I have been hosting for over a year and a half, and the very first line of my listing states "Female Guests Only" as I host in my home and do not feel comfortable hosting men. This has worked out well for me for the most part except I do on occasion get booking requests and instant books where a guy has not read even the first line of my listing. I have always succeeded in either nicely asking the guest to please cancel - I do this immediately so usually they do not incur any fees. Or in the event of an instant book that is too close to the stay where a fee would apply, I have called Airbnb on behalf of the guest to ask them to cancel so it is penalty free for both of us.
This morning I received an instant book and since it was for tomorrow, I had to call Airbnb. They told me that I should be taking my listing off Instant Book so I could better screen for appropriate guests. I live right next to LAX so 50% of my bookings are Instant Book - often last minute travelers; plus competition is very high here and accepting IB gives me a bump up in visibility - this would seriously compromise my business.
Lastly, they had the gall to suggest in a follow up email from CS that if I am cancelling guests based on gender after they booked not reading (or ignoring) my requirements, that I might be considered to be engaging in discrimination according to their TOC. When according to their TOC I have the ability to only host guests of my same gender in a shared listing. Talk about a contradiction!
Do I just continue to ride out IB and hope I can fly under the radar?
