Odd guest coming back

21

As an Airbnb host using Instant Book, you can cancel a reservation without penalty up to three times per year for specific valid reasons. Here are the key rules:

  1. Valid Reasons: You can cancel without penalty if the guest has several unfavorable reviews, lacks sufficient profile information, or if you feel uncomfortable with the reservation.
  2. Process: To cancel, go to the Reservations section, find the reservation, click the “3 dots” icon, select “Change or Cancel,” and then choose “Cancel reservation” with the reason “I’m uncomfortable with the reservation or the guest has broken my House Rules”.
  3. After Three Cancellations: If you cancel more than three Instant Book reservations in a year, you’ll need to contact Airbnb to cancel without penalty.
  4. Consequences: Excessive cancellations may lead to deactivation of Instant Book for your listing.
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22

That’s great. Very helpful. Thank you. Instant booking has worked for us for a long time and I just turned it back on.

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23

Another thing about IB: The algorithm will push you down in the searches if you do NOT use IB.

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So they say, however, I have enever used IB and am consistantly on the 1st or 2nd page of the 300+ listings in my area.

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25

Same here, and never used IB. I don’t know if it always comes up on the 1st or 2nd page, because I don’t check, (as long as I’m getting bookings there’s no reason to) but some guests, when I asked, have told me my listing came up first.

IB is definitely one of the factors that determines search ranking, but there are so many factors in the search algorithm, that others may outweigh it. Consistent 5 star reviews, niche listing, not a lot of competition in your categories, price, views to bookings ratio, etc.

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26

I think the ranking also depends on how many / what kind of Airbnbs are in the immediate area. From time to time I am at the top, and sometimes lower - often it is because there are many in the same area available. Airbnb wants to have people booked; I do not think that not having IB would be ‘punished’ by moving the listing lower.

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27

I have 5 listings. I turned off IB on the 2 larger homes and those disappeared from the search page for about 2 weeks. I can only assume I was penalised.

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It is not a penalty, just the ranking of those two properties went a bit down ( As they describe, having IB active is giving better ranking) so they are less often shown as results in search. But your two properties are still visible on Airbnb maps, you can check them, and novadays a increasing part of travellers are paying good attention to maps.

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Airbnb simply wants to make it easy for people to book. By using IB, hosts are making it easy. It’s as simple as that, really.

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I am in a very small market - there are only 20 entire homes in my area and I have 5 of them……my listings disappeared totally…not on a search page and not on the map

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Oh, I can’t believe that! Something similar happened to me a long time ago, but my property reappeared promptly after I submitted a ticket. Have you tried searching for them from another device, without being logged into your account? Try accessing them as a first-time user, using a different browser. If you can’t find them either by searching or on the map, then there might be a bug on the platform…

32

You don’t need to find a friend and borrow their phone…
Here’s how to do it from whatever device you own. without revealing your identity to the website:

  • Open a new incognito window

    • On a computer:

      • In Google Chrome, you can:
        1. Click More in the top right corner
        2. Click New Incognito Window
        3. Press Ctrl + Shift + n on Windows, Linux, or Chrome OS
        4. Press ⌘ + Shift + n on Mac

    • In Safari, you can:

      1. Select File at the top-left corner
      2. Select New Private Window from the drop-down menu

    • In Microsoft Edge, you can:

      1. Select the three dots icon in the upper-right corner

      2. Select New InPrivate Window from the drop-down menu

      3. In Firefox, you can:

      4. Select the three lines in the upper-right corner

      5. Select New private Window from the drop-down menu

    • On an Android phone or tablet:

      1. Open Chrome

      2. Tap More to the right of the address bar

      3. Tap New Incognito tab

    • On an iPhone:

      1. Open Safari

      2. Press and hold the Tabs icon on the bottom-right corner of the screen

      3. Choose either New Private Tab or Private on the pop-up menu

  • Close an incognito window

    • Click the red X in the top left corner

    • In Chrome on an iPhone, you can close all tabs or tap “Edit” > “Close all tabs”

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33

You are spectacular, @Rolf, even better than ChatGPT!
Your instructions are thorough and compatible with all devices. While “incognito” mode is often suggested, it doesn’t actually provide extra value here - that is for protecting your browsing history by relatives or coworkers…

I’m confident it’s enough to search from a browser on the same device, as long as you’re not logged in to the Airbnb app.

For those familiar with using a VPN, it’s a great tool to see how your properties appear to potential guests living abroad, but it’s not really needed through.

I hope you know you’re one of my best friends, @Rolf, one of my best brainstorming partners :hugs:

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34

I concur, I switched to RTB as soon as it was available for API connected properties. (IB was required for a few years before that). Same units and same everything and we didn’t notice any decrease in business from airbnb.

It is not that IB is a “bad guest” magnet. For me, if there are crucial details that a guest MUST understand, many guests won’t read the listing and won’t be aware of them. They look at pictures and price and instant book it. Then I have the chore of dealing with their uninformed expectations. And trying to get them to cancel when they say, "oh, I didn’t read that, Or, "Oh, that isn’t what I’m looking for. "

Simple listings where the pictures DO tell the full story should take full advantage of IB. But if you often have guests let down by uniformed expectations, RTB can save big problems during stays by taking a little extra time to make sure the guest understands your offering completely.

Since I’m on the low end of pricing, I agree that is the highest demo for ‘bad guests’. Our pre paid, security deposit requirement, has reduced bad guests to 1/500. And we only enforce it for guests with no reviews that are large groups. Everyone else that is a small group of fine with paying the deposit or has many amazing reviews, we waive the deposit and avoid the hassle. And guests feel special when you waive the deposit. Like I did them a huge favor. Starts things off right. “Bad” guests who read about the deposit after requesting (since they glossed over it in the listing), are quick to cancel their RTB. And if a RTB comes in and the guest doesn’t read and respond. We just decline it after 12-24 hours. Sometimes the guest replies after that and we work it out. It works great for us.

Hosts just have to keep learning how to ‘work the airbnb system’ to meet their needs. It can be complicated since there listing system is ‘one size fits all’. But ‘all’ is every lodging type under the sun.

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35

It really depends on the nature of the listing and the type of guests you market to and who it attracts.

I just have a private room/bathroom, full use of shared kitchen, solo travelers only, listing in my home. It is out in the countryside a 20 minute walk from the center of my touristy beach town. My listing is one of the cheapest in town for a 1 guest listing. I have been hosting since the end of 2016 and I have never had a bad guest, quite the opposite.
(Never used IB).

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36

Here is an update to the original post.

So we had bad feelings about this woman from the beginning and she had zero reviews but we took a chance and we found it odd that she did not stay in the house the whole week that she had booked. However, she had also booked all of December and she hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Well, last night she canceled December without any explanation. And I know she is allowed to do that.

However, we might have filled up with guests for December if we had known she was not coming. Worse, we did not review her because we didn’t want to lose the December booking and we thought we’d have another chance. So now she got all her money back and no review and we have very little chance of getting many bookings at this late date.

I just thought you all deserve an update. And thanks for all the interesting posts, I really appreciate this community.

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37

If she booked ALL of December she should have had stricter refund rules – no?

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I didn’t even know you could set refunds that way! I’m going into my Settings to check it out. Thank you so much.

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39

I’m so sorry @Rachael52 for your disappointment… Pay good attention to your cancellation policies, you can attract more bookings being ‘flexible’ but this is also coming with a lot of cancellations… You might consider trying ‘moderate policy’ and also offer an ‘‘unrefundable’’ option to your guests (that might involve increasing your price a bit). Your house will be booked for December, don’t worry. The strategic thinkers are less than regular players. You have 14 days to review her, did they all pass? When I don’t review quickly I set up an extra reminder on the 14th day after Checkout… I can’t see any good reasons for letting a guest unreviewed…

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It isn’t a setting. Hosts can’t set different cancellation policies for different length bookings.

A booking of 28 days or more automatically uses the long term cancellation policy, regardless of what your normal cancellation policy is.
That’s what Spark was referring to.

Your experience with this woman highlights that when a host’s intuition sends up red flags, it’s best to heed them.

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