment. I also suggested to Airbnb that if they hold the room for 24 hours and it just does not pay then refund the host for that one night of 24 hours

OIC, i have just feedback some times via feedback form and message to airbtb but nothing happen. So i want to rase this problem with community host to complain it. Or anyone have a tip to solve this issue, thanks so much for this.

I think Airbnb got tired of me but I insisted even if them trying to close out my complaint that it wasn’t fair to hold a listing for 24 hours and losing money. I suggested that if they’re willing to hold it for 24 hours why not reimburse the host for one night of stay… You think they would like that? If they want why would they want us assholes to do that! This is a little of what I shared :

 

The policy on holding a listing until a guest updates there payment method is not acceptable… That’s a problem on Airbnb‘s in not the host and it’s unfair to hold a room when that person may not update their payment method or maybe even find another place to stay.

 

They may purposely withhold proper payment methods while they are searching other places to stay.

 

Air Bnb states they do this to prevent multiple bookings…

 

“To rectify not having multiple bookings don’t except a booking unless there’s payment received!

 

PETIOD!

 

Our listings should not be a lay-a-way plan.


Actually… Even with a layaway plan a deposit is placed.
JBBailey

Nanxing0
Level 10
Haverford, PA

One trick to solve this issue is that whenever you see the "awaiting payment", call Airbnb and ask them to have the reservation cancelled. Depending on the CS representative, they might attempt to contact the guest. If they cannot get connected to the guest, or the guest tells them of no intention to proceed, they can simply get the reservation cancelled. Just takes some time to speak to a CS representative. I have had several awaiting payment reservations cancelled this way.

This is a trick that i usually use before, however with reservations are requested on check-in day, we will must wait airbnb contact to guests, it takes so much time and i loss this day for apartment. That's so really uncomfortable. In my country, from COVID-19 pandemic, there are many newbie guests like this. 

Thanks for the suggestion… And that’s exactly what I did also. The only problem is within 10 days I had four (4) guests to do this. I have three units in my home Set aside for Airbnb bookings. Having to call Airbnb four times in 10 days was too much in my opinion but I did it.

 

This is something that Airbnb purposely is monopolizing on and is not as concerned for the host as they are the guest

Carlos1002
Level 3
Mazunte, Mexico

I sooo agree with you... unfair for the host to wait 24 hours and nobody can book

 I can't believe aibnb does this to their hosts and don't want to change it.