Instant Book not working

[Cindy538]

I am about to qualify for super host status but even though this is the case, I have been informed that I do not qualify for the instant booking feature to apply. The system is reverting my listing to "request to book" 

I was informed the following "This is done to introduce additional confirmation requirements to the booking process to ensure a host is ready to accept the reservation. This is evaluated with the basis of long term performance on Airbnb and the short term activeness."

I have never cancelled a booking and have an updated calendar however this seems not right that I am missing out on potential bookings. 

I was also told... "to become more active in accepting reservations because once the system detects that there have been more accepted reservations, this will automatically convert your booking process from Request to book to Instant book."

Totally confused given I have never cancelled a booking, I have a 94% response rate, 4.8 rating and over 14 stays in the last 4 months. 

Can someone help?

[Sarah977]

@Cindy538  Have you declined many reservations? That's all I can think of, as all the posts I've read on this IB issue have to do with cancellations. Maybe if you've declined quite a few, they're using that reason as well. What's your acceptance rate? 

I think it's ridiculous, of course, because hosts don't decline reservations unless there's a good reason.

But if you haven't done many declines, I'd contact Airbnb to see what the problem could be. It's not as if they never have tech glitches.

[Cindy538]

Not one cancellation! See photo of my stats. I am finding this frustrating as I should qaulify for instant booking and I am missing out on getting my house booked. Not sure what else i can do....

[Cindy538]

[Sally221]

Dear Cindy, have any of your guests cancelled a booking ? That sometimes seems to trigger IB being turned off. You can try calling support (don't get your hopes up too much) and doing some little tweaks to your listing such as changing some pictures around or a tiny increase/decrease in price. do this every day for several days. It might help, I tried that on the advice of a fellow host. I'm not sure, due to the randomness of it all, if it sped up my return to having IB but it's worth a try, good luck, Sally

[Marie21]

@Cindy538  it also happened when u decline a guest and he decides to flag ur profile and contacts Airbnb it happened to me and I went mad as the guests were telling Airbnb that discriminate him, how could they was no picture showing and I explain to the support I refuse the booking as I had suspected he was booking for escort, as itself live 30min drive from me, and see no reasons why he will book my place for a week to show the city to his girlfriend while himself live 30min outside the city.   and for weeks i never had any booking for that apartment. 

[Jeff158]

@Cindy538 

It appears from other posts that if you decline a few instant bookings when you are uncomfortable with the guest, instant booking is switched off for 3 to 4 weeks

[Emilia42]

@Cindy538, Did you call Airbnb CS to cancel a booking that made you feel uncomfortable?

[Jennifer1421]

I wonder, @Cindy538 if it's got something to do with your "Response Rate" at 95%. I realize that basic requirement is 90%...but, then again, we're also meant to be given 3 penalty free cancellations, so I'm not convinced that the algorithm sticks to the metrics.

Did you miss responding to someone within a week of IB being disabled?

[Nadia135]

Hello I’m wondering if and how long it took you to solve your issue as I’m having the same issue with the difference that I had not cancelled anyone but did respond to 3 non inquiries with pre approvals that expired. 

When I finally elevated this through 2 CS I received the following yesterday from the Airbnb customer service rep who was most helpful and tried his best. He was clearly chagrined at the following response that he received from his technical team. He said he was unable to send me their response in writing but he read it to me. In a nutshell they said they red flag accounts they consider high risk and the instant book feature is toggled off by Airbnb. It will be resumed once the host has more bookings. They do not reveal why the account has been flagged. One can surmise of course that accounts are flagged for declining too many reservations or poor response time. He read with me that I have neither. When I asked him if he could provide me clarity on what made my case high-risk he said the technical team would not divulge that information to him and in fact reprimanded him for giving me the impression that I would have an answer. He was an excellent customer service rep and clearly extremely frustrated at his inability to help as he too was completely mystified as to why my instant book has been toggled off.

This kind of behavior seems extremely suspicious by Airbnb. It makes me wonder if behind the scenes they are  promoting hosts who have shorter stays to increase service fees. Since I only host 31 days day stays,  I believe their overall service fee or an account such as mine might be lower. I can’t think of any other reason they would want to demote a listing such as mine that is not only an Airbnb plus but a super host and a five star review.

i’m wondering how to canvas other Airbnb hosts who are seeing the same thing happened to them. I did a quick search in my neighborhood and noticed one filtering for instant book versus not instant book a dramatic decrease in listings which leads me to believe this is happening to others. How do we promote this post or issue to gather more information across Airbnb hosts?

[Tanuja1]

@Nadia135Hi,

Did you manage to find a resolution to the issue? I have started facing the same as well and there is no clear answer. It is the same drafted response that you received.

I know that airbnb holds its product team on some kind of holy pedestal. But clarity of information was one thing that I didn't ever face an issue with.

[Nadia135]

Tanuja, there is no clear answer and they were unwilling to provide one. The best I could gather is it was a result of my having failed to respond to people inquiring for cleaning services offered, advice on being an Airbnb host but not real inquiries. Takeaway—respond to everyone within 24 hours. My IB status resumed once I’d responded to further inquiries.