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As an Airbnb host, I occasionally get Airbnb booking requests from people who are then not very responsive. I have a form response which I sent out, covering basic points. As you know, Airbnb gives hosts 24 hours to accept or decline hosting requests. However, it is not uncommon for prospective guests to make a booking request, block the calcendar, and then simply not respond to followup host queries for most of the 24 hour period. Or simply not respond within that period at all. The question is whether there is anything one can do about this, other than wait. Maybe there isn’t.
A related situation is when guests respond, but not sensibly.
For example, just last night/this morning, a guest made a booking request for the 10th Feb-12th Feb. I sent her my usual questions. She then said she might want to go with 11th Feb-13th Feb, but she didn’t alter the booking request. I said, great, but the questions still stand, and maybe you want to cancel/change the booking request and put a request for the new dates if you want. She didn’t respond to anything, but cancelled the old request, and made a new request. I responded with - you still need to reply to me. So far she hasn’t - it’s been a few hours. I’m considering whether to decline; people with poor communication skills don’t usually improve on further acquaintance. In a case like this, what kind of approach would you use?
Also, in this particular instance, I’ve got a 6 day gap, from the 9th Feb to 14th Feb, and this reservation is right in the middle of it, which isn’t ideal.
Guests are known to flake; personally I respond and then immediately archive the message. I don’t even worry about it any further until it becomes a concrete booking.
I’ve never managed my calendar that way either… sometimes I’ve had a few gaps here and there and I’ve welcomed the break which feels like a holiday for me. You could set up a minimum stay during that period if you’re keen to make the most of a set of dates but I can’t be sure how well that will work for you.
Perhaps the point of my post was lost in transmission.
If a guest does not respond within 24 hours, you still have to make a decision to accept or decline the booking request. But if the guest hasn’t responded at all in that period, that’s not generally a good sign, if only as regards future communication. And then you have to make the decision whether to accept (with partial information) or decline. For example, an important thing that I ask about when responding to guests is check-in and check-out times. It’s surprising how many people simply don’t think about whether their planned check-in/check-out times are reasonable. E.g. I want an early check-in, at 2 am. Yes, that happened to me.
No need to either accept or decline, your initial message response counts for your response rate, so feel free to leave the request pending for as long the guests needs to get back to you
This is true for queries, but not true for booking requests. For booking requests, you need to either accept or decline within 24 hours. Otherwise it is counted against you.
In the case of queries, you need to respond within 24 hours. No other action is necessary; it’s not necessary to pre-approve or decline.
I’ve had guests that weren’t responsive and they were okay as guests. It’s frustrating to, for example, have them book for one when there are two people. Then I send a change request, they don’t accept it, I have to escalate it to get my money. It’s a a bit more work but while actually in the room they weren’t a problem. My experience just doesn’t support the idea that poor communicators are poor guests.
That does depend on ones definition of a good guest. Having to hassle people is a pain. And they might hold it against you. In your experience, do those kinds of unresponsive people try to take it out of you in a review?
No. But I don’t hassle them. I say “I sent you a change request with the fee for a second person.” Then wait. If they don’t accept I escalate and I always get paid. It seems that these change requests aren’t easy to see on the app so if people are traveling it’s slightly more problematic. You are in a very different hosting environment so my experience probably doesn’t apply.
Yes, there’s no way that I’m going to accept someone who won’t tell me what her planned check-in/check-out time is. I’ll probably wait till midnight (maybe a bit later) and then decline. She’s apparently currently in India, though not actually Indian. She did tell me that much. Ironically, she’s got a web site and stuff, which is not that common.
Not with me. More often than not, I am not at home when guests check out. So I simply tell them to leave the key lying on the bed and pull the door shut when they leave the apartment. This works fine 99 per cent of the time.
I happened only once that guests actually left the front door wide open when they left, which I only discovered when coming home a few hours later. Never mind, that’s life. You cannot eliminate all the risks.
Hi there, I’m curious about your comment about blocking the calendar. When I get a booking request, when I accept or decline, it asks me if I want to block the calendar for the guest and I always say no. Maybe it’s because I have instant book on? I’ve definitely had other people swoop in and book during the 24 hr period. That’s a risk someone takes by not booking right away once I approve.
Until this moment we haven’t had anyone booking and communicating badly. So I can’t comment on that.
Whenever someone makes a enquiry I tend to pre-approve, but I am absolutely not blocking any dates for them. We have INSTANT BOOKING on. They have the choice of booking instantly OR losing the room to someone else. We don’t do exceptions on that, even if they want to book a whopping 2 weeks.
In our experience the ones that tend to ask a lot of questions, because they didn’t read our listing, don’t tend to book in the end. The ones asking for a discount, never get any discount, and therefor (luckily) don’t book either.
For early check-ins we have a rule engraved in stone. They can enter our apartment and use our living room starting from 7:00AM, but we don’t guarantee anything else than check-in to their room at 2:00PM. If there are no guests leaving, people can enter their room from 7:00AM. If anyone wants to arrive earlier than 7:00AM, or wants to be sure they can have the room earlier they simply have to book another night.
To be honest, I wonder if the AirBnB message system has a (big) problem.
Last few days I had several guests not responding to questions, only after I rejected the booking they suddenly responded, saying they never saw the message.
In the past I never had this problem, but now it seems that the message system is not working properly.
I like to say goodbye to my guests. And try to get a sense of whether they will give me a good review. And sneakily suggest they should give me 5 stars…
I’m not sure if you are addressing me or not. You don’t quote anything and it’s not clear what you are replying to.
A booking request blocks the calendar till it’s accepted or declined. If it’s declined, the calendar frees up immediately. If it’s accepted, then of course it now occupies the relevant space unless the guest cancels.
I don’t recognize what you are talking about here. I’ve never been asked whether I want to block the calendar. Are you perhaps talking about inquiries? Perhaps this is something you can do when pre-approving. But I don’t pre-approve now. I used to, but I don’t recall being asked about blocking then. Now, usually if people want to proceed they just send a booking request.
