Penalized by Airbnb for rejecting incompatible guest

N5
Level 1
New York, NY

Penalized by Airbnb for rejecting incompatible guest

I am a female and shares an apartment space with another female. We have another room in the apartment and use Airbnb to find longterm roommates. One of our condition is to host females and not males. I do an excellent job with every guest that I ever hosted. I normally only host people who stay for 4 or more months.

 

Because I share the space, it is important to understand the personality and type of person who is requesting. There was one time where I let my guard down and was more relaxed about it. I let one of the most awful person who is difficult, uncooperative, and a constant liar into my apartment. I had to terminate her stay on the spot. She was sent elsewhere, and another host had to deal with her awful mess. That host became so discouraged to host that he at the time considering leaving the Airbnb community because it scarred him. I was scarred too. Then, she ultimately deactivated her account.

 

This taught me to be very selective with my guest especially when I am sharing the space. Therefore, I reject a lot request and a lot of my requests are males. That is automatically 50+%

 

Apparently, Airbnb uses the acceptance rate to determine whether or not they take your listing down. What does the community think about this? 

2 Replies 2
Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@N5  Did you say in your listing that it was for Females Only? That's what you need to do if you only want to host female guests (you can state gender specific if you host in your home where you live). If you don't state females only, then of course Airbnb is going to delist you for declining all the male requests.  

If you say prominently in your ad that it is female only, all you have to do when you get an inquiry is to answer the inquiry without declining, telling the guest that they apparently didn't read your listing description, that you only accept females in your shared home. And if a male books without you catching it, you only needed to call Airbnb to cancel without penalties, as the request didn't follow your Females Only rule.

Declining 50% of your requests is a huge amount. 

You write to them pointing out the breach in house rules and nothing happens, you are allowed only 24hours to decline or accept and of course you are forced to decline. Happens all the time and there is nothing you can do about it