Awaiting verification blocking dates on calendar? What's that all about...

[Amy-and-Brian0]

Never seen this one before but someone has blocked dates on our calendar without actually booking.

Double checked if the listing itself was blocking those dates and yep...no one else can get them, they are blocked from others.

That's a new one...wonder how long they keep the dates blocked from others?

It also propagates to our other, linked sites as "booked"...so no one can get them - including other websites we advertise on.

Neat stuff...

Oh and bonus: there's no possible way for us to do anything about it. We can't deny the booking or message the party or anything. It's just blocked.

Edit to say: here's the response from support:
"We are awaiting Donald to verify his identity."
My question to that was:
"How was he able to block dates off my calendar at all without first verifying his identity?"

Answer:
"..."

[Emiel1]

@Amy-and-Brian0 

On the right screen it says allready " awaiting verfication" and there is a "message" button (does it work ?)

I guess you are on Instant Book (?) and this guest booked, but need to go through some ID process to complete it. It's same situation when a booking is "awaiting payment", then guest has 24 hours to complete. Which can be annyoing, as a host can not interfere, same as this one.

Best regards,

Emiel

[Amy-and-Brian0]

@Emiel1 It's not exactly the same as awaiting payment, which doesn't block dates off the calendar - even with Instant Booking. After a second call with support, the person trying to book has clearly been put in a "Fraud Queue". Meaning - Air probably thinks it's fraud. They are requiring "Donald" to supply a government ID and a photo/selfie to finish the reservation.

My question, again, was "why was something marked as fraud allowed to be put on my calendar?"

That got a response of "I'm going to escalate this." Which is good, but not really a warm and fuzzy for hosts.

[Emiel1]

@Amy-and-Brian0 

It is a way of protection, as it could(!) be fraud, so some more action to be taken. If it is actually fraud, you will be happy the reservation is cancelled by Airbnb. If not, a goodwill guest was marked as fraudster and also looses the reservation. You refer to it as "blocked", but actually see it as:  'a reservation in progress."

But i agree, it can be annoying.

BTW "Awaiting payment" does reserve ("block") the dates for the 24 hour time-limit, as the booking is made allready, just need to completes. I experienced once guest did not make payment and then the dates for 24 hours are not available to anoter person to book. Nothing a host can do, just wait.

Hopefully your case will be sorted out soon by Airbnb.

BTW Still wondering what happens if you click the "message" button ?

Best regards,

Emiel

[Amy-and-Brian0]

@Emiel1 At the time it was happening, clicking the message button brought me to a page where the only person in the conversion was me. It was a blank page essentially, no branding. I guess I could have talked to myself there. 🙂 I didn't bother to message to see what it did in case it broke something. 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Amy-and-Brian0 Try sending a message. Any sort of reply better than Answer: "..."  will be a considerable improvement on what you received and you would now be better qualified to even answer...!

[Suzanne302]

@Amy-and-Brian0 

I have had this at least twice before, maybe more. It was because I require a government ID prior to even sending a request to book. The guest was able to request pending verification. They will hold it for 24 hours. EDIT: I thought they weren't able to message me, but actually they can message. It's like a "conditional" booking. One time it happened and I messaged the guest to see if I could help. She was having a heck of a time getting ABB to accept her ID!

What are your requirements? They were probably lacking one of them.

[Amy-and-Brian0]

@Suzanne302 That's the thing...we don't require anything more than the basic minimums Air suggests for using Instant Booking, which does not include an ID.

The only thing I'm getting from support is the booking was "system generated" and now the booking is completed because they uploaded a "selfie" which was a koala bear...

Really inspires trust yeah?

[Suzanne302]

@Amy-and-Brian0 

Oh goodness! Ha!

Well, the only thing I can think of is that ABB requires at least ONE of the possible verifications prior to allowing a guest to book. (selfie, ID, Facebook, etc.)

Have fun hosting the koala bear! LOL!

[Lisa1272]

You don't see their selfie. The Koala is their profile picture. Those are 2 different things.

[Helen56]

I co-host for a neighbour.  He has instant book and requires government ID.  If they don't have it they can't instant book, instead their booking arrives as a request to book.  Then I can ask them to complete their profile, etc.  It doesn't block his calendar like you have shown in the picture posted. @Amy-and-Brian0 

[Ben551]

@Amy-and-Brian0  I think I know why this is....

There is a sneaky setting called Airbnb Verification that you probably have turned on.  It's not the same as Government ID.  It means that the guest has to complete it before their Instant Booking can go through.

You can check out the setting here:  https://www.airbnb.com/hosting/requirements

If you have it ticked, then you require it and this is likely causing the issue you are seeing.

Airbnb also have a help page that explains in more detail:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/272/can-i-require-guests-to-be-verified-before-booking?fbclid=Iw...

[Amy-and-Brian0]

@Ben551 Nope, not checked. Although that's a good one to maybe check off. 🙂

To be fair, we've been pretty successful and generally happy using AirBnB. And still like them. This is just a burp in an otherwise good relationship.

But there's been other burps and when we find them the responses have yet to be super favorable. They've always been either vague or evasive or even anti-host. 

That's the part that worries me because it only takes one reservation to ruin it.

[David8027]

I think this would actually PREVENT the issue we are all talking about.

If someone instant books and has not been verified, it blocks the calendar until they are verified.

I did NOT Have this settings on and was getting this problem.

Whereas if we require verification BEFORE booking, it should prevent calendar blocking.  

[Sherry346]

I see how you were as confused - but as logical as I was - I believed exactly as you did for a year. It is so hard to explain properly I would love to try , but trust me - it doesn't work that way - but the type of listing you run - ours is all last minute, day of, and day before - that's rare.