Is it harmful to reply without accepting or rejecting a booking request?

1

I have a furnished property which I’m trying to sell and have decided to put it on Airbnb during the interim.

I’ve received numerous booking requests pretty, but they’re all problematic in one way or the other. For example, 3rd party bookings without following Airbnb’s process, too many people etc. So, I’ve been replying to them explaining their problems without hitting the DECLINE button.

Is this approach harmful? If so, does that harm reach my other Airbnb listing?

Thanks

2

IT IS HARMFUL if you do not Accept/Decline to Requests To Book You should always Accept or Decline. You should Decline with a reason (which Air asks for). Educating the Requester is optional.

IT IS NOT HARMFUL if you do not Accept/Decline Inquirys which are just questions about your listing.

What you’ve been doing should, however, only affect that listing, not your others.

3

Thanks for that! Much appreciated.

4

So long as it’s an inquiry and not a request you can reply & then ignore it.

Make sure you can tell the difference, as not replying to a request w/in 24 hrs will affect your response rate and block your calendar for the requested dates.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/363/what-does-each-reservation-status-mean

2 Likes
5

Got it! So, basically, be super mindful when that countdown clock shows and either accept or decline before it reaches 0. Right?

6

I received what appeared to be a booking request because it had the 24h countdown. I replied really quickly without accepting or declining as I wanted more info.

When I came back to reply to the next message, the countdown had disappeared.

What happened here?

7

If I recall correctly, people report that the clock disappears after you reload the page.