Instabook - for hosts only

[Craig71]

I know AirBNB is desperately pushing instabook for hosts , but I airbnb my personal residence and would never ever accept guests I have not screened. So no instabook for me. 

However, I would make an excpetion for other hosts - has Airbnb considered this ? 

[Alexandra316]

@Craig71 My experiences hosting fellow hosts has not been positive. Personally, I see no reason to screen hosts who stay as guests any less carefully than regular guests. They tend to be overly critical with unreasonably high expectations, in my experience. Have you hosted other hosts and found them to be better than average?

[Craig71]

@Alexandra316 , I can't say it's a huge sample size but I have probably hosted 3-5 fellow hosts and my experience when I stay with other hosts has always been fantastic. 

I hadn't really thought about them having unreasonably high expectations - my concern is really who is staying in my house , how they treat it and the neighbors. I figure a host is no gonig to break the rules or do damage but I could be wrong. 

Just no way I'm going blind and signing up for instabook 

[Alexandra316]

@Craig71 Yeah, I totally understand why people who home host don't want to use instant booking: I think it would make me nervous as well. I've just had some bad hosting a host experieces that have jaded me a bit. The other aspect that I've seen here is that some hosts know the system and how to game it.

I don't want to shoot myself in the foot here, because I also use Airbnb as a guest, but I just haven't had positive experiences hosting other hosts.

[Sarah977]

@Craig71  What makes you think hosts would all want to Instant Book, or are you just thinking they wouldn't require approval, that they'd be automatically safe to host? As Alexandra says, many reports on here that hosts can be some of the most problematic guests, unfortunate as that is. I wouldn't be, of course 🙂

I also host in my home and also have never nor will ever use IB. And I wouldn't IB a place where I wanted to stay- I'd want to get a feel for the host through messaging first.

[Craig71]

@Sarah977, great feedback! Had not thought of it that way - I pretty much always do as you do when I am going somewere so you are probably right. 

Feeling the pressure from Airbnb to add instabook and I just wont do it. 

ps - my friends love Sayulita!! 

[Sarah977]

@Craig71  What I'd really like to see is for Airbnb to separate entire home listings from shared listings and remove the instant book criteria for search ranking on shared home listings. I doubt if many shared home hosts would use IB at all if it didn't affect search ranking. Airbnb should realize that IB isn't a safe or comfortable option for those allowing total strangers into the homes where they also live. 

[Kath9]

Totally agree @Sarah977. I don't feel 100% comfortable with Instant Book but only have it on because of all those coercive and fear-mongering messages one gets from Airbnb when you try to switch it off. I agree that rooms in shared homes shouldn't have Instant Book as a feature at all.

@Craig71, I also agree with the others that other hosts don't necessarily make the best guests - I've hosted other hosts who've been great, but one of my worst guests ever was a host - he was highly needy and demanding, sent me a million messages before he arrived asking questions he could easily have Googled the answers to, I ended up driving him around everywhere at my own expense as he had no car, and then he ended up quibbling over the $10 cleaning fee! He owns 12 villas in the south of Italy that he rents out on Airbnb so he really had no idea of the 'sharing economy'. Nightmare. So, if you don't feel comfortable Instant Booking for non-hosts, don't allow Instant Booking for hosts either.

[Lucia575]

I'm new as a host, but as a guest I'm on Airbnb since when there was no such a thing as the instant booking, and everything would work fine anyway. A little delay, but that's all. 

I put on the IB but my second (!) guest is not exactly the best, and now I'm counting the hours to see her leave my place. Never anymore without checking in advance who's this person and what are the motives to come here, even if there's a chance they lie, of course. Well I guess we learn from experience, don't we.

[Craig71]

@Lucia575, so sorry to hear that. My guests have been overwhelmingly great with only a few exceptions but I hate the instabook concept. I want to see who the guests are , if they have reviews & a history AND I always email them about why they are visiting and thier expectations --- in a nice way of course - it's a 2-fer I can screen if they are a fit (may not be a fit for the house even if they are great people as all my BR's are upstairs) but also I love helping them find local cool stuff to do on their vacation , so its kindof a win win. 

Airbnb always purports to have the backs of their hosts but the way they force instabook on you tells a different story. I get the economics of it to AIrbnb , but they could offer it as a service without penalizing those of us who think its a bad idea. 

Best of luck with your future guests!