Does AirBnB Care? Instant Booking not working

[Helen213]

My Instant Book function is still not working.  So I do not show up in searchs and lose out in last minute bookings. This is crazy! I reported the issue on 12/28 and I think it started around 12/18 after a cancellation for an illegal third party booking. So for at least 10 days but maybe over 20 days this has been an issue. I know many other hosts have reported the same issue too. There has been no statement from AirBnB even acknowledging the problem.  I am getting no bookings for Jan even though I am the cheapest in my area. I am very worried about not making my expenses.

I know manyhsts do not use Instant Book.  But in my area it is necessary as there are so many listings.  The proof, my bookings since off are down 80% over last yearfor Jan and Feb.

Where is management?  Why isn't this issue a priority and why is AirBnB not warning IB Hosts that this could happen to them?  When dealing with these issues it really feels like AirBnB does not care.

[Alexandra199]

Yes sorry @Joy298 welcome to the unfair penalty club. You can expect to be off IB for at least 2 weeks and when you ring customer services they will tell you lies about bugs and technical issues. This is totally against the Airbnb policy for IB hosts, who are allowed three cancellations per year without penalty. I do not know what we can do about this.? I complained and complained and ended up with a huge phone bill and no change. It’s just dreadful treatment to hosts as usual. 

[Joy298]

@Alexandra199 Thank you so much for this information! No reps ever told me about this at all. So they are penalizing hosts for their own system loophole? Ridiculous!

[Helen213]

Having been through this process and mentioning it to ever customer service person, even when I call on other issues, I sincerely believe th C/S do not know about this cancellation penalty. They are always stunned and they all can’t be good actors. 

I do do think it is know to tech. They have been told via hosts many complaints so even if it was an error in programming, they have chosen not to fix it. And I do not think it is an error. I think it was programmed on purpose.

[Joy298]

@Helen213 I agree with you. Even the C/S manager gave me random assumptions about why IB was not working for me. If they were trained to pretend, they should have all given more official wording.

[Sarah-And-Tom0]

Hi Yang, this penalty has been in place for more than 6 months. We’ve copped it at least twice when we’ve cancelled dodgy guests that Airbnb have agreed are dodgy.  At the rate hosts have experienced it and called the call centre, I don’t believe for one minute the surprise you get from the operators is real.  Every one of the call centre operatives will have fielded numerous calls on this topic over the six to 12 month period. It takes the heat off them to act surprised as if it’s the first they’ve heard of it! Imagine the reaction from hosts if they were to say they’ve known about the problem for months!

[Sophie1013]

@Helen213 @Sarah-And-Tom0 So per my comment below, here is the response I got:

Airbnb Support

23:08

Hi Sophie, 

Good day! This is Sherry from Airbnb Customer Experience team. How are you? I hope this message finds you well.

I already received a feedback from our Product Specialist with regard to your concern wherein listing is appearing Request to book instead of Instant Book. As what they found out on their investigation, due to multiple denial on requests your account was converted to Request to book to avoid higher risk of canceling requests. This is done to introduce additional confirmation requirements to the booking process to ensure a host is ready to accept the reservation. 

Hosts will see a notification on the message thread that we wanted to confirm that they are ready to host and accept a guest. They will receive an email with the same information. Once you have completed more bookings without cancellations, they’ll be automatically switched back to Instant Book. 

Should you need more help on this have any other inquiries, please don't hesitate to reach me and I will be glad to assist you further. Thanks for being a part of our community and I wish you a wonderful day!

And here is the response I gave:

Thank you for getting back to me swiftly. So where is this penalty policy made aware to hosts during the hosting process or instant booking information? I did not see anything referencing this at all, and I'm obviously not alone as many others in the Airbnb hosting community have expressed the same confusion and alarm. It would seem that Airbnb is intentionally keeping this information from hosts so that they turn on instant booking, while assuring them that they still have control over who stays in their home and giving them the option to still accept reservation/enquiry requests, and only telling them they will be penalised if they make 3 cancellations, not declines. But then once they start declining requests for the very reason they put instant booking filters on, they get punished for it and have it taken away. At the same time you are encouraging guests to use the instant booking filter in their searches, so our listings are not showing up at all.

Aside from the fact that I think this is an extremely dishonest, misleading and deceitful business policy, with no regard to hosts whatsoever, I am really being treated unfairly considering 2 of my declines were from false guests who actually stated themselves that they were only using Airbnb to look for rental housing options in the area for several months, with no intention to actually book those dates and pay Airbnb prices. With no knowledge of the punitive measure Airbnb secretly has in place, I did the logical thing and declined their request. The third delicine was for a person with no reviews, which is a filtered requirement you offer for instant booking...but basically you are saying, if someone does request without the requirements, I should accept their reservation anyway. It would seem that our choices as host are to either get very few bookings or accept any and every person into our homes. Absolutely ridiculous.

[Sophie1013]

Basically they're trying to say they have introduced this to "make sure hosts are ready to accept guests"..rather than yes I am ready to accept a guest, but maybe I don't feel comfortable with that particualr guest!! Utter BS. I can't believe how intentionally misleading and deceitful this is. As another host on a forum pointed out, Airbnb cares very little about its hosts, just about getting as many guest bookings as possible for their profit. I think it's time for a new platform!

[Sophie1013]

Same issue here..last night to my horror I discovered my IB had been turned off when my listings were suddenly showing up as request to book and also not showing with the lB icon in search results. I have had to decline a few enquiries recently who were people just using Airbnb to enquire about renting houses in my area for working on the local ski fields, not actually making an Airbnb booking (I realise now maybe I should have just pre-approved them and left the dates open, argh). I also declined one reservation request who had no reviews and no profile information (didn't feel comfortable with that, at least make an effort when you have no reviews!). And finally, one legit cancellation a few weeks ago from someone who didn't answer any of my preset questions, told me nothing about himself or his trip, and didn't answer any of my messages for the whole day, so I cancelled him.

Wrote a message to Airbnb and got the same response others are getting...inane things like "your listings have instant booking turned on"...yeah thanks, but it's clearly not working!! Either they have terrible IT or they are literally bullying hosts into accepting more guests for their own profit, even though the whole concept is based on safely letting a stranger stay in your home. I don't have much hope I'll get it back on soon and I'm really pissed off as we're in ski season now and school holidays are soon. Definitely putting my house on some other hosting platforms asap. 

[Sarah-And-Tom0]

Another point, if you are ever in doubt about whether Airbnb are aware they are penalising hosts when they turn auto-book off try proactively turning it off and see what messages you get from Airbnb.  They'll tell you how you will get many more views and bookings with auto-book on.  So the converse applies, they know you get many less views and bookings when they turn it off!  Interesting way to treat the cohort that provide the capital to make their business work. 

[Gillian216]

Hi I have just read this conversation and clearly the same thing has happened to me wrt Instant Booking not working for my listing even though i have it turned on. and i am getting the same run around as others in this thread have been getting.  but i cant see that anyone has a solution here - do i just keep after Airbnb till they sort it - do they sort it?