require four or five guest rating before instant booking

[Jeannine109]

Can I set parameters to instant booking?  The main one I  want to set is to require a four-or-five star rating for the guest who is booking.

[Huma0]

@Jeannine109 there are some parameters you can set, but not that one.

- You can require guests to have upload a profile photo (this is the case also for request bookings, not just IB).

- You can require them to have verified ID.

- You can require them to answer a 'pre-booking message', which can include some questions. However, this is really a post-booking message as they don't need to respond before booking. Also, a lot of guests seem to ignore the message anyway and, it seems if they first sent you an enquiry, perhaps they do not even see it.

- You can require them to be 'recommended by other hosts', but I couldn't find any explanation from Airbnb as to what that means, i.e. is it based on the star rating, or whether hosts have clicked 'would host again' or, as one person was told by CS, is it the algorithm selecting key words in reviews? What it does mean is that guests without any reviews need to request to book with you. I have also had guests try and fail to IB with me and then message me and, in those cases, it was because the guest had a bad review/ratings.

[Anonymous]

@Jeannine109   Additionally, I don't find star ratings from previous hosts very useful. All of my very worst guests have had only positive prior reviews, and most of the best were first-timers. 

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

This is very true and has broadly been my experience too. However, when I was still using IB, having that 'must be recommended by other hosts' filter on did help me to dodge a couple of bullets. 

I sometimes had guests messaging telling me that they were trying to IB and couldn't. I would then look at their reviews and the answer was right there. I still have no idea if the star rating affects this though...

[Jeannine109]

@Anonymous, @Huma0

Thank you for your information.  You have been very helpful.