Instabook travelers not airbnb community

[Priscilla41]

My listing is one bedroom in my house. I have hosted close to 100 guests prior to turning on instabook and had a great time doing it. Since turning on instabook I get the feeling that I am bringing a different calibure guest into my house. Airbnb guests have a special pesonality trait that has made it fun to host. They are adventurous, outgoing, friends and genuinely good people. I feel like instabook draws a crowd that is cotrary to the point of airbnb.

Any suggestions for instabook filters?

Did you know that requiring a person be recommened by another host means they only require one recomendation?

[Farah1]

@Priscilla41 yes, 1 review makes them eligible and count as "recommend by other hosts". I believe that the system cannot actually understand whether the review is a good/bad review. It sees it as review, that is it. So, make sure you check every IB guests of yours as soon as you receive the booking. I always resend the house rules to them as well. Asking questions about who they are, what is the purpose of visit, etc, will be helpful too. If for some reason they do not make you feel safe, doing a 3rd party booking, cannot follow house rules, etc, contact airbnb right away to ask for their assistance to cancel the reservation from their end.

[Kate157]

Hi @Priscilla41 I've been using IB for over 4 years, and have had very good luck with my guests. I only take two people at once, and I think this helps control the guests. If I were renting to more guests at once, I might rethink, but so far IB has been great for me.

[Todd-and-Reese0]

@Priscilla41  Hello fellow Coloradan! I agree. Instant Book has not been a pleasure for us. Sadly, the pot industry can bring some seedy characters.  It's also unfortunately why we are so busy. Since being forced to turn on instant book, we started charging a cleaning fee and a deposit.  We also hid a phrase in our rules that guests are supposed to enter in their booking message.  That way we know they didn't read the rules, or did, which happens most of the time.  Our rules also became pretty ironclad and extensive.  And since it's a room in a house we now only allow female or female/male guests. No more solo or duo dudes.  Making some of these changes might make you happier 

[Farah1]

@Todd-and-Reese0 How's the phrase working out so far with IB guests? Have you ever need to cancel any IB guests because they don't send the phrase?

[Todd-and-Reese0]

@Farah1  So far, since I've instituted the phrase, 4 out of 6 by bookings included the phrase. I'm about to cancel one for several reasons, but that is certainly one of them. The other I nudged and they got it. 

[Leslie7]

What do you mean, forced to used Instant booking?

[Todd-and-Reese0]

@Leslie7  The search is automatically set to show instant book properties only. Guests have to turn that off to see properties that don't have IB turned on. Use someone else's device and do a search on Airbnb. The filter is automatically set to Instant Book listings and won't show properties that have it turned off. 

[Leslie7]

Oh wow, thanks for letting me know. I have been fully booked all summer and don't use instabook, but our area gets sold out in the summer of all acommodations so I'm sure that works in my favor. To me is seems as if Instabook is the complete opposite of Airbnb philosophy. I need to have a discussion with anyone staying on my property, to make sure they know what to expect and to that they are the kind of guest who appreciates our funky little place. I hope never to have to use Instabook.

[Huma0]

@Todd-and-Reese0, while you are right about the searches, I've been fully booked all summer (except for when I've had a last minute cancellation and, even then, I've sometimes got another booking to fill those dates) and I don't use Instant book. So, a lot of guests must be turning it off when they do their searches.

Did you try not using it for a while when Airbnb made it automatic on the searches, or did you immediately switch to Instant book?

[Joanna85]

@Todd-and-Reese0 I don't want to hear how the clientele gets different with the pot industry....lol.  I see us here going down that road and I've already noticed a difference lately in folks visiting since the laws changed here to include recreational sale at the dispenseries.  Soon many of these Airbnb investors are going to sell off these homes to pot growers...I see it in my crystal ball.....!!!!!

[Gerry22]

I am a new Airbnb host. I did not sign up for instant book but somehow it was activated. Our two room accomodation was reserved by a father and three daughters. Each room we have offers i queen bed. We indicated in our listing thhat we did not think our accomodation suited children, aged 2-12. This instabook meant a father would have to share a bed with his daughter. Since we had no idea as to the ages of the daughters we did not accept the cancellation in case it was inappropriated. I explained that to the guest who understood.

Now unfortunately the period that this guest had cancelled ( 1 week ) is now not available to other potential guests and we received several form letters from Airbnb suggesting our listing could be cancelled. We can find no way to straighten this out wth Airbnb. Has anyone got any suggestions.

[Huma0]

Hi @Gerry22, have you spoken to anyone at Airbnb and what did they say?

When I listed my rooms, I remember clearly turning Instant booking off, but when I looked the next day, somehow it had magically been activated! Luckily the guest who had booked seemed okay, but he did get the room super cheap because the smart pricing had also slashed my prices in half overnight. Funny that.

If you tell Airbnb that you did not opt for it and would not have accepted the booking in the first place if the system hadn't turned it on without your permission, then hopefully they shouldn't penalise you for it.

Also, if your listing says you do not accept children 2-12 (I assume you ticked the box for this rather than just mentioned it on your listing) then the guest shouldn't have booked. Explain this to Airbnb as well.

In future, if a guest has booked but have not understood your listing, ask them to cancel if you can so that you won't be penalised.

Personally, I would not use Instant Booking for guests staying in my own home and even if I was listing a self-contained property, I probably wouldn't use it as a new host either.

[Ed51]

I've once used instant book, it was not good, never used it since. My filter is looking at the photo & gut instinct, I'm nearly always right.

[Todd-and-Reese0]

Our area (Denver, CO) is saturated with AirBnB listings and very competitive so there are tons of IB properties. If I were in a remote town with only 20 listings, I would not need IB. I was always a top listing and fully booked and then bookings just stopped. That's when I found these forums and did some research and testing and found out that the IB is automatically turned on, at least for our area. I searched in some small mountain towns in Colorado and found that rural areas with only a few listings don't have it on.