I turned down an inquiry- how does that affect my status?

[Brynja0]

I´m a little confused.

Yesterday I declined an inquiry from a person that wanted to rent two of my cottages for 16 people although the listings are only for maximum 12 people. There is no way 16 people could fit into those cottages and so I declined. I had to give a reason and marked that there was not fit to the peoples needs.

Then I got a message from Airbnb that I should look at my listings and make sure that they are rightly decribed. In this case it´s the guests that have not looked at the listings and I get this message! Will this affect my status?

I´m wondering, is Airbnb punishing me for declining something that I from the start was not ok with?

[John2273]

That is a good idea!  I'm trying very hard to be a great Airbnb host, but the acceptance rate system is really frustrating.  I'm also tired of people asking me about pets when my listing clearly says not suitable for pets.  I'm considering listing it as "suitable for pets" with a $500 per night pet fee.  If anyone is actually willing to pay it, then maybe I'll reconsider and just have the guest house professionally cleaned.

[Kezneth0]

I recentley had a guest booking an instant booking at 3.20am. I did not. have a problem with that but when I checked her reviews in the morning ,they were not flattering at all. I could not cancel because I could get penalised. So I let them stay After 2 days of their stay I was was informed that they were keeping a dog in one of my guest bedrooms. Even if my listing clearly states that I do not accept pets. To make the matters worse when I asked them about the  dog , they lied and said it was not their dog they found it on the highway stranded and they were going to hand it over to RSPCA. which was lie because they had prevoiusly stayed in an airbnb which accepted their dog and left a review and they were not even apologetic that they have broken the rules. So Informed Airbnb and told them to ask them to leave my house. I do not know how that will affect me.

Is there anyway you can block a guest not to book your house on instant booking if you have once had a bad experience with them.?

This experience has made me to think twice on allowing guests to book instantley even if the have been satified  by an airbnb  because some guests do not read or do not respect people:'s homes.

Please help

Kezneth 

[Geri-and-Osiris0]

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@Kezneth0 wrote:

Is there anyway you can block a guest not to book your house on instant booking if you have once had a bad experience with them.?

This experience has made me to think twice on allowing guests to book instantley even if the have been satified  by an airbnb  because some guests do not read or do not respect people:'s homes.

Please help

Kezneth 

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Hosts can always cancel an instant booking without penalty as long as you say you are not comfortable with the booking as the reason for it. The reason cannot be due to age, race, etc.

I had an instant booking from a guest last month who just joined Airbnb the day before, had no reviews, was a local Edmontonian, booked at 4 am and said he and his 2 university buddies just needed a few days to relax from school (in poor grammar and spelling unbecoming of a university level education). Every one of these a red flag and I should have cancelled. The guest ended up ransacking my place over the 3 day booking period, robbed it of over $16K worth of my personal and business items. . .left cocaine, cigarette butts and graffiti on my walls.

In the future even if Airbnb penalized me -Redflags don't get to book my place period!

[Sarah327]

I've taken a similar tactic to a 'Reservation Request' where a guest is trying to book for four persons (two adults, two children) and my maximum occupancy is three!

I have politely reiterated I cannot accommodate more than this number and asked that they withdraw their request... as Airbnb have sent the warning message stating my dates will remain blocked if I don't accept or decline.

It's a very frustrating situation to be in. Especially when I can't magic space for an additional person and clearly state how many my listing can accommodate. The "guests don't read" line is getting way old...

[John-and-Shasta0]

*****PLEASE READ*****

This is sooooo frustrating...this is the conversation I just had with them. So straight from the horses mouth sort of thing...

ME:

9:56 AM

I had a INQUIRY from Sherri this morning and now I recieved a reminder email from you guys saying that i need to pre-approve or decline

you said this.... "When you receive either an inquiry or a request, it's important to respond in one of the following ways within 24 hours:

- Pre-approve or decline the trip described in a booking inquiry
- Send a special offer to the guest who sent the inquiry
- Accept or decline the reservation request"

but then youJUST ALSO TOLD ME THIS.... "You would only have to deny the actual booking requests not the inquiries. If the guest sends only an inquiry, you will have nothing to deny."

so you can understand why I am confused...

Airbnb Support

10:03 AM

I would advise to not ignore the inquiry because that will negatively impact your hosting stat. It would be best to deny the inquiry.

ME:

10:06 AM

so best for YOU GUYS if I decline the offer (even if THEY dont respond) because then you guys can recommend a different place for them to stay and you still get YOUR money but now I have declined to get mine even if they are taking more then 24 hours (and i have RESPONDED to them) to make a decision. and somehow this messes with MY RESPONSE rate? How is that when i DID respond? Has any of your other hosts thought this was a little messed up? I want to make sure my guests are making the right decision for them, I am not trying to shove anything they dont want.

Airbnb Support

10:07 AM

unfortunately I'm unable to resolve your case so I'm forwarding you to a team that can better assist you. While response times may vary, we do our best to respond within 24 hours. The next available specialist will review our conversation and reply directly to you here. Thank you for your patience.

sooooo when asked a direct question about how would that in ANYWAY be ok that it would mess up my RESPONSE rate...I was to much to handle and they are passing me on to someone else. 

[John2273]

I also received less than helpful answers when I last contacted them.  I sent another message last night about this issue.  I declined a request from someone who clearly stated they wanted to violate Airbnb rules by booking for a 3rd party who was not an Airbnb member.  That counted against my acceptance rate.  This is very frustrating.  More people need to complain. 

[John2273]

I am also frustrated with the Airbnb acceptance rate system.  Airbnb is very non-responsive on this issue.  I have turned down people violating Airbnb policies (such as trying to book for a third party who is not an Airbnb member, having a profile with an unclear photo, etc.) and yet those requests are held against me.  I have also had people send a reservation request along with a request to waive my pet fee.  I am going to start reporting these guests to Airbnb as a complaint and hopefully damage their standing in the community the way they are damaging mine.  Then maybe AirBnB will start listening.  I'm also going to add an unaffordable pet fee to my profile to discourage people from bothering me about a waiver.  None of my solutions seem compatible with the friendly atmosphere that Airbnb claims to want to encourage, but they refuse to support me as a host, so I don't know what else I can do.  I run a top-notch location with over twelve 5-star reviews in my first 2 months of doing business.  All my statistics are great and I'm already a Super Host.  But my acceptance rate is 77% because of illegitimate requests from guests.  Airbnb needs to address the acceptance rate issue or realize that hosts may seek other opportunities.

[Sam397]

@John-and-Shasta0 this is what I do and its always worked, If you get something that says pre-approve (inquiry) I pre-approve it then in the message I tell them that I cannot accommodate their needs. They move on, BnB is satisfied and my rating isn't affected. 

If it says approve/deny (reservation request) I deny it, click on the reason why and leave the guest a message explaining why I couldn't accept their request. I have never had any emails from BnB or guest getting upset doing it that way.

[Mark116]

Its kind of crazy that after years and years, such basic answers are still cloudy. 

We never accept/decline/send special offer for inquiries, we simply always respond w/in 24 hours.

I wonder if that is the reason why our listing has dropped to the bottom?

[Geri-and-Osiris0]

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@Mark116 wrote:

Its kind of crazy that after years and years, such basic answers are still cloudy. 

We never accept/decline/send special offer for inquiries, we simply always respond w/in 24 hours.

I wonder if that is the reason why our listing has dropped to the bottom?

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I agree! The answers are definitely "cloudy". Support doesn't have any answers for me either. What is your response rate percentage? I do preapprove inquiries when possible and tell guests to ignore it if it doesn't apply. It's the impossible ones that I DO NOT decline and just leave open because I'm afraid there is a negative impact on my stats for declining them. I believe I read somewhere that you have to accept 80% of inquiries (but I could be wrong). But now my response rate is 94%, when I reply 100% of the time within the allotted 24 hours! I think only accept/decline or preapprove within 24 hours counts in the response rate

[Thomas972]

this is from the air bnb site on the subject at hand. it is vague, yes and states things in a way we cannot predict but it is still helpful in IMHO

Before you've accepted a reservation

We encourage you to take advantage of the safety features we've built to help give you peace of mind and help you get to know potential guests.

Declining an individual reservation request won't negatively impact your listing's placement in search results. However, if you decline many or most reservation requests, your search result placement may be negatively impacted.

After you've accepted a reservation

If you've already accepted the reservation, you can cancel it. You may be subject to cancellation penalties.

[Sarah977]

@Thomas972 

This thread is actually about declining Inquiries, which are quite different from Booking Requests. Declines always count against a host in some way, even if it's just a warning from Airbnb that you're declining too much. But there isn't any need to decline an Inquiry, and as far as I'm aware, you don't get dinged in any way for simply responding to the guest's Inquiry within the 24 hour period, without clicking on either Pre-approve or Decline. 

For a  Booking Request, you definitely have to either Accept or Decline within 24 hours, unless you can convince a guest to withdraw the request before then

[Jonathan1237]

I just made my first ever declined booking request. It was from a local with zero reviews. I have accepted locals with no reviews in the past and have regretted taking those bookings. I would hope this does not affect my standings, but at the same time I really don't want to have to patch drywall, steam the rugs and replace towels again.