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My guest is stuck in “awaiting approval” limbo. I am willing to host them; how can I push the booking through? He has previous good reviews and his profile says identity was verified. Does it mean there’s a prob with his payment method?
I reached out to support and got a message back saying “… we encourage our guest to plan ahead of the reservation at least a week before check in. Last minute booking is not encouraged for our guest for security and health precaution during the pandemic.” What? Are they saying no last-miute booking?
Err… sounds like someone is making the narrative up to fit the scenario.
I received prompts today to create a discount for… wait for it… Last Minute Bookers!
Add a last-minute discount
Help fill upcoming unbooked nights with a special price. Set a discount and the number of days you want it to show up before an open night.
Never had a guest who was “awaiting approval” so no idea what info you have available, as in is their telephone number visible yet?
If it is, contact them and just book them direct. We’ve done this before when Airbnb cancelled the booking due to a payment issue, i.e. they tried to take a second instalment and it failed. Alternatively, message the guest and get them to hassle Airbnb; as we all know the guest has a higher status than the host these days with Airbnb.
I’ve had this happen a couple of times and haven’t found any way to push it through Airbnb.
Once I was messaging back and forth with the guest and was able to get them info to contact me through Rover dot com which is a site on which I do dog boarding. They had dogs with them so they booked for their dogs on Rover and then paid me cash for the room on arrival. I also checked their ID once they got here. They actually didn’t fully understand that they had no confirmed booking on Airbnb until they got here because I was being very careful in how I worded things on the Airbnb site.
So it’s a longshot but if you have another website with your contact information that you can get through the Airbnb censoring software you can try that.
I experienced this once last year, with a last minute booking and the dates blocked in my calendar. It was easy to call CS in those days and I learned that there was a problem with payment going through.
I contacted the guest, politely explained the situation and that whilst her dates were being held by Air, I could not block them on other sites until the payment went through as I might lose a peak weekend booking.
I had a similar experience today for the first time - four reservations showing “awaiting verification.” The ridiculous part was that I didn’t get a notification on any of them. They were all within 2 hours of each other (heaven forbid any of us work, and not check our phone for a couple minutes). I found them when a guest messaged me through my website to ask what was going on. I was absolutely shocked.
I have seen this as well. More often recently - maybe airbnb changed something. I had one guy that had oodles of previous travels and great reviews - but they had to confirm their email or phone number or something silly like that.
On the website, the ONLY indication you get is that your calendar is blocked - UNLESS the guest happens to message you. Otherwise - you have no idea your unit is being held. It would be nice if they would notify you.
On the phoneapp, you see them if you look at your inbox, but you don’t get any “banner” on your phone, and there is no message thread - but you can start one and message them to say “hey you are blocked, call airbnb”.
… 