Enquiry Booking and Instant Booking at same time

[Natanya0]

Hi there, I am new to hosting with Airbnb.

Yesterday I had an enquiry about the property where both the guest and I have questions and we exchanged a few messages. As the guest asked to book I receved an instant booking via another person for the exact same night. Out of fairness to the first person, I felt obligated to cancel the Instant booking - however now I have discovered the first person can't book the date at all. 

To prevent this from happening again - what do other people do?

If I turn off Instant Booking then I am concerned about whether guests are fully verified before making reservations.

Thanks

[Andrew157]

There is an expression in the North of England which is First Come first served. Basically the IB booking was the first booking. After all the enquiry may have been a tyre kicker and not a serious booking. 

What you have done by cancelling the IB is fall foul of airbnb's cancellation policy. They really don't like hosts cancelling and will subject you to the five circles of hell. One of these is that the dates are blocked.

First rule of airbnb hosting is never cancel. 

[Natanya0]

Thanks Andrew for coming back to me. Lesson now learnt - hosts never cancel, and there I thought I was being fair and doing the right thing by honouring the original query/ booking.

Do you use IB? How do you verify your guests without IB?

Thanks

[Claudiu-Nicolae0]

Andrew is right. The dates were blocked as penalty for canceling the instant booking. That's why the guest, who sent you the inquiry, wasn't able to book after you had canceled the instant booking. So, basically, you should cancel inquiry in such situations, but not an already completed and valid booking. An inquiry is not a booking, it is not even a request for a booking. It is only an option for the guests to ask some questions before making the decision to reserve or not.

[Fred13]

Just for future language reference:

Inquiry - information gathering (answer in 24 hours); Reply, Pre-Approve or Decline

Request - attempt to book (answer in 24 hours); Accept or Decline (dates blocked if Decline)

Booking - confirmed reservation

IF cancel a reservation, regardless of way it came to be - dates are blocked (with some exceptions).

No need (and no way) to 'cancel' an inquiry. 

It is important to impress on 'inquirers', bookings are on a 'First Come' basis, specially if the exchange gets too chatty.

Whether IB or not, I don't think the verification step is different, but maybe others know more on this.

[John28]

I just started hosting again, and I have my entire home, and one of the bedrooms within my home as a listing.  Normally, my bookings are for a weekend or week at maximum. Anyway, I got a request to book my entire home starting in four days for over a month from a guy who was going to have four or five construction workers staying at my home. He had five good reviews, so I accepted the reservatio, mind you this is four days before their arrival. I started thinking of all I had to do to get everything ready for their arrival, and where I was going to go. Normally, I go stay with my parents or a friend for a few days. Well, long story short staying with my parents was not going to be an option, so I had to cancel the reservation as it says three days before arrival . yet doesn't point out reservation was only made the day before. I worked really hard non-stop for three days and then realized I would have been able to pull it off. Anyway, so I messaged the guest and told him if for some reason, he hadn't found another place to stay I would be able to accommodate him now, much to my surprise. He messaged me back and said he would like to book my place for different days that fell in within the original cancelled reservation. I thought I was going out of my way to make the reservation work, but I could not change the dates or the price because my calendar was blocked off from the cancellation, even though it was the same guest. I other words, the guests was actually wanting to change the reservation dates as well, and still couldn't tell me if he was going to need it for more time, but he would let me know?!  I was on hold (if you can call it that with Airbnb technical support) all morning long with no answers until the guest messaged me and told me not to worry about it anymore they had to go another route. I asked if he booked another Airbnb, he said yes they had tongomthat route. I guess Im just upset that I went out of my way to try and accommodate him even after I cancelled, yet Im still being punished for the cancellation, but not the fact that I tried to change the dates for the guest who obviously wanted to stay at my place. I should have just declined the reservation in hindsight, but if I would have known being honest and trying my best to accommodate him was going to take up my entire morning, I wouldn't even have tried. Especially, now I search for my listing on all the other days and it does not show up. Basically, Im so sick of Airbnb and their rules. They don't care about the host, but only the hosts money they are making from them. 

[Andrew157]

Don't worry about it, most of us have fallen foul of the cancellation issues. We use IB with the maximum restriction so you have to have previous reviews and government ID to IB. 

Saying that I think half our bookings are not IB as they are newbies. 

The issue is staying the right side of airbnb which may or may not be the right thing