Missing Enquiry

Elodie39
Level 1
Twickenham, United Kingdom

Missing Enquiry

Hi all,

 

Over the weekend I received an enquiry for a booking. We sent a couple of messages back and forth and agreed that I would not pre-approve until Monday once she had the funds to pay. I pre-approved Monday morning at 7.20am and by 8am the enquiry had disappeared from my dashboard, including the ability to send her a message.

 

Is this a fault on the website? Or is it that the customer changed her mind overnight? If the latter, why are guests not obliged to select a reason for cancelling the enquiry when the host does? I am not sure how I am supposed to understand and learn from this experience of what went wrong if I am not given a reason or have the option to contact and ask?

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Elodie

7 Replies 7
Andrea9
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

@Elodie39

Even inquiries retracted by a guest still remain visible in the inbox unless Airbnb had reason to notice that something was wrong  - as in phishing scams - and pulled the profile.

In this case I suppose you'll never know... but you probably dodged a bullet.

@Elodie39 - For future reference, you only have 24 hours to react to an inquiry either with a decline, approval or pre-approval.  Check your calendar.  Are the dates that the guest was requesting now blocked on your calendar? 

You could pre-approve any time and that would not affect the guest.  If it expired before she booked she could re-request.  There is no reason to delay the pre-approval. 

 

I would be suspicious about someone who said they did not have the funds when they were trying to book the stay.  The guest should figure out their finances, then inquire and book their lodging instead of making the host be involved in their financial issue.

 

 

@Alice-and-Jeff0

Hi Alice & Jeff, Has the policy changed as regards Inquiries?

My understanding from Airbnb articles is that you have 24 hours to respond to an INQUIRY and that response can be by message alone.  You do not have to click 'pre-approve', 'decline' or 'send special offer' within the 24 hours for an inquiry, as long as you have sent a message.  I only see that the hosts response rate will suffer if they do not respond to an inquiry by message or button click within 24 hours.

My understanding is that the only time you have to click  Accept / Decline button within 24 hours is if it is a RESERVATION REQUEST and if you do not respond you are penalized and the dates blocked.

Please let me know if this is a new policy as concerns 24 hours button click response for INQUIRY,  and if you have any links to it.

Best,

@Elodie39    Hi. It has happend to me. I am not sure why and have not been able to find out why:

  1. a glitch
  2. Airbnb deleted the guest for some reason
  3. An Airbnb experiment to see how hosts respond to enquiries

I have had a few weird instances of it, they appear, I write a message or respond with a pre-approval and then they disappear.  Or I see them for a day or two as cancelled in my reservation list even though I never saw a request and then they disappear completely from the record.

 

"why are guests not obliged to select a reason for cancelling the enquiry when the host does?" 

Good question, it would help enormously to know or at least know that they are no longer interested. But, enquiries are not handled like reservation requests and the host is also not obligated to give a reason unless they decline.

Tamsin4
Level 2
Cape Town, South Africa

I just had the same issue and after speaking to Airbnb directly it turns out I had somehow archived the message. Just click on the menu icon next to messages, go to the archive folder, unarchive the message.

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Tamsin4 "I have only ever suggested making contact outside the platform for long bookings so I can get a sense of the guests and answer any questions they may have with more ease..."

 

Why is it easier to do that on social media than through the Airbnb messaging? As a home-share host I exchange quite a few messages with guests so we can get a sense of each other.

 

One thing you should be aware of, though, is that Airbnb isn't a good choice for long-term bookings, even though they encourage them. They only guarantee the first month's payment, if a guest reneges on the following month's payment it is then on you to evict them, but by that point the guest has been there long enough to fall under landlord/tenant laws. 

 

Also Airbnb so-called security deposit is bogus. And their "verification" process is no assurance of anything.

 

So if you are going to take long-term bookings, it's a better idea to have the guest book for 28 days through Airbnb, then after their booking comes to an end, you can make private arrangements with the guest, with a legal lease of some kind for the following months.

 

You wouldn't want to suggest this through Airbnb messaging, I would just say that you don't rent for longer than 28 days for the initial booking, to make sure that the guest is a good fit for your place, and if it turns out to be and they want to extend, that would be discussed after they have been in residence for a few weeks.