Automated questions to Instant Bookers?

1

A while back, I created a handful of questions that get presented to Instant Bookers when they book.

I set this up so that I could reiterate my no smoking and no partying house rules.

Now Airbnb seems to have removed these. Am I missing something? I can’t for the life of me find where they are.

2

I called in about this last week. The CS agent confirmed they got rid of the three questions. He said we could confirm trip details after the reservation is made. So now “Instant” is less instant because you have to chase the guest down to answer questions about their trip info.

You can still edit the Instant Book standard message, but the character limit is too short to include much in the way of questions.

3

Less instant for us, more instant for the guest. Surprise! Another step in the march to hoteldom.

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4

I was sad about this, too. I felt like a fairytale bridge troll with my “you must answer me these questions three”. Guests hardly ever answered them, though. The format made it easy for them to miss.
I do wish there had been some sort of notice to hosts that the questions were no longer going out. It made me slightly annoyed with the guests, when I should have been very annoyed with Airbnb. Oh! Maybe that’s why there was no notice…

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5

Seriously. I saw a huge spike in pot-smoking guests (the scourge of hosting in Brooklyn, I suppose) after this happened.

I just now added them to my house rules section, but thanks for telling us, Airbnb.

6

Could you clarify - did you put the questions in the house rules? I could see that being helpful if they were unresponsive and you needed to cancel.

7

I used a pre check in survey to gather all my info after booking. Saved tons of back and forth. That may be helpful for anyone dealing with this issue.

8

I could never get guests to answer my IB questions or I’d get 1-word answers like “wedding.” I started using SmartBnB a few months ago and really like it’s automated messages. So, I can send guests a longer message with questions when they book and send another message with check-in details and a reminder of house rules shortly before their arrival.

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