Whats the point of having reviews if you can no longer pre-approve guests before payment made.

Ellen912
Level 2
England, United Kingdom

Whats the point of having reviews if you can no longer pre-approve guests before payment made.

I woke up this morning to a paid reservation - within an hour of that booking and looking at the really bad review from a host of 1.5 Star for this guest (his only review) - I requested cancellation (guest was booked for 1 night in three weeks time) and am now being charged a cancellation fee.  It begs the question - what is the point of having reviews now? Airbnb literally coin in under "discrimination policy"... in that we don't have an ability to pre-approve a booking before payment is made? 

 

The whole point is for hosts and guests to be comfortable for either letting or staying at that home. Airbnb are so removed from the original idea of being home from home idea that its turned into just another booking hotel site. 

4 Replies 4
Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Ellen912 

Every(!) booking request must be manually declined or accepted when Instant Book is turned off.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1510/how-to-use-instant-book

 

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Ellen912 

 

Do you have Instant Book turned on? Please double check your settings as twice now, it had turned back on after I turned it off. 

 

If you chose to use IB, then you can cancel 3x a year penalty free (after that you need to ask CS to do it) if you are uncomfortable with the guest or feel they are going to break your house rules. A 1.5* review is a good enough reason to feel uncomfortable about the guest in my opinion. What did the review actually say was the problem?

 

Also, if you want to use IB, you can select certain filters like 'must be recommended by other hosts', verified ID and a response to your pre-booking message (although the latter is pretty pointless as it's a post-booking, not pre-booking, message in reality). You can require a profile photo for IB or request bookings, but you'll only see this after it's confirmed.

 

If you are sure you are not using IB then no, this definitely should not have happened, but I had a weird situation yesterday and I am wondering if this is the same glitch, i.e. a request booking going through even though I never received the request, let alone accepted it:

 

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Guest-is-able-to-block-my-calendar-for-two-months-withou...

 

Ellen912
Level 2
England, United Kingdom

Hi Huma, 

Thanks for taking the time for the message. I was having problems with the IB - I couldnt get it to turn off via desktop computer (everytime I tried, my listing suddenly dissappeared and when I logged out and logged into again, IB was still on) - anyhow, someone today helped me from Airbnb and managed to get this switched off via using mobile application instead - as there seems to be a glitched in the desktop version my end (even though I'm using google chrome).  

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Ellen912 

 

So, does that mean it's all sorted now? Are Airbnb going to drop the cancellation fees?