Feeling the crunch. Full refund search filter, drop in bookings & super low prices

[Ange2]

Full refund as search filter option?  Anyone else notice this?  My policy is strict so I do not appear. Seems to be the same m.o. as IB to force hosts to adopt something Airbnb wants to make mandatory.  It makes hosting even more of a high risk gamble. Anyone else feel like we are being corraled and driven down the narrow alley of no choice ?

Anyone else in NYC or elsewhere seeing a dramatic decrease in reservations and inquiries these days and a super abundance of insanely cheap listings?  Even with no search filters my listing does not appear in the 17 pages of NYC listings.  I unwillingly activated Instant Book a few weeks back and since then my inquiries and reservations have dropped off the deep end.

To cap it off  I just received a "You are at Risk", but my last 20 reviews were 5 stars. I asked about it and Airbnb said it was a glitch.  But I am now wondering if low reservation rate, view rate and not having  a full refund policy is factored into getting a "you are at risk" these days and disappearing from searches unless filtered down to GPS coordinates.

My only option is to experiment with changing to full refund, but that coupled with IB makes it very high-risk, especially given the spam and trolling inquiries I have been getting ever since I activated Instant Book. And it is so easy for someone to tie up a listing and then cancel at the last minute, even with a limit on 3 cancellations per guest it could be a disaster.

Anyone else feeling the crunch?

[David126]

We are ABB's Pavlov's Dog. I am waiting for the learned study on how ABB manipulates hosts.

I have not seen that but then I am in a very different location/situation to you.

At the moment ABB produces enough business for me, I have some non ABB bookings as well and they seem to be on the increase. Couple of people came by today that may result in direct bookings.

My next step is to look at othe booking systems to generate business, I appreciate that is not an option for everybody.