Hi Deborah,
This has happened to me three times in the last month and is an incredibly poor user experience for both host and guest. All 3 times this happened the booking failed and it just wasted the guest and my time. Let me illustrate:
- A new, unverified guest to AirBnB who is trying to learn the system sees an opening in my calendar and requests. They believe they're all set.
- I log in and see that three weeks of my calendar have now been made unavailable with the description "pending verification". I wonder what the heck is going on since I have no message, no communication, just a block on potentially 3 weeks of my calendar without any note.
- The guest receives a note explaining to them they need to get verified, and upload an ID, etc. They are confused as they provided credit card information already.
- I am now frustrated, because I have no idea who blocked off my calendar for X period of time during X dates and it will probably last for 24 hours, preventing any other guest who IS verified and could have booked my place. That other guest who would have given both AirBnB and me revenue now may book another place or look on another platform for a place to stay.
- The guest reaches out to me now, desperate to understand what they have to do and what the message from AirBnB means. I waste my time explaining to them how to get verified.
- The guest has a 50/50 chance that they will successfully do this in time and properly, and their booking may not even come through due to verification issues. Both guest and host are burned by AirBnB's poor experience in this matter.
A solution: only allow verified guests to actually make hard requests on a host's calendar. New guests should be able to make an inquiry only, until they get verified. Voila!
Does anyone have any insight or details on why this happens? Feel free to share as much as possible in light of making this easier for us hosts.
Thanks!
- Kean