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Im a now coustume at AIRBNB, and I was woundering that a lot of geust where booking but I never had confirming the booking. How it comes? Is this a part of the agrrement with this portal? Our whats happend. I dindt now this, and have a lot of bookings I actuallz y not whish to have. Also Im wondering that i as a host not have the chance to choose if I actuallz not want this guest. I see I only have3 cancelation option free. But in this case I need more cause as I mention before I dindt confirm them , and I thought that I have this option.
Please any body nows something more about the agreements and can help further? Birte
You need to check your settings, sounds like you have chosen “IB” - that means Instant Book. You do not confirm them - they are booked automatically.
Turn it off! However, the issue of not having IB is that you pretty much have to take everyone unless you are willing to be disqualified for Superhost. The 3 cancelation option is for IB hosts. Without it you need to make a pretty good compelling case to Airbnb to be able to turn down a guest.
Please read the Terms of Service very carefully before you go any further - you need to know what you signed up for.
No, that isn’t correct- you don’t end up having to accept every guest if you don’t use IB- not sure where you got that idea. Hosts who don’t use IB have developed ways to vet their guests. And you don’t have to call Airbnb and provide a compelling reason for declining a booking- that only holds true for cancellations of confirmed bookings. What non-IB hosts do is discourage the guest through messaging from booking if it doesn’t seem like a good fit or the guest history or communication sends up red flags, encourage them to withdraw the request and look for another place that suits their needs, or ask more questions in order to determine if you want to accept this guest. If all that fails, you simply decline the request. It’s true that too many declines will lead to warnings from Airbnb and if it continues, suspension or delisting, but it never gets to that stage for most non-IB hosts.
I have never used IB, know how to vet prospective guests, have a 100% acceptance rate and have never had a bad guest.
Hej Muddy, thanks so mutch for the response. Ok I just are in this situation that i have a lot of request which are been booke /confirmt from somhow. I as a host never confirmd them, but there is showing up lke I confirmed them and there want to stay at my place. So what exacly do you meen that I do not nedd to accept evryone? Can i just cancelate the booking of my guest? The problem is thy booked mz up almost 6 month almost every day.
You have gotten yourself in a bad situation by not realizing that your listing had Instant Book enabled.
With Instant Book, it isn’t showing up “as if I confirmed them”- it’s showing up as confirmed because guests use IB by simply clicking on “Book Now”- no confirmation from the host is needed.
IB bookings aren’t requests, they are instant bookings.
No, you can’t just cancel them, you will receive heavy penalties from Airbnb and they will possibly suspend or delist you.
Is there a reason why you are uncomfortable with all these bookings? Why not message your guests and start a conversation with them, ask them any questions that would set your mind at ease, make sure they have read your house rules and the rest of your listing info so they don’t arrive expcting something other than you provide?
You could call Airbnb and explain that you are a new host, didn’t realize that IB was turned on by default, and that you’d like to cancel some of the bookings. But I wouldn’t do that unless there is something about the guest or their communication that makes you uneasy, in other words, a good reason to cancel these guests.
And turn off IB on your listing NOW so you don’t get any more bookings you haven’t had the chance to accept.
Thanks for clarifying that - I think I got the idea because whenever there is discussion on declining there has been a warning about loss of superhost status. Fortunatly I have not ever had to put it to the test because I have been comfortable with every request to book and have only been uncomfortable with a couple of inquiries. Those I handled as you have described.
I guess it comes down to managing the listing, staying on top of requests, bookings, and calander management AND reading everything on the site (sometimes more than once!)
Also I know Superhost status isn’t a magic wand and it is not the end of the world to lose it but the vast majority of listing in my area are Superhosts so I would prefer to keep it.
I guess maybe the warning about declining re Superhost is that your Acceptance rate does count towards Superhost, but as you and I have experienced, we haven’t had any reason to have to decline any requests. And I think the Acceptance rate for Superhost is 88%, so it’s not like you can never decline.
If I got some off-the-wall request that made me uneasy, I would probably contact Airbnb to make sure I wouldn’t get my acceptance rate dinged, asking them to just cancel the request, as with some of the scam requests some hosts have been reporting lately, but there is also a button to report the request if it’s obviously a scam, which I’ve never had occasion to use.
Cancellations are definitely bad. But there is no stat listed on the Superhost goal page for Acceptance. That does not mean that it is not factored in some fashion.
@Terryathome@Jefferson Yes, sorry, I misspoke- it’s the response rate that counts towards Superhost, not the Acceptance rate. But I know hosts get warning messages from Airbnb if they decline whatever is the criteria for “too many” declines, i.e. less than 88% acceptance.
You need to call AirBnB Customer Service. As @Brian_R170 said, another person on this forum reported that while she did NOT enable Instant Book, there is apparently a glitch in AirBnB’s software that allows some guests to instant book anyway. When you call Customer Service explain that you know that this has happened to other hosts, and that you don’t want to use Instant Booking. Install the app on your smartphone and see if your listing shows Instant Book available since apparently those instant bookings were coming from folks booking on smartphones. Also read the post by the other user that had this problem, just click here → Instant book free cancellation - #5 by cjmart
However, why do you want to turn away business? Most of the hosts on this forum use Instant Booking because it places your listing higher on the page when guests are searching for rooms. You can always review folks after they book, and yes, you get 3 no penalty cancellations, but you can also get Customer Service to cancel for reasons like too many people, won’t obey your House Rules, etc.
Please browse through the posts on this forum to pick up tips on how to use Instant Booking effectively.
