Hosts - Instant Book is now MANDATORY

Samuel19
Level 3
Oxford, United Kingdom

Hosts - Instant Book is now MANDATORY

Hi guys

 

Well after about a week of battling with the system and trying to figure out how to turn off instant book (no button appeared anywhere on my interface) and a bunch of phonecalls to Airbnb, I've finally received this email...

 

Hello Samuel,

My name is Michael with the Airbnb Trip Experience Team, and I wanted to reach out to you today regarding your reservations due to Instant Booking.

When you sign up for Airbnb and activate your listing, guests will be able to book your space without needing to request approval. This feature can’t be turned off, but you have the option to require all guests to meet additional requirements before they’re able to instantly book your space. This gives you more control over who can stay in your listing.

Here are a few ways to control who gets to book instantly:

1. Set your reservation preferences
You can use reservation preferences to control when and for how long guests can book your space. You can also block days before and between reservations to give you time to prepare. Read more about how to set your reservation preferences here:https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1210/

2. Set guest requirements.
All guests will have to provide Airbnb with certain information to book. You can also decide whether you’d like all your guests to meet additional requirements. Read more about guest requirements here: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1170/

3. Set House Rules.
In addition to meeting guest requirements, you can set House Rules that guests must agree to before booking. You’ll be able to cancel penalty-free if a guest breaks your House Rules. Read more about setting House Rules here:https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/472/

I hope this helps! Please don't hesitate to let me know if there's anything else I can help you with.

Regards,

Michael C
www.airbnb.com/help

 

I find this completely unacceptable and as a result will be withdrawing from this platform altogether. I want to speak to the guests and vet them first before I decide who I let into my apartments, and a bunch of settings and ticks Airbnb have added (agree house rules, verify ID) does not help whatsoever.

It has also caused me an inconvinience TWICE as the Airbnb calendar doesn't sync very well with my other calendar, as a result the apartment was double booked, and when I cancelled the reservations I was charged penalties (something the "case managers" are still looking into).

 

Has anyone else had this experience?

 

Cheers

Has anybody else 

70 Replies 70

Problem in general is that airbnb WAS a site for hosts and guests, now it is a site for airbnb only, needs of hosts and guests are consecuently ignored. There have occured many changes on the site, disappearing calendar, annoing popups on the mobile site making it almost impossible to use the site without signing in, an app that virtually wants to access every part of the mobile phone without any need for the function of renting rooms at all..., removing options to contact airbnb directly, blocking dates for unapproved bookings, just to name a few. Now I read about this. Next step will be that they fix the prices for you - and the time you go to sleep, the hairdress and the color of the shirt you wear when forced to receive unwanted guests.

Success made them blind for their original purpose: to serve people who want to share their homes and people who want to stay at a private place and taking some money for this good services.

Sometimes a drop is as fast as the rise. I think, airbnb should think about that. Getting too arrogant and megalomaniac could esyly kill them, which would be really a shame because the original idea behind it is just great.

Kimberly24
Level 1
New York, United States

I just initiated my first ABNB host ad and now find out Instant Book in mandatory. Now I will withdraw.  The help links still show the procedure for shutting instant book on and off but the links are not there of course.  It's a mess and apparently hastily implemented.

 

I am a new host - have had two guests already and a few more booked in.

I definitely do NOT want to have instant book turned on, no matter if we can check boxes to say the guest is verified, etc.  As a single woman living alone I only want to rent my spare room out to women, I like to correspond a couple of times to find out why they are visiting San Diego - if they are in any way unresponsive or cagey I don't accept them. I also will read their reviews, if any.  I've accepted a couple of bookings from new users with no reviews because our initial conversations were good.

I've rejected a few because they asked for a discount (much written on the forums about that being a red flag), live in the area (another apparant red flag), or were men.  By the way I don't care about the guest's color or religion, I just would like to host people who seem trustworthy.  

Having instant book as a requirement will make criminals very happy  - it ensures instant accent to anyone's home, keys included! What would be the point of guest reviews if hosts don't get a chance to read them before we accept a booking?

I doubt I would continue with Airbnb if I was required to use instant book.  

@Helen56 I think this is an excellent argument against Instant Book, and one that I doubt AirBnB has considered more than lightly, if at all. And while I'm opposed to the whole concept of Instant Book, even when not forced upon hosts, I have to add that AirBnB could partially deal with your particular (and very meaningful) issue by imply adding another checkbox option to the criteria for Instant Book:

 

    [ ] Females only

 

That wouldn't eliminate mixed couples, but would eliminate single males or male doubles. Whether that restriction would be enough for some hosts would, at least, be up to the hosts.

 

In my opinion, Instant Book, even as an entirely optional thing, is suited more for multi-unit, "hotel-like" operations than for most hosts. We will NEVER use it for our own listing. If AirBnB forces it on us, that will be the last they'll ever see of us.

I agree.  I don't care about race or religion, gender or sexual preference, but I still have some booking standards.

For my pet-friendly apartment, I want to know what kind of pet they are bringing and what they intend to do with the pet while they are staying with us.  If they don't respond to my requests for information, I don't want them staying with me.

One guy tried to book for 6 days and it sounded like he intended to leave his dog inside the apartment all day, every day for the whole trip while he went out galavanting around town.  I can't begin to imagine the damage a dog stuck inside a new place all day every day for 6 days might cause.  But, more importantly, that's not really my idea of how to treat a pet.

So, yes, if airbnb makes IB mandatory, I will immediately delist all of my apartments.

I am a new host - have had two guests already and a few more booked in.

I definitely do NOT want to have instant book turned on, no matter if we can check boxes to say the guest is verified, etc.  As a single woman living alone I only want to rent my spare room out to women, I like to correspond a couple of times to find out why they are visiting San Diego - if they are in any way unresponsive or cagey I don't accept them. I also will read their reviews, if any.  I've accepted a couple of bookings from new users with no reviews because our initial conversations were good.

I've rejected a few because they asked for a discount (much written on the forums about that being a red flag), live in the area (another apparant red flag), or were men.  By the way I don't care about the guest's color or religion, I just would like to host people who seem trustworthy.  

Having instant book as a requirement will make criminals very happy  - it ensures instant accent to anyone's home, keys included! What would be the point of guest reviews if hosts don't get a chance to read them before we accept a booking?

I doubt I would continue with Airbnb if I was required to use instant book.  

Thanks to your post you have saved me pulling the rest of my hair out, I have been going over and over the instructions regards how to Disable the Instant Booking feature and going crazy. At least 4 frustrating hours wasted trying to figure out why I can't find the option to Disable it as per the instructions from the Help Button, this is a real downer after spending so much time with my listing only to find out that this won't really suit my needs as a Host if I can't confirm dates with Potential Guests before they make the Booking. Really dissapointed. Tony 

Naomi24
Level 1
London, United Kingdom

Yep, it's mandatory on my profile.

 

I signed up to host and within hours got an instant booking, which turned out to be a disastruous third party booking for two weeks that I had no ability to vet. After talking to everyone I knew who was a host, they all said they could disable it. And after speaking to multiple Airbnb people - some of them don't even realise it has been rolled out. However, it was confirmed that this is now mandatory for anyone who signs up to host.

 

I also have a major issue with having no consent over who is in my home, as sometimes I am the only femaleand am extremely uncomfortable with the idea of hosting a single male without any prior vetting of my own.

 

I can concur that the customer service people sound exhausted from fielding complaints, and have said many people are unhappy with this. This is an incredibly unfair and intrusive decision by Airbnb in what seems like a money grab.

 

I have already closed off the rest of my calendar, and after my current guest leaves, I will no longer continue hosting through the Airbnb platform.

 

- Naomi

Jana23
Level 3
Prague, Czech Republic

Hi Naomi,

 

there is a way around it. It's a trial program and only a portion of new users get this stupid policy. You can keep creating new accounts until you get a normal one where mandatory booking can be turned off. My friend has gone through this just a few days ago.

 

You can also post a comment at the following page to let Airbnb know how horrible idea mandatory booking is:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/feedback

Jiw0
Level 10
Chiang Mai, Thailand

 

Wow.. Just wow.  This is completely ridiculous, and going back on one of the cornerstones of their proposition.

 

It's probably some recent press on racism that caused this ill thought through 'experiment' on actual customers/business partners. 

 

Now, I have instant book turned on because allegedly it results in a better ranking, but I've enabled it only for guests with good reviews.   Even so, I GREATLY prefer guests to contact me first, ask some questions, let me get a sense of their expectations and ensuring that my place would work out for them, etc. 

 

It happens SO many times that I get an inquiry for example for 5 people but then it turns out there's also up to three more kids so it wouldn't really fit anymore.  But the booking would be done and there's nothing I can do about it.

 

Guests just can't be trusted to read all the details before booking.

Florencia0
Level 6
Buenos Aires, Argentina

IB mandatory? Well, I'm asking myself this. If we will no longer able to choose our guests then what is the point of leaving them a review if that will not help any other host?

 

Someone will tell me that IB let you choose guests with positive reviews (until now!) and I will tell this "someone" that I have left positive reviews to guests who might not be the proper choice for another host. For example, I could leave a positive review to someone who has been nice, clean, respectful but it is also a high maintenance guest (which I would put it on the description). It isn't my case but there are many hosts out there who might don't want to have such high maintenance guest. There tons of example like this when a good review doesn't translate to a good choice for another host. So what will be the point of leaving them a review? And going further what will be the point for a guest to a have a fully verified profile if will he just need his credit card ot make a booking. By having a mandatory IB we are losing the concept of community and making Airbnb seems more like Booking.com

 

 

Alex168
Level 5
London, United Kingdom

I suspect that this is all just a sly experiment to gain reaction insight and market information rather than any intention on changing policy all round. 

 

Airbnb can already compete with other platforms on equal terms by having Instant Book checked by default on new searches. It would make no sense to remove a huge market, the original airbnb market, by making Instant book mandatory.

 

As others mention, the workaround is just to open new accounts until you have one without this restriction.

 

I would propose to airbnb that they offer hosts the following hybrid solution that benefits hosts and guests, and ultimately airbnb also:

 

https://community.airbnb.com/t5/Host-Voice/Customising-availability-of-Instant-Book/idi-p/168621#M21...

 

 

 

UPDATE: in city listing as per this week I can not find any property which is "on request".

Only the instant properties are listed.

Funny, I have everything on request and I can not find any of my listings, even if I didn't had a wrning email or something from AirBnb.

Of course, no requests in last 6 months....

I am not bothered, because we are actually a business, with our own site and other direct sales channels, etc..

 

Just funny: AirBnb wants to become like booking.com - I hope they break their neck because the starting idea was good, not bad at all and for this I joined:) They were original, now they want to become a copy of something else!

 

 

Adam68
Level 2
Cambridge, MA

hi   Yeah an Orwellian event just happened to me too   Suddenly we began to get instant bookings and we never set the option<   I called and they tried to hand me this line of nonsence that we had already agreed to allow it in 2013,,,,,,,,,  anyway,,,,  They want to control everything because after money there is just total domination< Humans who have no conscious cultivation of right and wrong slide down these slippry slopes and they hate their fellow humans< this is because the Devil awaits all those who atain power without being prepared like these typical

middleclass  rags to riches caucasian gringos, 

    With their wealth and power they fall under the sway of the giant thought-control ethos

of the times.   They want total control and the want your house and they want to distroy all self determanation because really in their moral and spiritual deveopment they are totally out of control and that is why they are desparate to control you and all the tecnocrates are exactly the same way<  Every institutionized person hate Freedom,.

  they have their Billions but they are not free,

Regina38
Level 10
Wilmington, DE

I have 3 apartments that have been listed for a while. They have instant booked turned off. my tenant in my building where I live in the upstairs apartment had to move out for a bit due to health, He left it furnished so he can come back when ready. I do not and will not use instant book with this unit especially since it is in my home. What is wrong with Airbnb. It seems like I cant add extra charges and i am disabling allowing children because they wont let you charge for them. I just had a lady and two year old. They never vacuumed once in 10 days and there were crumbs all over. I vacuumed then Mark did and I had to vacuum again. The child also scribbled on a blank out let cover in the kitchen island  with red crayon and guest did not tell me. They also got baby oil on the bed spread. There is a washer dryer in unit and they did not even try to get spots out. I was lucky I did not have a guest checking in that day. Instant book means you cant even take a break for a night. I have hosted a diverse goup of guests and live in a diverse neighborhood that I love for this reason. I guess I will have to sell the furnishings and rent out to long term renters if they dont fix this.