Penalized for declining -- is not responding better or worse?

[Patrick180]

So now that Airbnb wants to measure how often we decline reservations and is threatening to penalize us for it-- what are my options?

You see, I rent a space that is most often used as a wedding venue and people are desperately trying to book it far in advance.  Unfortunately, the phone app that most people use is pretty worthless for dates beyond  a year into the future.  AND as it's about their wedding, even if they see that dates are unavailable (and I put into our opening description that those dates are unavailable), they STILL want to ask if those dates are available.  And as Airbnb doesn't allow anyone to make an inquiry without inputting dates, they end up putting in dates that they don't really want.

The result of all this is that I end up declining nearly HALF of the requests that I get and the majority of those are because of "guest is asking for different dates"!

Until Airbnb stops forcing guests to input dates just to ask a question, I don't see my situation changing any time soon.

Soooo-- what is the better option now?  Should I just respond with a message and let their request "expire"?  Does my message even count as a "response" to Airbnb's system?  Does letting the request "expire" count the same as "declining"?

[Moud1]

Are you sure that Airbnb will start to penalize for decline reservation ? in what sens? did you mean the just the ranking?If as a host i'm penalized if i cancel & if i decline that will mean i will have to host everybody in order to be successful it just doesn't make sense!

[Patrick180]

They are now measuring how often we decline requests (look at the Progress tab on your account).  They've set a "Target" of no less than 88% and if you "consistently fall below targets" your listing could be removed.

[Sarah977]

   Yes, declining a request to book is counted. Not so with an Inquiry.

[Sarah977]

You mention both Inquiries and Requests. You need to be clear on the difference. On an Inquiry, you can simply respond to the message without clicking on Pre-approve or Decline, telling the guest why you can't pre-approve it. This seems to satisfy the airbnb time clock on response. Then the Inquiry will just expire in 24 hours. With a Request to Book, you can also just repond in the same way, and ask the guest to please cancel their request. If they fail to do that, you do have to Approve or Decline within the 24 hours.

[Patrick180]

Unfortunately, I get both.  So, yes - I guess I'l have to ask half of them to "cancel" their request. ...sigh...

[John1574]

Thanks @Sara0 for clearing that up.

I've been struggling to understand exactly what you so succinctly explained.

[Patrick180]

Btw-- It turns out that the inquiries do NOT expire after 24 hours.  It's been days since I responded with messages, but each one is still asking for "Pre-Approve" / "Accept" / "Decline".  😕

[Brian581]

How can you tell the difference between an inquiry and a booking request? I am in hour 20 of the 24 countdown clock and the potential guest is not responding to ANY of my texts. I don't want ABB to penalize me...I just need a couple of details prior to make an informes decision. It is a party of 9. An unresponsive guest is a bad sign. Brian....of Big Woody Cottage, Haliburton Canada

[Sarah977]

@Brian581  Yes, an unresponsive guest is a bad sign. However, I do realize that people may have things going on in their lives that make replying to an Airbnb message not top priority- maybe their dad just had a stroke, maybe they had to rush their child to emerg for a broken arm, maybe their plumbing just burst. Or, maybe they're just being irresponsible, but we have no way of knowing. I did contact airbnb once because a guest wasn't responding- they messaged me back within 10 minutes, had gotten in touch with the gues, who then immediately messaged me apologizing, saying she had just been super busy. She turned out to be an absolutely lovely guest.

You can tell the difference between an Inquiry and a Booking Request because it says what it is right at the top of the message stream. And your Airbnb notifications will say "You have a Booking Request from XXX for Sept 3-7th" or "You have aa Inquiry from XXX for Sept 3-7th".

Just like guests, we have to actually read 🙂

[Letti0]

@Brian581  Accept with conditions, if they do not meet them they must cancel or will pay for it when refused entry based on the conditions not being meet. You may want to think about a strict policy it gives a 48 hour window for them to cancel if they don't like your conditions. 

[Helen3]

Why don't you set up your own website for long term wedding venue bookings and then you can separate this business from your Airbnb business.

[Kelly149]

btw, if you don't respond to an Inquiry then that will damage your response rate % so you'll trade one problem for another.

If you don't respond to a request to book, then after 24 hours, those dates will become permanently blocked.

Some hosts will "approve" these kinds of Requests to Book and then let the guest deal with the repercussions of having Requested dates they didn't really want.

The bottom line: answer all Inquiries, if a Request isn't legitimate then either ask the guest to withdraw it from their side or you Accept it from your side, a Decline will be held against you for 365 days.

[Dawn33]

You can limit how far your calendar extends into the future.

I think you have the option on the desktop Airbnb, not your smartphone.

This should alleviate all the “too far in the future” requests that you receive.