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I’m thinking of changing my setting for how far in advance guests may book. For example allowing same day bookings vs. 2 days notice.
Airbnb allows new bookings 72 hours to resolve payment issues & Airbnb blocks the calendar so a different guest with a valid credit card can’t book.
Does anyone have experience with:
Booking made last minute so stay to start that day or perhaps next.
Payment doesn’t process
Calendar blocked
If you have scheduled messages to send day of check-in will they send although payment not confirmed?
Will the check-in instructions Airbnb sends 48 hours (or at booking if same day) before check in automatically be available to the guest?
No personal experience, but I’ve certainly read several host accounts over the years of last minute bookings resulting in a guest checking in and being in residence, only to receive a message from Airbnb saying, Sorry, we were unable to collect payment.
I’m sorry I couldn’t find anything about 72 hours. Is it new? The policy has been 24 hours in the past and the website still says 24 hours, but I know they don’t update it consistently.
Either way, a reservation is not “confirmed” until payment is cleared. I have had someone IB the night before a stay and their payment didn’t go through so the status stayed as awaiting payment. It was getting close to check-in time so I called in and was told not to admit the guest onto the property until the payment cleared and the status changed to confirmed.
Of course, that put me in a very odd and uncomfortable position but, luckily, the payment went through about 30 minutes before the guest arrived. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if it hadn’t.
But, I’m sorry I don’t use scheduled messages. It seems like they shouldn’t be sent if the reservation isn’t confirmed (but I’m not naive, lol). I did find this for you, maybe it’ll help. Link is after the screenshot.
I found that in the Payment terms but it is specific to Payment Plans. And that is not new, it was also previously 72 hours. But they can’t choose to have a payment plan if the stay isn’t at least 14 days away so there’s no reason about it happening with last-minute bookings.
I have had a guest canceled by Airbnb in this situation. He booked well ahead of time and did the payment plan thing. But his second payment didn’t go through so I got a cancelation notice. It was a couple of weeks before his stay. He later contacted me and was very frustrated with it as apparently his card on file had expired and he didn’t get the messages from Airbnb because he was sailing or something.
For stays that are less than 14 days away, it has to be paid in full at the time of booking. It will either say awaiting payment (but not for more than 24 hours) or confirmed. A guest can’t check-in without a confirmed reservation so the awaiting payment would have to be resolved before you would have to allow them on the property.
I never understand this attitude. Don’t responsible adults notice when their credit cards, passports, etc., are nearing the expiration date? Why do they need to be reminded or have their payment bounce?
It expired or changed or whatever in between his two payments. So I think it had to do with not remembering to go into his Airbnb account to update it between the first and second payments. I can imagine doing that. I have no idea which credit card is on my Airbnb account but now that we’re talking about it I’m guessing that it’s probably not current.
And to be fair, you don’t have to update that kind of stuff on most big websites. Other large companies use automatic updater services so that it’s seamless for the consumer. I don’t know why airbnb doesn’t use the service but I can see why it would be expected. I’ve been paying my AT&T bill on auto-pay with a credit card for 10+ years and I’ve never had to update anything other than a change in billing address (and only then if the zipcode changed).
But I get your larger point too. Just not sure that it applies for this guest.
