Instant Book -What are the "good track record" requirements?

[Annette391]

Can someone explain what the "good track record" requirements are exactly? I have this setting checked on all my listings that allow instant book, but I just got an instant booking from a guest with no reviews - two trips - but no reviews. I was under the impression that they had to have a least one review and it be decent. I previously got an instant book from a person with 3.5 stars, and AIrbnb customer service told me that was an okay rating. Funny - because if we get a 3.5 rating, we get warning messages and "counseling" on how to improve. Anyway, that is off-topic. 

[Joelle43]

Hello @Joan2709 

Great advice as usual but that « would you host again » option has been changed to « would you recommend this guest to other hosts? » with this option as default!

[Joan2709]

@Joelle43 

Oh brother 🙄

[Joan2709]

@Joelle43 

Not sure why Airbnb even has that option for reviews...it doesn't really do anything. I think the Host has to actually say in the text of the review "would not recommend to other Hosts and would not host again".

[Chris23652]

As I've mentioned before turning off Instant Book for us has a negative effect for us.

We work in another business and cannot monitor requests so easily. We know for a fact in our market booking guests who don't get instant confirmations shop around and often it who ever confirms first gets them.

Whilst it may work for you in your market and how you position your property(s) and how much you can focus on incoming requests, its the polar opposite for us.

But thank you for your time

Ciao

[Joan2709]

@Chris23652 

I did say that while I don't recommend Instant Book for new Hosts or larger properties, Every listing, location and Host is different however. 

If there is market saturation and alot of competition,  IB may be the best option. Sounds like turning it off didn't work for you as you found a drop in bookings and couldn't quickly respond in every case to Requests to Book. 

The real issue, is that Airbnb's tolerances for requirements for IB are too low (although Airbnb tries to sell that these optional settings protect Hosts). This creates more risk for the Host, especially in light of Airbnb not removing retaliatory reviews. Each Host must (and should) decide what works best for them.

The optional settings for IB don't really protect Hosts from "bad" guests in many cases. Airbnb should close the loopholes and raise the rating for "no bad reviews" to at least 4.5 overall rating or above. They should also start removing retaliatory reviews in accordance with their own written policies so Hosts feel more comfortable turning on IB. Guests with trips but no reviews should NOT be allowed to IB. Known cases have been discussed where a guest trashed one property then checked out. Then moved on to check-in to another property and trashed that one too. The guest was allowed to Instant Book the second property because they had a "trip with no bad reviews" as the first Host had not written a review yet.