Last minute booking

Jason1833
Level 2
Beaverton, OR

Last minute booking

Can I get advice on last minute booking?

 

we had a guest cancel last minute so it opened up the dates. We have our listing set for 1 day advance booking but allows guests to request a same day booking. We received 2 requests that wanted to book that night one at 5pm and one at 7pm. One asked for a picture of the parking as they were traveling across country for a move and wanted to know if it was safe. Seems reasonable however you can’t message pictures and we didn’t want to put the picture on the listing as it shows the front of our home. We felt it was weird. The next request wanted a discount and had a long story about moving here and haven’t been approved for their apartment yet. We learned already not to do discounts and it felt weird too. So we did not approve the booking. So now we received another request and it’s another weird story about friends in town but roommates don’t want them their so they need a place to crash. 
how do you know if these last minute bookings are good guests or not? Do you have any way to review these people because Airbnb only gives you their name. We have had only two other let minute booking and the guy smoked and flooded the place causing so much damage that we had to fix. We think he made drugs but that’s another story. Learning from this we asked the other guy his last name and he gave us all his social media profiles and turned out to be a cool guest. 
the challenge is now we are at risk of not getting superhost because we denied the other two. So I am worried if I deny this request. 

6 Replies 6

@Jason1833   Declining requests has no impact on your eligibility for Superhost. But taking a high-risk reservation with nothing but red flags sets you up for some serious issues that will effect your ability to host at all, "super" or otherwise. My advice is, don't do it. 

 

But if your Advance Notice is set correctly, the calendar should be automatically blocked for same-date requests unless you manually unblock it. 

Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Jason1833 

instead of decline a booking request you can also ask the guest to retract the booking request, especially when the guests wants something which is not possible or is not offered in the listing.

 

When you decline too much, Airbnb will sent you a warning and you risk suspension. But the "acceptance rate" is not used for qualify for Superhost status.

https://www.airbnb.com/resources/hosting-homes/a/why-strive-for-superhost-status-50

 

"We have our listing set for 1 day advance booking but allows guests to request a same day booking."

Then you temporary change that setting ?

 

 

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom


@Emiel1 wrote:

 

 

"We have our listing set for 1 day advance booking but allows guests to request a same day booking."

Then you temporary change that setting ?

 

 


@Emiel1 

 

If you temporarily change the setting, will it apply to booking requests that have already been sent?

Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Huma0 

I experienced they changed from "not possible" to an active booking request.

Which in general happens when a "not possibel" situation changes.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Emiel1 

 

Thank you. Good to know!

Amanda660
Level 10
Auchenblae, United Kingdom

Be very, very careful with last minute, one night bookings.  The payment method may fail and you won’t know until they’ve been and gone.