Declining a Request: Guests who select an available date only to ask about a future or blocked date.

[Steve333]

As my rankings and reviews accumulate and improve, I'm getting more interest in my home. I have frequently had guests inquire about a date that I have listed as "available" only to use that as an avenue to message me about dates in the far future or dates that I have blocked. 

I commonly get a request for a year in advance or well ahead of the holidays and it says "are you booking for these dates....?"

I'm concerned that I have to declince more and more guests because of these type of inquiries. Does declining guests hurt your host rating? Can AirBNB create a separate option for inquiries as such?

Steve in Alaska. 

[Sue-and-Andrew0]

In theory it won't affect your rankings - the key thing seems to be to respond in order to keep your response rate up.  The whole premise of inquiries is to allow you approve or decline them.

Perhaps the ask of AirBNB here should be to allow hosts to provide a decline reason...

[Todd-and-Reese0]

Only available in the desktop version you can respond to them and then dismiss the inquiry. You have to click in to read the message, send them a message saying no, and then click the "dismiss" option.