Request to book for instant booking loophole?

[Craig366]

I currently have instant bookings enabled and within my criteria do not allow instant booking for people that have no or negative feedback from other hosts. I sometimes get requests to book from people with reviews, so I know they have feedback, but not sure if they just didn’t use the instant book option or they were unable to use it due to receiving negative feedback previously.

How does one determine the difference as I ideally would not want to accept someone who has previously not been recommended by other hosts as they usually have to do something quite bad for that to happen?

[Andrea-and-Francis0]

It is always best to read guests reviews prior to accepting them for your own peace of mind even if they are able to instant book. I am not sure if they have to have a certain star rating to instant book but they definitely need to be recommended by another host & have only positive reviews when you have the recommendations from other hosts bottom turned on your listing.

[Emilia42]

@Craig366 No one really knows what the "Recommendations for other hosts" entails. One host was told by CS that only guests who receive a 1 star review are prevented from instant booking. So a guest with a 2 star review can book. Hosts are no longer asked "Would you recommend this guest." They are asked now "Would you host this guest again." Just because you wouldn't host a particular guest, (say because they didn't take their shoes off at the front door) doesn't mean that I wouldn't. So I doubt that Airbnb is putting much weight into this questions. After all, they want as many people to instantly book as possible.

I am very skeptical of only taking guests with previous reviews because we all know the review system is junk. There are wonderful guests with zero reviews and there are horrible guests with dozens of good reviews. What you can go off is how the guests communicates with you. If you feel good about a conversation, then I would take a chance on that person, I wouldn't rely on the review system. 

Also, do you have the criteria that guests must have a government ID as well? That will prevent a lot of bookings from coming through instantly.

[Jennifer1421]

It can be confusing @Craig366, when a request to book comes in and you have instant book enabled.

There are a number of different reasons that a request comes through, rather than an actual booking:

1) The guest does not meet all the criteria you've requested in order to instantly book (review your criteria to see if this is the case, and compare it against the guest's profile);

2)The guest is booking inside your "Advance notice" criteria (ie: you've set that to 2 days notice, and the guest is wanting to book for tomorrow);

3) Instant book has been removed from your listing, without notification to you, because you have initiated a cancellation (even if it's one of our 3 "allowable" cancellations).

I don't think, when you have IB enabled and the guest actually meets your criteria, that they are presented with a "Request to Book" option. They, I think, can only book instantly. The option that a guest has to ask questions prior to booking in such a case, is to use the "Contact Host" link. Doing so, results in an inquiry to you, not a booking request.

[Susan1028]

I’m with you @Emilia42

I take things a step further and require all to request so I can address things without any cancellations...abb says there’s no penalty, but it still counts against in other ways.

I do this and live on site.

Id never consider instant book if I were hosting remotely.

[Rona486]

Just making my choices for my first and only listing, which is the third floor of my house. I initially viscerally rejected accepting IB, but I'm rethinking in case I'm being ridiculous. @Susan1028 , may I ask if you are saying you do accept IB but in some way also require all to request booking? I'm confused about this. Thank you.