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I suggest anyone who has a “snoozed” listing might want to check its status.
I just got a booking request for one of my listings, which I had “snoozed” till the end of the year. Logging on to AirBnB I noticed a large number of page changes since I last logged on a few days ago. I am guessing a site upgrade accidentally unsnoozed my listing, so I have snoozed it again. But in the meantime I got a booking request
Fortunately, the guest understood and withdrew the request, because I was afraid to just decline it. AirBnB now penalizes hosts for declining booking requests, even when the request is clearly unacceptable (e.g. I declined one guest who wanted to bring 3 dogs when we clearly state we allow only 1, and I declined another who said they wanted to throw a birthday party - and as a result I got a nastygram from AirBnB threatening to de-list us).
AirBnB has become so draconian that hosting is not a lot of fun these days.
If you just click on decline, and do it more than a couple of times, yes, apparently hosts get the nastygrams. If you call them and ask them to look at the message stream to see that the guest is asking for things you don’t allow, they may let you decline without penalty, not sure.
But usually, if you just message the guest telling them that you can’t accept their request because asking for things you don’t allow, and to please withdraw the request so they will be free to look for another listing that meets their needs, they will usually do that. Then you don’t have to decline unless the 24 hours is almost up and they haven’t done it yet.
But usually, if you just message the guest telling them that you can’t accept their request because asking for things you don’t allow, and to please withdraw the request so they will be free to look for another listing that meets their needs, they will usually do that. Then you don’t have to decline unless the 24 hours is almost up and they haven’t done it yet.
I do try that first. As you say, mostly they are understanding and withdraw the request, but sometimes they don’t respond at all so I wait as long as I can and then decline. And some get angry and tell me that if I don’t accept their booking then they will leave us a bad review (apparently they don’t understand how reviews work **). Naturally I decline those too.
These days I try not to get AirBnB involved at all unless I really have to. They are quite hopeless, get very nasty very quickly, and can make a bad situation much worse.
** Mind you, having said that I have to admit that sometimes neither do I. For instance, did you know a guest who decides to cancel without even staying can leave you a review? I didn’t, until it happened to me. A guest arrived, said they were going to the shops to get some supplies, left and then apparently found somewhere cheaper to stay so they made up a lie to tell AirBnB, cancelled our booking and then demanded a refund, which I naturally refused. So they left us an appalling review even though they had cancelled. I complained to AirBnB that this was unfair and the review was a lie but they refused to take it down. I tried to reason with them but all that happened was that they threatened to de-list us. That seems to be their standard method of dealing with tricky situations now.
Oh yes, I should post the exchange I’ve been having with the clueless CS reps for 3 days now. It’s unbelievable. Two reps and neither can understand my quite simple question, and who keep sending me responses that have nothing to do with my question, with links to Help articles that have zero to do with what I am asking. Luckily it isn’t some urgent or important issue, I just want an explanation of why they are displaying the taxes the way they are to my guests. I’m honestly not sure if I am getting these messages from humans or a computer bot, no joke.
Yes, guests can leave a review if they cancel day of check-in, and while it’s absurd that they can leave a review if they haven’t stayed, I kind of understand why Airbnb allows this. They don’t really have any way of knowing if the guest even showed up- it would be the host’s word against the guest’s, as there is no official check-in procedure. A guest can sometimes arrive to find the place is truly unacceptable, filthy, inaccurately pictured, etc. Or they can’t get in and the host is unreachable. If I ever had a guest who hadn’t stayed leave a lying review, I would just post a review response saying “XX did not actually stay here at all. She showed up, left saying she was going shopping, and never came back. Perhaps she was offered a free place to stay somewhere, because she then tried to get refunded. Please refer to my other reviews for accurate accounts of what you can expect when booking with me.”
If I ever had a guest who hadn’t stayed leave a lying review, I would just post a review response saying “XX did not actually stay here at all. She showed up, left saying she was going shopping, and never came back. Perhaps she was offered a free place to stay somewhere, because she then tried to get refunded. Please refer to my other reviews for accurate accounts of what you can expect when booking with me.”
Yes, we did most of that. I didn’t think to add the last bit, which I regret - but then I originally wasn’t too worried by the review because I thought we would easily be able to get it removed since it contained outright lies that we could (and did) prove to AirBnB.
But apparently AirBnB won’t take down a guest review just because it is untrue any more. They’d rather de-list the host.
I’ve never had a dishonest review, so never had to leave a response, but I’ve seen that last bit in other host’s responses to lying reviews, and I think it’s good. The less you say in response to a lying or revenge review, the better. Since responses appear on your review page, not the guest’s, you are really only writing responses for future prospective guests. They don’t really care about what some other guest did, so best to just keep it as brief as possible, simple facts, and make it sound like you’re brushing it off, like an annoying gnat. Responses that sound like the host is angry, defensive, or cares deeply about some liar’s review don’t do the host any favors.
“Nothing to see here folks, move along” is the key attitude to effective responses to lying reviews.
