Instant Book and the listing discovery bug

[Sumit11]

Hi Everyone,

Sooo, I am newb host and just discovered something peculiar with the Instant Book feature and the associated listing dscovery. So lets assume host X has the Instant Booking feature ON and has selected "Government Issued ID and Reccomendations from other hosts" as the Guest Requirements (in addition to aibnb standard requirements), I noticed that this happens:

If a new traveller (who has yet to provide Government Issued ID and/or has any Reccomendations from other hosts) searches for a listing in a given area without logging in (no account yet) to Airbnb and switches/toggles on the Instant Book filter, they will not be able to see the listing of the host X. This automatically filters out the listing of host X as compared to other hosts who have the Instant Book ON but do not have the "Government Issued ID and/or Reccomendations from other hosts" requirements. 

In my opinion this is either a bug that needs to be rectified or if intentional, needs to be ammended as this is bit unfair to all those hosts who have the abovementioned requirements turned ON. It is also unfair to the new traveller who might miss out a listing that does not show up in his/her innitial search as after logging in, they can still "Request to Book". But only if they are able to discover the listing in the first place.

I have already talked to the staff regarding this as was reccomended that I provide a feedback. Has anyone else also come across this and notified Airbnb team? Or if there is a solution to this and maybe there is something that I am doing wrong, considering I am a newb. 🙂 Please let me know.

Cheers

Sumit

[Marzena4]

Hello @Sumit11 and welcome to the community here.

This issue has been mentioned here in the forum before and actually all of us are waiting for Airbnb to take steps to fix it. In fact, there are quite many glitches on the site. But the more users write, the higher chances it will be improved.

[Sumit11]

Hi @Marzena4,

Thank you for your reply and the info on this. Good to know that this has already been addressed to the Airbnb team. Phew, and I thought I was only one missing out on the action. 🙂 
Lets see what comes of this. I have contacted the team via Facebook too and got the following reply:

Airbnb Team: "Hey there Sumit! First, welcome to Airbnb, happy that you joined our community. It would be our pleasure to explain reservation requirements in more detail. When a host has reservation requirements on, only guests who meet those requirements will be able to see the specific listing. Moreover, if guest is logged out of their account and perform a search, they will be shown general results based on their search parameters. Once they log in, their search results will be displayed more defined to their account needs. All in all, we encourage all of our member to complete the verification process so they are able to fully enjoy all that our platform has to offer. We hope this helps. If have any additional questions, please don't hesitate to ask. In the meantime, check out this super helpful link to our most asked host questions: https://www.airbnb.com/help/topic/1032. Thank you and happy hosting."

I have since replied back with this :

"1. You've mentioned: "When a host has reservation requirements on, only guests who meet those requirements will be able to see the specific listing"

This is news to me. Is this something new. From what I understand, that even if the instant book is on and I have the reservation requirements put in place, a guest that does not meet those requirements, should be able to send me "request to book". From what you are saying, the guest who searches for a place won't be able to SEE my listing, let alone send a "request to book". Is this correct? Your page https://www.airbnb.co.in/help/article/523/what-is-instant-book
mentions that the guest will be able to make an instant booking but nowhere does it mention anything about not being able to SEE my listing. Beats the whole purpose of "request to book" doesn't it?

2. You've mentioned "Moreover, if guest is logged out of their account and perform a search, they will be shown general results based on their search parameters"
Assuming that apart from date & place, the only other search parameter was "Instant Book", the scenario I've mentioned in my first post, automatically removes my listing from the search results. Ideally, even if I have the Guest Requirements put in for my listing, don't you think the guest should be able to at-least see the listing and then "request to book". Again, defeating "request to book".

3. You've also mentioned "All in all, we encourage all of our member to complete the verification process so they are able to fully enjoy all that our platform has to offer". Fine, but what about the requirement of "prior guest recommendations". If it is a new traveller who has completed the verification process, they still wouldn't be able to SEE my listing, if they have instant book toggled on. Since they have no prior recommendations. So basically, according to you, instant book search would only show a listing if a guest verifies their identity and fulfils the Airbnb requirement, and not when "prior recommendation from hosts" is selected. Again, defeating the whole purpose of "request to book"."

Sorry for the wall of text. I will update this thread based on the reply I get. 

Thanks again. Cheers

Sumit