How do I communicate with guests?

[Chris22]

It appears the only way I have to communicate with guests is by declining their booking, and then I have a space box to type in.  This is my fist booking and I have a guest asking me is he has to pay in USD or Canadian dollars and there is no box to click on, except to remove or send a special offer? 

Any suggestions, becuase when I click on send message nothing happens?

C

[Linda0]

@Chris - return to your inital email you received about request and reply. You can ask as many questions as you like. Or open the calendar where the dates are in question for your listing.

[Ed-and-Hugh0]

On the website, just go to the inbox. You can respond to guests back and forth as much as you want. You'll definitely want to review the hosting information in the help area.

[Joseph0]

@Chris22

Sometimes there is a bug in the Airbnb platform which causes you not to be able to reply to guests . 

Some tend to think its the OS that you use . Such as Chrome . If you are able try to use another OS or to temporarily use your smart phone to communicate with guests . Generally , this issue is cleared up in a few days , but you do want to keep on top of it 

[Sal1]

I have problems communicating with guests almost every time.   I want to send, say, directions to our property as an email attachment and don't want to use the cumbersome    XXXYYYXXX(guest)@airbnb.com  method especially for attachments.  I then spend an inordinate amount of time tryi ng to elicit from guests a REAL email address (ie non AirBnb email) and the AirBnb 'sytem' (using xxxx(guest)@airbnb.com) blanks out email addresses and websites when they reply.  I can understand why (to avoid direct communication guests to owners and thus cutting AirBnb from their commission) but it does waste a lot of time!    Any ideas?

[Donna15]

@Sal1, the main reason AirBnB requires communication to go via the ABB platform is to protect both guests and hosts in case problems arise. AirBnB makes its decisions on the basis of the exchange of messages on the platform (along with what House Rules have been described in the listing, in the event that a host claims damages because house rules have been broken). 

In helping to resolve an issue, AirBnB does not take into account any off-platform communication.

One solution to your problem might be to take photos of the information you want to send, and then include these photos in the pictures on your listing.

[Deb29]

@Sal0

Is there any reason you can't just correspond using the message input box on the Airbnb website?