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One of the many things that bugs me about the AirBnB company is how it lets guests book last-minute reservations and still gives 24 hours to collect payment.
It is Wednesday morning here and a guest just booked for the weekend, Friday-Sunday. Great! I clicked “Accept” and AirBnB then informs me the reservation is awaiting payment. The guest “has 23 hours to pay or these dates become available to other guests.”
The reservation starts Friday. I don’t take same-day reservations. So my calendar is essentially tied up with the hope he pays or I’m likely out an income for the weekend and unlikely to get another booking request. Presumably, the guest also has seen the information released 48-hours before check-in such as the address and check-in instructions.
I don’t suppose there is anything I could do but call AirBnB to cancel and hope for another reservation for this weekend, or wait and hope the guest does pay.
Allow guests 24 hours to pay must really create problems when the booking is within a day of check-in. What happens then? The guest doesn’t pay, the reservation is canceled, but they’ve already checked in?
This one is news to me but I haven’t had an instance of same day booking/check-in, one time even within 15 minutes from booking to check-in, and not gotten paid.
We always got paid and I don’t understand how Airbnb can seriously do business in such a way without charging the guest’s credit card instantly at the time of the reservation, risking the guest to check-in but not pay. If so, Airbnb would have to be the one to take the risk of non-payment but compensate the host as it’s not the host’s fault but rather them, also acting as the payment processor.
Interesting for me to know as well how this really works.
Except that isn’t how it works. If Airbnb fails to collect payment, you’ll just get a message saying, too bad, so sad, but we were unable to collect payment for this booking.
What Airbnb really should do is block guests from even sending a request until they have uploaded their payment info.
I have read of hosts calling Airbnb and explaining what you did here- that if they fail to collect payment, you are unlikely to get another booking for the weekend, which means no $ for you or Airbnb, and asking if they could do a penalty-free cancellation and open your calendar. It’s worth a try.
You could also message the guest and jog them a bit, in case they are just fluffing around not uploading their payment info right away.
And yes, I have also read of guests checking in, and after they have been there for a day, Air saying, oh, too bad, we couldn’t collect payment.
This is one reason I usually keep a 2 day advance notice setting on, and would never use less than 1 day advance notice.
Well thanks for clarifying and very poorly from Airbnb.
Ooops, just saw your answer: Are you or anyone else here therefore blocking same day check-in? I’m curious to know. This is one risk factor that can be eliminated.
And yes, like you said, why would Airbnb even facilitate booking requests if they didn’t even confirm the guest can pay Speechless.
I’ve never allowed same day check-in. As I mentioned above, I require 2 days advance notice, occasionally dropping it down to one. But that said, I’m not in a location where guests are likely to book last minute, unless for some reason the place they booked fell through.
There are other reasons not to take same day bookings besides a possible non-payment. While there are certainly legit reasons a guest might need a same-day check-in, it can also be a sign of poor planners, or that they got kicked out of where they were staying for bad behavior. You also don’t have time to make sure the guest has read all the listing info, booked for the correct # of guests, etc. when someone expects to be able to check-in ASAP.
And I’m not the least bit interested in having to drop everything and rush around trying to accommodate a last minute booking.
Of course, there are hosts for whom last minute bookings are their bread and butter, for instance if they live near an airport or get booked a lot by travelers on the road, because they are close to a big highway, etc.
I have also read stories of hosts not getting paid for an on-going reservation due to AirBnB’s failure to collect payment. It is pretty appalling that the booking platform would fail to offer payment for a completed service.
I require one day’s notice, but am considering asking for two days notice to save myself the risk of non-payment and hassle of calling to do a penalty-free cancelation.
Since I live in a major city, I am missing out on business from last-minute travelers, but also avoiding the risk of partiers. I stopped accepting same-day reservations about a year ago from a group that snuck in two extra people (four total in a place that sleeps three). They were the only guests who ever came to my private bedroom back door instead of the entrance to the unit due to not reading check-in directions. They came back loudly drunk in the middle of the night. The guest had dozens of five-star reviews!!! He did apologize and pay the extra guest fee.
Having more booking time has also allowed me to chat with guests to make sure my quirky accomodations meet their needs.
My city has plenty of poorly reviewed property-management hosts with lockboxes. The last-minute travelers can stay there!
I’ve had over 1000 bookings. I allow same day bookings and I’ve never not gotten paid. So hopefully that makes you feel a bit more confident that it will work out.
Most hosts get paid. Most hosts don’t get guests who trash their places and sneak in extra guests or pets. Most hosts haven’t had to deal with scammers. Most hosts manage to run successful listings without having to involve Airbnb.
In other words, bad things do happen, but those are the cases you hear about. The majority of bookings are unproblematic.
It’s good to be aware of possible scenarios, but not to run one’s business as if it’s just a matter of time before all those terrible things will happen to you and to worry about it.
If I get an ‘awaiting payment’ notice after accepting a reservation, I always message the guest right away to be sure they know about it. I politely say they need to “update their credit card info”. I have never had to wait more than 2 hours, but I noticed some guests cancel right away too.
Now the latter you mention are the ones Airbnb should do something about- they send out multiple requests, “holding” your listing in case they find something they like better, but purposely without uploading their payment info, so they can’t be charged. Really selfish, rude behavior.
I’ve had two in ten years and both were less than stellar guests. One group was poor planners and there was a lot of the man agreeing to something but the woman not agreeing, making it challenging. The other group didn’t read the listing and weren’t happy with our place.
I have my umpteenth same day booking in the suite now. As I’ve said previously, I don’t have many “tourists” and if they are tourists they are just passing through on the way to where they are touring. Same day bookings are either locals or my favorite kind of guest: the one who arrives late and leaves early because the drive through my part of the west is long, with good places to stay scarce.
The locals are often people looking to use the room in a very traditional sense, as a place to have sex. This is an undesirable guest for most hosts, but I don’t care why someone is here, only that they follow rules and keep the place clean. If I didn’t take last minute bookings I’d have a lot less business.
The point is that it’s not the last minute booking that is the problem, it entirely depends on the kind of rental one has and one’s tolerance for things that guests do. A host needs to figure out their market and what kind of guests they are willing to cater to. A host next to a busy airport on an island can occupy a different niche than a host on an island at a remote beach or mountain villa.
One of the settings I use is to only allow one night stays. This reduces the number of unhoused people who try to book my place. Also, unhoused people typically want to extend their hours in the rental without paying more and having a firm no early check in or late check out policy can help with this.
If you are connected with software API which updates air BNB of each units availability, you can just adjust the inventory up by 1 on the dates that are blocked. This can open your calendar on abb again.
If a guest books on another platform for instance, or another guest books it, your inventory should go down to zero and the first guest’s booking would not go through even if they fix their payment problem. Crucial to make sure calendar is closed and in inventory 0 if another booking comes in.
You can also have duplicate listings ready to go in case of an issue with the first. Keep all dates closed until you need to open some blocked nights. As long as you have RTB on, and pay attention, you CAN skirt Airbnb blocking other guests.
It’s a bit risky, but IMO if guest doesn’t fix their payment within 30 minutes they are unlikely to. So if you have expensive rentals and could miss out on a last minute holiday booking, we could be talking thousands of $$$.
Also call Airbnb and tell them to call the guest and get payment. Sometimes the guest just needs a nudge as they don’t see the Airbnb messages.
I haven’t confirmed this, but say you use Airbnb ical to sync to VRBO, Airbnb blocking your calendar while awaiting payment would block someone from booking on VRBO. So this is just an abbcockblock of VRBO. Maybe someone can check this next time they have this issue.
In any case, it is a dumb policy, hurts hosts chances of getting booked. Hurts abb chances of making commission. {Maybe a wash} It should be max 1 hour hold. Or no hold and first come first serve. Or can’t request without abb authorizing their card. Although if abb takes debit this may be not possible. In any case, not a big deal for abb to tell guest to hurry up and pay before someone else books their spot.
Fortunately, the guest paid maybe six hours after I accepted their booking. I wouldn’t have let them check in if they hadn’t paid yet, but I don’t accept same day bookings so I think I have enough of a buffer here.
The guest checked out this morning. Looked like they’d left in a hurry (hadn’t put anything back) but also weren’t here long enough to make much of a mess.
I think it depends on what exactly is happening. (Wouldn’t it be nice if Airbnb clued us in to why they do the things they do )
Last week I had a guest send a request, which I accepted, and it said Confirmed right away. The booking was for 6 nights, a month in the future, and the next day she sent an alteration request to add a night, which I also accepted.
Then later that day I got a msg from Airbnb, that they had been unable to collect payment for the extra night, and that they had also informed the guest of that. (Rather than an “awaiting payment”)
Within a few hrs, that extra day had been confirmed.
So maybe it depends on the reason a payment isn’t going through, andat what stage in the booking process, as to whether you get that 24 hr. “awaiting payment”. There’s various reasons why a payment hadn’t gone through-
The guest has sent a request before they have even uploaded any payment info to Airbnb,
They have, but Airbnb hasn’t verified it yet,
The credit card charge is rejected- maybe the guest has maxed out their card, made a typo on the numbers, the credit card is no longer valid, etc.,
I had a guest recently tell me his credit card number had been stolen and asked that I give him more time before he paid the second half of his reservation. I explained I did not see the payment details and told him to contact AirBnb. I had no knowledge he’d paid half up front and half later. I’ve never had a guest’s booking canceled due to failure to collect the second half of the payment. Does anyone know what happens then?
Speechless.
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