New Guest No Photo No Profile

[Flaykie0]

Hi Team,

I have been on AirBNB for years but have tended to make bookings with friends when we go on vacation. I now want to start hosting people in my home so I have listed my first property - I have no reviews so I suspect I will be slow to obtain the first guest.

However, within a few hours of listing, I have received a booking request. The person has no picture, no profile and has messaged me saying she is trying to book but is getting an error. This seemed odd to me given the robustness of the Airbnb platform.  

Has anyone encountered any such issues?

I also didn't like the fact that the dates she mentioned in her message to me didn't even match the dates she selected on the booking form?

So all in all what are my options? It seems I'm about to penalized by AirBnB right from the beginning if I reject the booking, but surely something seems amiss? First-time paranoia or go with instinct? What would you advise as next steps? I'm aware I have to respond quickly to not affect my 'responsiveness rate'  ( I already feel like I'm in an episode of Black Mirror. lol. sigh)

Thanks in advance all.

[Steve143]

Hello @Flaykie0,

Has she sent a reservation request or a reservation inquiry?

With a request you'll have the option to accept the reservation or decline it. If you accept it then it'll show on your calendar as a confirmed reservation. You have 24 hours to accept or decline it.

With an inquiry you'll have the option to pre-approve it or decline it. If you pre-approve then the guest can book by accepting the pre-approval within 24 hours. For an inquiry, a message to the guests with in 24 hours should count as a response.

If she sent a request, and you accepted it, then the error could be with her payment or with not having provided ID or for some other reason. The same if she's getting an error if she's trying to accept your pre-approval of an inquiry. In either case she should contact Airbnb support.

You can message her asking her to

contact Airbnb support re the error as hosts can't help with that

suggest that she'll find it easier to make reservations if she fills in some information about herself in her profile and also uploads a profile photo showing her face

point out that the dates she's trying to book are not what she mentioned in her message.

I have experienced guests having problems paying when I pre-approved them. They have to sort it out with Airbnb as there's nothing hosts can do since guests pay Airbnb, they don't pay the host directly. They often think that they're paying the host and it sometimes has to be pointed out to them that they're not and they have to sort out any payment issues themselves with Airbnb support.

Steve.

[Flaykie0]

Hi Steve,

Thank you for your very helpful response. Based on your explanation, she has made a reservation enquiry. I.e. my options were pre-approval , decline, or message.

I have followed-up with the guest ( yay for responsiveness rating!) and recommended she complete her profile and ask AirBnb about the errors she is experiencing.

Thanks so much for the help. Trying to find the fine line between common sense and adhering by all AirBnbs requirements !

Flaykie

[Letti0]

@Flaykie0   First thing to do is change your cancellation policy to at least Moderate before excepting any bookings, so you don't get lots of last minute cancellation or days cut from reservations becaus it won't cost the guest a dime. I would also recommend setting a check in time and adding a check out time. You need time to clean between guest if you get back to back ones, which shared units get lots of. Do both of these before responding so the reservation falls under these rules. Is it an inquiry if so just respond to it and ask about the difference in the dates. If it's an actual request to book with the wrong dates go ahead and accept it with CONDITIONS that they load a government ID,  profile picture and correct the dates if wrong. If she does not agree with the CONDITIONS she must cancel the reservation immediately to get a full refund. Put in your rules Government ID and Profile picture are a must for booking also before responding. You do not have Instant Book on so of she must request to book. Which I think is what you received for her. The error message could be a ton of different issues all on her end. 

[Flaykie0]

Thank you Letti, I really appreciate the feedback. Regarding cancellation policy, I was trying to find the right balance between not providing instant booking ( its a home not a hotel after all) and allowing them cancellation.  From your perspective you would go with enabling Instant booking, but then drop the cancellation flexibility to moderate?

Great idea to add Gov ID, Picture et al to house rules. I would have thought we all had to be verified and with profiles on here , so rather sad to see that AirBNB is demanding that two-way due diligence.

Thanks again

[Letti0]

@Flaykie0  You will be abused and taken advantage of with a flexible cancellation policy. Cancelled bookings at the last minute after having blocked your calendar for a month or two preventing other bookings, cutting short bookings without paying for the additional dates once the booking starts, etc are some examples. A moderate one though still gives a lot of cancellation freedom to a guest unlike my strict policy. As to Instant Booking I would turn it on, but check off the guest must have government ID and be recommended by other hosts in order to book. Most of your booking will still end up being requests to book with this setup as a lot of guests don't have both or even one of the two requirements. You will also be placed higher in the rankings with Instant Book turned on. 

[Flaykie0]

@Letti0, Hi, very good points. I'm actually surprised by this lack of profile/ ID point - seems such an obvious prerequisite. So if I understand you correctly - enabling Instant Booking, but cancelling if the guest doesn't meet the prerequisites, in your opinion, is better than engaging with the potential guest beforehand.

I felt Instant booking might only make sense for a professionally run property where you are essentially churning through guests and making the property constantly available and turned around , rather than a true Home stay option. Eg if someone instantly books a date and I'm not there, or cant give them access - I'm then potentially penalised if I reject the booking? 

[Letti0]

@Flaykie0   I don't think you are completely understanding what I'm saying. If you enable Instant Booking with the requirements of a Government ID and recommendations by other hosts they CANNOT book the place without them. They have fulfilled those prerequisites if they were able to instant book. If a potential guest can not fulfille the 2 requests you have listed for instant book then they must send a request to book where you can vet them and request the profile and Goverment ID before you will allow them to book. 

As to the check in you state flexible which you need to state a timeframe on like from 3:00PM to 9:00 PM, so you need to be there or make arrangements for someone else to be there during this time. Make them give you an approx. timeframe, so you can make yourself or someone else available if they are outside of your stated hours for check in or use a keypad for entrance like I do to make it trully flexible check in. 

[Flaykie0]

Thank you Letti. I did, but perhaps I was trying to take the point further. I didn't want someone with no profile no id, however,  I appreciate they may be new to booking so wouldn't necessarily have feedback, someone has to start somewhere, and the rating process itself is flawed.

I therefore just thought if I enabled Instant book, but then had additional conditions such that, if it the guest couldn't fulfill it, I could then reject the booking with no penalty.  However, it seems it's all or nothing.   

Re check-in time, my set-up is currently ok for me for not. I plan on working from home and making myself available to let them in, since it's my live-in home, not an empty property im giving then access to. ( If/when I'm away, I'll have concierge access for them). 

I've really appreciated your feedback, fast tracking through the teething problems, thank you. 

[Mark116]

LOL, I would ask her to confirm via message which dates she wants, and ask her to change the request, if necessary on her end.  If someone doesn't have a photo, I tell them I will be happy to host them, but for both host and guest safety they need to upload a photo.  I know some accept first and then ask guests to do XYZ as a condition, but I try to get my conditions met before accepting...and then if they don't provide the requested information by the 24 deadline, it's already all there for the airbnb reps to see the reason why I declined and that the guests have had an opportunity.  Hope this is helpful and not confusing.

[Flaykie0]

Hi Mark,

Thank you. Honestly this Black Mirror world we live in where i'm immediately worrying about metrics like rating, responsiveness rates etc instead of just hosting based on the transaction making sense for both parties. Ah well keeps life interesting I guess. 

Great idea to be very transparent about pre-conditions so it helps any dialogue with AirBnb reps. Hopefully won't come to that and I was just being cautious.

Cheers

Flaykie

[Letti0]

@Mark116   The problem is that in the last few months AirBnB is really cracking down on the declining of requests. Heck even the declining of inquiries and people are getting notices for that from the robots. I do a 50/50 on pre-approvals and just respond to inquiries then get constant emails from AirBnB Pre-Approve XXX now or Decline so we can help them plan their trip by recommending other listings. It's only a matter of time until you will have to pre-approve or decline an inquiry with the decline held against you just like in the request to book situation. The writing is on the wall already. A lot of hosts have had their Decline button fail to work in the last few weeks. Yesterday one host clicked the Decline button and was asked by AirBnB: "Are you really sure you want to decline this guest? Go to the guest profile and review it first before you decline them." He hit the decline again and he was not able to decline. I am thinking this new method is in the future for all of us and the programming of it right now is what's causing so many hosts to have issues with the decline button not working. 

[Mark116]

But, if you approve based on conditions of the guest having to take an action like upload their photo, add ID, or give you more info, and then they don't do it, then you have to either suck it up or deal with airbnb cs to try and cancel...maybe I am missing something...but it seems easier to try and get the guests to do stuff on the front end, before they are approved.  

We probably all know the writing is on the wall with where airbnb is going.  We were going to add our listing to other platforms last year, but really, we were booked up before we got around to it.  This year, we will definitely also list on HA/VRBO for 2019.  I like airbnb, and since we live on site, we are lucky to be in a situation where things are fairly easy to stay on top of....extra guests, parties, etc.  but, I hate being bullied while at the same time getting a line of pr sweet talk, and airbnb seems to care zero amount for the mom and pop listings of either home shares or 1 or 2 listings unless they are "plus".

[Letti0]

@Mark116   I really have not had any issues using conditions. They either comply or cancel. I have not once had to involved AirBnB or HA/VRBO. We are also on site and once some guests realize this they cancel some even given up 50% because of my strict policy, since they were obviously planning to break the rules. I've also only had 1 guest that booked and then refused to sign my rental agreement and send a copy of his Government ID. He cancelled the one night and got nothing back on HA. I was waiting for the chargeback on that one, but it never came.