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I declined a guest this morning for several reasons. One, she inquired once and emailed two more times in half an hour last night after I had turned my computer off. Two, her pic had a look in the eye that seemed off to me, hard to explain, gut reaction. (This is for a bedroom in my home).Three, her daughter lives in my complex, so if anything goes wrong I’ll have a local person possibly mad at me.
Since that decline she has inquired again and emailed also, with long, impassioned explanations of why she has to stay here. This feels too emotional to me, too intense. While it’s true that the nearest other accommodations are at least a bus ride away, there are other places to stay, so why fixate on my place?
So my question is, I’ll decline a second time today and if she keeps inquiring I have to decline again to keep my response time up, and how often can that happen before I get in bad odor with Air?
I wonder how she could make multiples - they were for the exact same dates and within 24 hours of each other, so that is kind of odd. I do think she’d be a bully, or at least intrusive and insistent. Kind of bears out my instinct not to let her book.
I don’t understand how she could email. I only get the guest’s email address once they’ve booked. I thought that was the same for everyone?
It seems that the woman wants to stay with you because her daughter is in the same complex so it’s convenient and that’s why she ‘fixated’ on your place. I know that every host is entitled to their own criteria (and a good job too) but I would have probably accepted the booking.
But what really interests me is your statement about ‘if anything goes wrong’. I might regret writing this one day, but I feel 99% confident that if anything is wrong with a guest’s stay I can handle it. Are there things that you expect could go wrong?
I’m sure more seasoned hosts here would have good advice about all of the declines…all I can think of is to contact Airbnb and ask what your options are. To me it sounds like you’re being cornered. You declined for your own reasons and they are valid whatever they are. It’s your property/home.
Aha - I looked more closely and I see that she tried to book one of the rooms and when I declined she tried to book the other.
As to the multiple emails, most of them were Inquiry, which is different than Booking Inquiry. When she sent a booking inquiry and got no answer (because I’m not a hotel with a 24 hour call center) she sent two more inquiries ten minutes apart. I felt pestered.
And that’s what I’m thinking could go wrong, that intrusive pestering would be a pattern and drive me insane. I sleep in the dining room and have no door to close. If she has the poor boundaries it looks like, she could just stroll in.
Also, she wants to be here because her daughter is going to have a baby, but hasn’t told daughter she’s coming, wants to surprise her. That seems inconsiderate to me. Someone with a new baby may or may not want a relative coming over all day every day.
The inquirer said she couldn’t stay with daughter because she’s allergic to their dog, but she’ll be over there all day, so hmm.
If you don’t feel comfortable, just click Decline and move on with your life. The impact on search result location is minimal. Being number one on a webpage is worth nothing compared to your peace of mind. Don’t let anyone lead you to feel otherwise.
Now that I’ve figured out it was one decline per room, I’m less worried since I only have two rooms for rent. So it’s done and she can’t keep trying to book.
I declined a guy who then proceeded to instant book. I reluctantly accepted, turned out to be an okay guest. A little to loud for more liking but not disrespectful or messy.
The real question is what they mean by an excess number. If that is going to be enforced, there will also need to be a way of marking nonsense inquiries as such. For example, we frequently get requests for dates unrelated to their desired stay. “We see that such and such week in June is booked, but here’s an inquiry for April 29th. Would you please let us know if that week we want in June might be possible in any way?” Obviously, those must be declined. More recently, guests have been offering to bid up the rates to dislodge current reservations. Again, these must be declined.
“Travelers looking for a place to stay tell us that getting rejected can be discouraging, so if you decline an excess number of reservation requests, your listing may be temporarily deactivated.”
I hope that the fact they don’t define ‘excess number’ means that they will be taking individual situations into account. I’m an old woman living alone, renting to people in her own home, I’m going to decline when I feel the need. At the same time, this is my income, so being ‘temporarily deactivated’ would have a harsh effect on my life.
I NEVER book local people, and that also means if they have too many connections in my city. It happened once that a woman who booked brought her friend over and somehow “he” lost the key to my apartment…I changed the lock asap! THAT’s why I neve book local people or people who USED to live here or near hear…don’t want my key in just anyone’s hands.
For example, “We see that June 7-11 is booked. Would you consider allowing us to pay 50 dollars more per night and allow us to stay instead?” Something to that effect… So, when they do this, they are making an inquiry for some random set of dates. First, it isn’t something I would consider. Second, it requires denying those random dates.
Always go with your gut instinct. And if in doubt, call Airbnb. They’ve told me that you do not get penalised for declining a client. I’ve had to decline several for various reasons lately. I was also unlisted for 3 months due to building work.
Having said that, my bookings and enquiries all round are very down so who knows how it works?
I’ve also just had confirmed in the last days from Airbnb customer service that there WAS (and still is??) a glitch in the system where enquiries were/are not getting to hosts inbox…
2 month ago one lady made a reservation request for one night. She was coming from a city that is close by, like 25 min away just to celebrate her 3 years wedding anniversary. She was new to B&B, no reviews and 2 verification - email and phone number. Also she did not bother to write my name and her letter was not really nice. I declined her. Last week she put again a reservation request, saying that I have no reservations on that day and she wants to stay at my place. I just wrote to her that it is not possible.
Oh god. This woman sounds like a psycho. I would have declined her too. I’m not shy at all about hitting that decline button when someone rubs me the wrong way, and it hasn’t affected the number of inquiries we continue to get.
