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I think the best course is to establish that the guest broke one of the House Rules. This of course needs a bit of tact (or guile if you will) in linking their behavior to the house rules, and having crafted the rules to make this easy in the first place.
There’s also the catch-22 of whether to first speak to Airbnb and then cancel or cancel on the webpage and then if necessary speak to them. In the former case they may say no, in the latter, if they say it must be reinstated, you’ve already ruptured the goodwill with the guest. Tricky.
I feel exactly the same way. I don’t want to be penalized for not using Instant Book, but I am. I have still been able to stay nearly fully booked, but it requires pricing my room a few dollars less per night than other comparable properties nearby that do use Instant Book. To me, making a little bit less is worth it for the peace of mind.
Forming a personal connection with my guests is really important to me (I did not realize this at first, but after some reflection I came to this conclusion). Yes, you can now cancel penalty free and require positive recommendations from Instant Guests, but I don’t want to ever get to the point where I am hosting a guest I want to cancel. I depend on the money to pay my bills, so canceling has economic consequences.
I exchange a few messages with my guests before accepting reservation requests so that I can get a sense that potential guests are completely clear on what I offer and what I do not offer. It’s easy for guests to click a box that says “yes I agree to house rules” but it’s quite different to ask them a question about why they want to stay and have them respond in their own words: “I saw what you wrote in the listing about old buildings, and I live in an even older building so I’m totally cool with that!”
I have recently considered doing a small test with Instant Book to see how it affects my overall hosting experience, but I haven’t done that yet. Opinions here seem to be mixed - some prefer IB and some would never use it. Seems like hosts who prioritize financial concerns prefer IB and hosts who prioritize having more control prefer non-IB.
Financial concerns are not the only reason to enable Instant Book. I’ve always used Instant Book and I’m very good at connecting with my guests. My reviews back me up on this.
A great benefit to Instant Book is that you don’t have to be tied to your phone to answer reservation requests.
On this board, I’ve noticed that the hosts who disparage Instant Books are the hosts who’ve never tried it.
Personally, I don’t believe that you can get to know a person by looking at their photo and exchanging a few emails. Therefore, I don’t see an advantage to not being on Instant Book. In fact, all of my problem guests have been ones who don’t Instant Book. They tend to be the needier ones.
This is a very good point. The last few IBs I’ve had were at 2am and 4am or when I was in the middle of something I couldn’t get out of right away. Enabling IB has helped me mitigate this pressure and stress.
I was skeptical about IB for a good while, but I’ve come to see the pros and cons, or should I say, the pros, after having it on for a while.
How would this work if the guest has not stayed yet? Have any of the hosts here canceled an instant booking successfully without penalty and what was the reason?
Actually we don’t use IB on our properties because we wish to further review our potential guests. This is a personal choice for us; and we realize that this choice is probably costing us some money in the Nov - Apr season. But again, that’s our choice & we believe it’s worked to out benefit
As for knowing potential guests based on their reviews and e-mail: I must disagree with the premise that you really don’t get a lot from those data points. We ask folks why there coming to the area; and people will generally reveal their plans to you as you go back and forth. This is important to us; as we want to make sure that they are a good fit for us and the neighborhoods were are properties are located (we know our neighbors!). Also, their reviews from other hosts a very helpful too; that is provided that they have several & the hosts were honest in those reviews.
The bottom line for me is that these are my properties and I care about who stays in them. And besides, I’m still making more than just renting them out for 12 months or more.
I tried it and it didn’t work for me as I got lots of people who didn’t meet my house/check in rules booking and it was a pain having to contact Airbnb to sort it out.
I can’t comment about others who have said it’s not for them.
I always advise new hosts not to use it until they are comfortable with how Airbnb works because of the number who find themselves with inappropriate bookings because they haven’t thought through their house rules or who double book because they haven’t learnt to manage their calendars.
Then of course there are the guests who throw up red flags, but meet house rules who you don’t have a chance to decline.
A couple booked to stay 3 nights over a weekend, guy said wife was from this town, and they were driving over to meet friends and relatives.
Their responses were very spotty, these were all warning signs especially as they were hosts themselves so you would think they understood Airbnb and would care to be responsive etc.
About 3 days before the checkin, guy asks if there was a telly in the room. That was the last straw.
I cancelled using a clause in my House Rules which said Please ensure you’ve read what amenities are on offer. That along with their lack of responsiveness.
He tried to call. Airbnb then called, I told them the above. They said ok fine. And that was it. No penalty nothing.
How do you do this without appearing interrogative? I mean, they’re probably itching to have you click the Accept button so they can go ahead with the rest of the plans. And then, if they have to go through a bit of to-and-fro with the host which can sometimes take a while, do you see them getting frustrated? And what if they go ahead and book the other one they were also eyeing?
I ask this constructively, not to oppose your choice. I myself do that type of asking for details, but maybe much less than it appears you do.
In big cities, Airbnb turn on the instant book filter by default. If you are not enrolled to Instant Book, they do not even see your listing in search results.
Possible reasons behind that have been already covered earlier in this thread.
I hope you don’t mind - if I turn on IB (I’m not inclined to but it may be necessary in my city, haven’t had as many bites as I was hoping) I just may steal that…
I have a standard blurb I ask guests that I send back to them if they don’t provide the information that I ask for as part of my house rules (vast majority).
In my short time doing this with instant book I can’t think what questions would elicit information that would predict behaviour of guests. As I live on the property, but it’s a whole house booking, it’s not as much as an issue as someone renting my spare bedroom.
That’s an easy answer: My wife has the dialogue with them, not me. If I did it, it would definitely be interrogative. But she has the ability to simply ask like she there best friend. My wife also knows the main reasons why most come to the city; so she throws those out first. The person generally replays with an agreement or other reason. With that usually comes several more sentences describing a bit more about their trip. That starts the conversation; and then we decide.
