I wonder how effective Instant Book really is. While it's supposed to increase booking, only a few of my guests have used it so far. Most guests contact me before booking. I also faced difficulties due to Instant Book a couple of days ago - There were floods in certain parts of Sri Lanka and a local had booked my place via Instant Book even though he knew (or ought to have known) there was a possibility of floods affecting the listing. I told him the Government had issued warnings against travelling and asked him to cancel the booking. He refused and told me to cancel the booking instead (He was afraid he would not get a full refund if he cancelled the booking). I am a superhost and a cancellation would affect my superhost status. I reached out to the Airbnb community and thankfully one host advised me to contact Airbnb via Twitter and to ask them to cancel the booking. Airbnb responded very quickly and cancelled the reservation (without penalties to host or guest).
After this experience, I decided to read up on cancellation penalties and found out that Instant book hosts could cancel penalty free (without losing their superhost status) if they are "uncomfortable with a reservation" or "if a guest breaks house rules". The host has to provide an explanation to Airbnb and the guest. Being "uncomfortable with a reservation" seems rather ambigous and open to intepretation. What would this constitute exactly? If I have a feeling that a guest is going to have a party, how can I prove that before the guest arrives (if the guest doesn't admit it upfront)?
In the circumstances, it seems removing the Instant Book option would be better, in order to avoid a lot of unnecessary hassle. What do you think?