False Booking Requests

[Ryan63]

About three times a month, I'll get "booking requests" from people who don't actually want to stay at my place at all, or don't wish to stay there on the dates they're requesting.  They typically want to know where I got a particular furniture piece, if I might want to sell my home, or they're looking for a back door way to reserve dates that aren't available.  

I don't mind taking some of these questions, but they're annoying for the fact that I have to respond within 24 hours to avoid being penalized by Airbnb.  As my home gets more exposure, the volume of these pings has increased.  

I'm not sure anyone at Airbnb with the authority to fix something like this actually reads these conversations, but I don't know where else to take it.  Can't you all provide these non-guests/prospective guests another way to communicate with me outside of your reservation system?  Or give me a simple button to mark the inquiry as a polite form of spam, and remove the 24 hour stopwatch?  

[Marit-Anne0]

@Ryan63

You can flag messages as spam, but I am not sure it would remove the clock.  

[Cormac0]

@Ryan

I completely agree with you, and it points to a loophole in the system which leaves a door open to being victimise by people with an axe to grind.

Like hostile neighbours for an example.

Regards

Cormac

The Explorer’s Club Krakow III

The Explorer’s Club Krakow VIII

[Monika64]

@Ryan63 I get requests from new Airbnb signups almost every single day regarding paying cash or bringing a lot more than allowed people, etc. It was tiresome at the begining to keep answering but I ended up just typing up a few complete answer to different requests (saved it at the Saved Responses section of the Airbnb chat) and now it only takes me about 3 second to send a polite answer and decline these requests.

I'm sure by now you'd know it from the first sentence of these requests that they mean no business for you. This way you can just quickly answer and move on.

[David126]

If it is a booking request rather than an enquiry just accept it.