Can I make multiple guest booking reservations for the same dates?

[Jon41]

Hi:

I have submitted a reservation request, but I'm traveling within a few days and worried about wasting time time finding another place if my first request is declined.  Must I wait up to 24 hours (if the host doesn't respond earlier) before I can submit another request for the same dates?

Thanks!

Jon

[Andrea9]

@Jon41

If you send more than one reservation requests, then any of them that are accepted will be accepted bookings and charged.

Apart from the fact that cancelling is not fair to hosts who usually have only one or a couple of rooms as opposed to a hotel/motel you need to consider that by  cancelling you'll loose the booking fee plus you'd be out any part of the booking according to host cancellation modus. Hosts won't cancel for you because host penalties are even higher on more than one level.

[Amy38]

This is not accurate, you are not booked until you book.  Inquiries are not bookings.

[Cormac0]

@Amy

It's not quite as simple as you suggest,

1. Inquiry, Guest.
2. Pre-approval, Host.
3. Keep dates open or block dates, Host.

I always leave dates open until the Guest makes a booking, but novice Hosts may not! thus losing the potential of another booking.

4. Guest books or allows inquiry to lapse over a 24 hour period.

So, if the Host naively blocks the dates no one else can place a booking

The upshot of it all is the host is potentially out of pocket so @Jon41 can hedge his bets which @andrea points out is not really in the spirit of Airbnb.

[Eli21371]

How do you keep dates open? I thought they automatically were placed on hold. 
settings some place? Thanks. 

[Melanie58]

You can make multiple requests.  If you have submitted multiple requests, then each of the people that is considering your request has to "preapprove" your request.  That is not a booking - the booking is still up to you.  However, until you book, none of the reservations would be booked or held for you (unless you request the host to do that, and they agree).  So, once you are pre-approved for a listing, you should book it.  Then you are assured to have a room wherever you are going.  It would be kind to let the other hosts know that you no longer need their room because you have booked elsewhere.

[Linda108]

What might work best for you is to search for those listings in which Instant Book is available.  You are able to book without waiting for the host to respond.

[Noel7]

It is really annoying as an Airbnb host to receive what appears to be a genuine enquiry for accommodation with actual dates supplied, etc.  Then a few hours later, we receive an automated notice from Airbnb that the guest is no longer interested in continuing with the enquiry.  We always reply to every enquiry with a nice greeting and welcome message hoping it will soon be confirmed as a booking.  It is obvious that some guests send their enquiries to multiple hosts at the same time for the same dates.  This is a waste of the host's valuable time.  Airbnb guests should not be able to contact more than one host at a time for the same dates, until the first host contacted either pre-approves or declines their enquiry.  This normally happens within a couple of hours so it is no inconvenience at all to the guest to have to wait a couple of hours before contacting the next host.

[Lisa658]

@Noel7

There is no such thing as a "geniune enquiry".  There is a "genuine booking request" that is confirmed immediately when you click accept and that's it.  The enquiry function is for guests who are shopping around.  They are not committed to your property and there is less than a 50% chance that they will book.  It is not something that they want enough to send a request through for.  They are wishy washy and just want any place to sleep that is priced within their budget.  If you treat these communications this way, you will be a lot happier.

Lisa

[Billy110]

This is a ridiculous opinion. Just as hosts are allowed to reject a booking request, guests should be allowed to make multiple requests to book a place with the first one accepted automatically cancelling all other requests. This would make the situation symmetrical rather than unfairly favoring hosts and making things painful for travlers.

> This normally happens within a couple of hours so it is no inconvenience at all

You are really blatently dismissing the inconvenience of such a thing and the inconvenience of not knowing when a response will be made, and situations where responses are made much later. 

[Sarah977]

@Billy110  No, it is not fair for guests to block the calendars of multiple hosts while they shop around or are awaiting replies. It would be like you expecting to go into a clothing store and having the store lock the door afterwards to any other customers while you peruse the clothing and have the place all to yourself.

And if you put in another request while you have one pending, you will not be eligible to get a refund on them- you will be charged for all. This is not something hosts do- it is Airbnb policy.

If you can't wait an hour or a few (although most hosts try to answer promptly) for a host to reply, then I suggest you plan further ahead so you don't require an instant response.  Hosts have lives, too- they may be at work, driving their kids to school, or it may be 3am in their time zone and they are of course asleep.

[Billy110]

@Sarah977 I agree that it wouldn't be fair for guests to be able to block the calendars of multiple hosts. In fact, I don't think calendars should be blocked at all until a reservation is finalized.

> If you can't wait an hour or a few ... then I suggest you plan further ahead

That is a very unkind and self centered thing to say IMO. Sometimes it is not possible to plan further ahead. Sometimes plans change, as mine did this weekend (I had to change the day of my flight). I am not in any way suggesting that hosts need to drop their lives or be constantly on call. What I'm suggesting is that guests should be able to tell AirBnB "I want one of the following 3 places for this date / these dates, whichever one confirms first". That way hosts can respond at their leisure, and guests also don't have to be on call for hours stressing about whether they're going to get a place to sleep at night. 

[Sarah977]

@Billy110  Thanks for clarifying. Hosts hate that Airbnb blocks their calendars for pending requests.

But there really wouldn't be any way to do what you suggest without Airbnb revamping the entire request to book system. Because if you sent requests to 3 hosts, 2 of those hosts could just click on accept at the same time and you'd end up with 2 bookings. 

It would be better for you to send Inquiries rather than Requests. Those don't block hosts' calendars, and even if the host clicks on Pre-approve, that doesn't commit you, nor block the host's calendar, it just enables you to go on to book without having to then submit a separate request.

Yes, I know there are legitimate reasons why a guest might need a place last minute. And you may generally be a good planner, but things happen outside one's control. But the fact is that that is probably not the case for the majority of last minute bookings. Many come from poor planners,  or they just got  kicked out of their last place for bad behavior, or like a post I once read, the guest was irate because the host couldn't meet him in time for a request made only an hour previous, because the guest had a Tinder date who said, "Let's get an Airbnb." 🙂

[Billy110]

> 2 of those hosts could just click on accept at the same time and you'd end up with 2 bookings. 

There are programmatic ways of ensuring the atomicity and mutual exclusivity of actions like that. I agree that it would definitely require some work on AirBnb's part.

> send Inquiries rather than Requests.

I will try to do that in the future, however, the fact is that users will continue to use Requests in this way, and so I hope AirBnb can make the use of that less of a problem for hosts and more intuitive and useful for traverlers as well. 

[Michelle53]

@Billy110   What if the situation was reversed though - 3 guests all trying to book the same host property, at the same time, and the host able to pick the guest booking the most days for example, or with the best reviews, or favoring a group of four over a single guest.  It would all be unworkable.

There's good logic for locking everyone into one transaction at a time, first-come-first-served.  The guest knows the host can't be shopping the property to other people while the transaction is still pending, in case the guest can't get to respond right away (because of life happening), and the host knows they have to evaluate each request on its merits, one at a time. 

If it starts taking too long the guest can always withdraw the request and try elsewhere. 

Or if sending reservation requests isn't fast enough, there's instant book, where no conversation has to happen at all.