How to qualify a guest BEFORE accepting their booking?

[Joseph1933]

I have had two recent issues with guests where Air BnB's ID verification process has proven to be totally inadequate and I was wondering does anyone have a way to check people BEFORE you accept their booking? As you all know, we don't see the person's surname until you accept their booking  and by then, if you want to cancel them you're up for cancellation fees and possibly loss of status. Not a great system.

The first guest (since departed) sounded dodgy from the get-go and sure enough, the couple (booked as 1 adult initially) proceeded to ignore my house rules by smoking on premises and eating & drinking in the room. I've just spent about 4 hours deodorising all the bed linen, curtains, carpet etc.

I have now accepted a new "guest" and once I had his full name, I quickly ran it through Google and found that he has a criminal record in another state. Not anything serious but still a criminal record.

I'm new to hosting (1 month) & would appreciate if anyone can advise on how I could screen guests before accepting their booking request? I don't do Instant Bookings.

Thanks

[Mike-And-Jane0 · Accepted solution]

@Joseph1933 The more I hear about Instant Book the more I like it. We have at least 3 opportunities per year (some say an infinite number) where we can cancel a guest free of penalty for a valid reason. In the few cases where we have to approve a guest (same day booking) we lose this right.

Perhaps reconsider IB.

[Joseph1933]

Many thanks for the suggestion. I'm not convinced about Instant Booking but I will review it after I have been a host for a few months. Regards