Push for Instant Book

Please, can anyone tell me why there is this massive push from the company to change to Instant Book (IB)? We’re perfectly happy with our 5 star Superhost status that we’ve earned over time through hard work, and feel cheated that it is now worth nothing! IB is all that counts. Do guests really want IB so much that hosts like us who like a bit of interaction before we hand over the keys are deemed useless and pushed to the bottom of the rankings?

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I agree with you. We have two listings that are IB because that works best for us for those listings and two that are not IB because I need to clarify with prospective guests that they know exactly what they’re getting, since people don’t read. I’m not changing those to IB for any reason, but Airbnb keeps asking me to.

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I´m sorry to tell you this, but YES. You are and you will be pushed for IB.

Airbnb found its way to push hosts to do whatever they want by altering your search placement when you follow their needs. If you aren´t well placed, you won´t get many views thus you won´t get many bookings.

However, your need to get better visibility is directly associated to how saturate is your market of listings. In this matter, It doesn´t feel strange that the company keeps rewarding hosts for referring new hosts.

Besides IB, there are other 2 things that hosts will be pushed in the near future: Flexible Cancellation Policies and cheaper prices. In terms of cheaper prices, I wouldn´t be surprised if the search algorithm ranks you better depending on how close are your prices to their price suggestions. You could say that it´s an extortive way to make you adopt their prices.

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I am working with other platforms so I am lucky that even I get lower clients from airbnb it’s not affecting my business but I don’t people that are only listing with air bnb do…

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It is part of their effort to prevent discrimination and bad publicity. I’m on IB and I greatly prefer it but I understand it doesn’t work for everyone. If you are forced to adopt it the idea is that you will still be able to have the back and forth before you hand over the keys, just not before you accept the reservation. If during that back and forth you become uncomfortable with the guest and want to cancel, you will be able to do so penalty free, or so they say.

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Haven’t you heard? They want to make us just like booking dot com or hotels dot com. We will be available for guests to book without vetting, with an anything goes cancellation policy and be the cheapest deal around. We will become faceless, anonymous places to be rented only be people who bargain shop and change their mind.

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The difference is with booking.com clients can’t get free cancelation if you no refund policy…

Right, even Booking is slightly more strict on that! I booked a hotel in Prague and if I wanted flexible cancellation it was $20 per night more…

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I do think that it is only fair to mention that, it turns out, many hosts are really bad about responding. One of our own while planning their own trip, became incredibly frustrated with the lack of responses. Even she began to filter for IB only.

Of course, if AirBNB would “cull” the hosts that don’t have good feedback rates, or a series of lousy reviews, or or or or … this would not be such an issue.

I suspect that AirBNB’s data indicates that after someone tries to book by inquiry (making a number up here) 3 places with no response, they move over to a hotel site and move on. They are then gone and will not ever try AirBNB again. I think that retaining guests is currently the primary focus of AirBNB. It takes so little to turn off a guest to the whole concept.

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I do understand why IB is pushed for that reason… and I also remember when this was happening with DC. I think if you respond right away, like I do… Within minutes!!! You should be rewarded for that.

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You will NEVER find me disagreeing with that sentiment. Good hosts should be rewarded.

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This isn’t about travelers leaving the site if they can’t instant book. Travelers want to use Air because they are usually getting a bargain even with the service fee. All these listings sites like to tout “but the traveler is demanding it” - blah blah blah.

The truth is that Air guests are willing to go through a (sometimes frustrating) verification process just to use the site. So if everyone truly just wanted instant book, they could go to booking.com for that, and not even be bothered with getting verified. And if travelers were demanding instant book…then non IB listings would hardly get any bookings.

But Air knows if they allowed the market to dictate who gets the bookings…travelers are still going to choose non IB listings. That is the reason Air has to hide non IB listings and trick consumers into thinking they are viewing all the possible available properties. Be wary of any site that hides listings, and manipulates the searches under the guise of benefiting the traveler.

It’s all about Air’s bottom line. Instant book converts lookers into bookers. Air could care less if your guest understands anything about your house rules. And once they get enough people to sign up for IB to get better search placement, they will introduce something else. After all, if everyone is on IB - then NO ONE benefits in search placement. So the next move will be to place flexible higher in search, etc.

Completely agree with you florborne.

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They might even be doing this as we speak!
Wimdu has a feature where a “Flexible Cancellation!” banner Is plastered right there on the main picture. Or “No cleaning fee!” Sheesh.

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seems a bit unfair that certified good hosts with lots of reviews and an excellent track record must carry the burden for those that are bad at responding etc. Surely it would make commercial sense to rank good hosts above others, resulting in more happy guests, who will recommend Airbnb and use the service again?
What I like about the Airbnb set up is how payments are processed and their host guarantees. How do other platforms handle these issues?

If I were a decision maker at AirBNB, the emphasis would be significantly different. But I don’t have that position and AirBNB has chosen to be an all-in for hosts and guests. The rankings of spaces in my area make no sense. The horrid rooming houses are mixed in with the superhosts and places that have horrid cleanliness stars.

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I would say that 90% of our first contacts by guests are booking requests, not inquiries. People search for a property and when they come across the perfect listing they obviously just sent a booking request. Only once or twice have I NOT accepted a booking request, usually because of a bad review. So, no problems with discrimination here. They have all the data, why not use them constructively?

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I have to say if it wasn’t for instant book I would never have found a place to stay in Berlin. 6 hosts later and all had found a reason they couldn’t accept my booking request including being on holiday, the prices not being correct and just sorry it’s not available. (Though interestingly when I went back to check during the dates I’d wanted to book the dates were open).

Berlin was impossible and it was very much the hosts market. In that context instant book was the only way I got what I needed. Even innclusive was crap; their site was down for days and put me off the brand completely.

I accept most of you have a very easy time on Airbnb; for the most part so do I but my experience in Berlin taught me why instant book is actually very necessary on the platform.

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I’ve always used Instant Book - apart from my first couple of weeks on Airbnb when I wasn’t quite sure about the system.

It sometimes seems to be that our main competition isn’t other Airbnb rentals (although it is to some extent) but more often it’s hotels and other accommodation that people can book without going to all the faff of contacting hosts and getting approved.

What’s more, I’ve mentioned here a few time that although I’ve been hosting (in various capacities) for a lot of years, I have never developed the screening process ‘gut feeling’ that other hosts seem to have.

My worst guests were all here before I started using IB - and I approved them because of their reviews and friendly messages. So I’m rubbish at evaluating guests online. I’ve also found that a lot of guests don’t Instant Book but ask questions first (like ’ I understand that your place is no smoking but is smoking OK outside?’ or ‘can we check in early?’) so it’s really the best on both worlds.

I’ve only had one IB guest who was less than wonderful. (Quite a lot less!) For me anyway, it’s always a bit of a gamble whether you use IB or not.

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Your story is interesting Zandra. And I think the listing sites should get rid of bad hosts…but they won’t because the sites are not truly interested about the traveler experience.

But is there a reason why you chose non IB listings first? And then finally resorted to the instant book listing because of not getting accepted at the non IB ones? Were no instant book listings available at the time you first started your search?

I must confess that as a guest I use the IB filter, because so many hosts take several days to reply, it’s very frustrating.