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TLDR: rather than contacting me or giving a fair warning, AirBnB suspends my listing for a week. Nevermind that I’m a “super host” with hundreds of happy guests and zero issues throughout the last couple of years.
I tried contacting support but got a useless chat bot who did nothing but restate what I already knew: the listing has been suspended. Thanks for nothing, chat bot.
Anyone know where I could send an appeal?
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I’ve hosted hundreds of travelers the past couple of years. I have excellent ratings, super host status and have never cancelled any reservation nor had any complications (insurance claims, complaints or such).
A big part of that success, is that I am incredibly stringent on who I accept as a guest: I require that they have read my listing. I feel that this is important because if they book without knowing what the listing is (and what it is not!) there will be an expectation mismatch (No food included? No private bathroom? No elevator?) and we will both be unhappy.
But for this unreasonable demand of mine, of getting to decide who stays in my home, AirBnB just suspended me for a week. They didn’t bother to raise any flags, made no attempt to contact me, put up a warning on the dashboard or in any way notify that declining requests is an issue.
I’m disappointed, honestly. I think AirBnB is miss-diagnosing the issue entirely. Surely it’s their problem if we are swamped by low-quality requests? Just help me screen out the deal breakers: bookings for a third party, empty profiles, no common languages, baby havers, etc etc etc. I bet my number of declines would drop dramatically.
You get a warning every time you decline a guest. You complain in your other post that they don’t read your listing but you don’t read the popup you get when you decline an request.
An appeal really isn’t worth your time as they can easily put you off ("we’ve sent it to a manager who will be in contact within 24 to 48 hours) for the 5 days.
I’d say take your suspension and maybe work on your wording or something to try to discourage these “low quality” guests in the first place. I’d raise my price a bit when the suspension ends to try and recoup some of my lost revenue. When it’s something like third party booking call Airbnb to make sure they don’t penalize you as that’s a violation of their profile. You might even be better off with instant book with recommendations and then you can cancel penalty free for a number of reasons.
What is a “baby-haver?” Someone wants to use your place to give birth? Or they are pregnant? No common languages? I think you’ve gotten yourself in a situation where is looks like your are discriminating against certain people for ethnic and gender reasons.
Also Airbnb has higher standards that went into effect at the beginning of April and more are coming. You should keep yourself informed of these changes; don’t expect a personalized email each time they make a change. If you decline too many guests you’ll lose Superhost status. Another thing they will do is “disappear” your listings. You won’t be suspended but you’ll be buried in search or invisible in most searches. You’ll call and they will tell you you are there, no problem, or it’s a glitch and bookings will simply dry up.
Seems like a lot of declines. You signed up for service to book accommodations to strangers. Airbnb is not a dating service where you find the ideal match.
Happened to me a couple of months ago. 5 of 6 were legitimate declines. 1 was a last minute request (as in, 30 minutes from check-in) which normally would be fine but we had family staying and were about to head out to dinner, and didn’t think to amend the calendar at such a late time.
Of the 5 legitimate:
1 request was to bring children to our ‘not suitable for children’ listing.
1 request was for 3 people in our 2 person guest room.
1 request was from somebody coming without a car and wanted a ride from the bus stop.
1 request was from somebody with a baby.
1 request was from a third party.
I called Airbnb and they said somebody would get back to me, and nobody ever did. I was momentarily fuming but to be honest had a lot more to worry about in my personal life at that time, so I let it go.
It does anger me that none of the above 5 people had any right to send a booking request in the first place, having read my listing (hahahahaha) and seeing my houserules before doing so
Untrue. When declining a request the app tells me, and I’m paraphrasing; “declining requests makes guests frustrated, make sure you keep your calendar up to date to avoid having to do that too much”.
How is this relevant? If I read more popups, you’re saying, guests would read the listing?
I should edit my listing, to fix the problem of guests not reading my listing? Do you have suggestions on what parts of it needs work?
While I could spend my days on the phone with AirBnB to report obvious misuse, I would prefer that AirBnB took some responsibility for their services.
Specifically, they could read the motivation they force us to write for every request that we decline, and act on the information they have thus been provided. Since that’s not happening, they could at least leave off with punishing hosts for filtering that spam out.
Someone who cares for a baby. Or a child. Or a pet. Or anyone with any other need that my listing is explicitly set up to not cater for, but who clearly aren’t kept from requesting any way.
If they suspected discrimination they really ought to reach out and deal with the discrimination, rather than generically shutting down a listing for saying no to six people in a row.
Fair point. I realize now I know what the consequences of declining are from reading this forum, not from Airbnb. I’m on instant book so have only seen the popup once and it seemed like a warning…but due to my time here.
Nope, just irony.
I might but it’s been suspended for 5 days.
They just see themselves as a booking platform and they want to book as many guests as possible. They don’t want you to decline because no one likes rejection.
Again, good point. I was thinking of number of trips hosted. Not hard to host 10 a year so unless you are on another platform, not relevant to you.
Definitely.
We all do. But it’s their platform and they will do with it as they please.
Lol, it’s their website and it really annoys people to get rejected, hotels simply don’t do it. Plus by the time you lodged your ‘appeal’ the 5 days is up- moot point. Let it go
Lol again, pretty judgemental. Perhaps you would be better with your own website from which you can seek only those high calibre guests you desire. I take guests from all over the world, probably 70% newbies in the past year, very very rare issues. Perhaps use your suspension to think about this and the impact on guests when you decline them, constantly.
They shouldn’t shut you down for declining requests, that is RIDICULOUS. It’s all about coddling guests and punishing hosts so we will be less inclined to decline their inappropriate requests and just take all comers.
I rent rooms in my home. Of late probably 60% of the requests I get are from people with no or minimal profiles, 5 word introductions, requests for discounts, no itineraries, no photos, or even a basic hello.1 in 3 is a third party booking.( It’s a rough patch, I know.
What does it take - 5 minutes?
I hate to admit it, but IB cuts right through the nonsense.
But we are NOT hotels though are we? We are unique and different and individual with a host (pardon the pun) of hosting styles, isn’t that what Airbnb was originally all about? Not becoming some clone of some other model that already exists in multitudes but something truly personal and different. It feels to me that we’re slipping away from that into something more generic.
I would absolutely reserve the right to who I allow into my home, without doubt.
I wonder too about ones listings ‘disappearing’ but then again, who the heck knows how their algorithms work! All in all we have to work with what we’re given and make the best of it, it’s anyone’s guess what the future will bring??
Problem is people will decline because guest is black, gay, Muslim etc which causes a huge problem.
As a platform, Airbnb doesn’t want random declines for frivolous reasons either. What someone sees as reasonable reason to decline can vary grealty from person to person. Airbnb needs to set standards to avoid abuse.
I was declined as a white middle aged woman by a NYC host who told me the apt was “not available.” This was in 2015 so before the latest round of fines and pressure by NYC govt. Despite the decline the dates remained available. BTW this was for a 7 night booking so it’s not like I was ruining a weekend with a one nighter on a Friday or something. Anyway it took her about 18 hours to decline and after that I booked a nice hotel at over $300 a night.
It upset me and to this day I search SH and IB first with no cancellations on their record. That feeling of rejection that you would never get with a hotel is real. Booking an airbnb is so nerve wracking because of problems with hosts.
Me: Another thing they will do is “disappear” your listings. You won’t be suspended but you’ll be buried in search or invisible in most searches.
You: This sounds a lot like another conjecture.
I agreed that this was conjecture and then I was reading the updated TOS today and saw this:
7.1.6 The placement and ranking of Listings in search results on the Airbnb Platform may vary and depend on a variety of factors, such as Guest search parameters and preferences, Host requirements, price and calendar availability, number and quality of Images, customer service and cancellation history, Reviews and Ratings, type of Host Service, and/or ease of booking.
That’s somewhat ambiguous but I read it as they can disappear your listing for any reason. Most of us would read that as do you have instant book on but if you don’t and you decline a bunch of people you should expect your ranking in search to suffer.
Yes, that’s what it says now. I had to decline an inquiry today because it was a third party booking. I have IB and Air has told me that with IB, I am not penalized for declining an inquiry. But I never feel like I can 100% trust that the rep knows what they’re saying.
Still, the declining an inquiry process was much better when there were radio button choices one could click for the reason for declining. The reasons for my last few declinations were 1) inquiring about a long term stay, something we do not offer, 2) third party booking request, and 3) space unsuitable for person’s planned stay (e.g., person very allergic to animals and we disclose we have several of them).
You seem extremely unreasonable; you violated very clear agreements we make with Airbnb on declining too many requests in a row, plus your “baby haver” comment is concerning. This is entirely your issue.
What are these clear agreements? Could you link to them in the TOS or help pages or anywhere? I can’t find anywhere in writing that Airbnb has told us about this penalty.
