Ready to be suspended?

[casailinglady]

@GardenFairy

they told me it is “impossible” for a case manager to do this and it has to be done by the guest or the host.

That’s the robots talking. Keep escalating. It’s a pain, but better to work it and use every outlet available - live chat, phone calls, Twitter, FB…

[JohnF]

@southendbootboy

we’ve received booking requests

Yeah, if someone likes the look of your place then they can still send a request, even though it’s outwith your “booking window”. I cursed Airbnb as we got a couple of those until I realised that all they could do was send a request, not IB. Just answer, saying “nah”, then the request will eventually expire (I think!).

JF

[southendbootboy]

@JohnF

Yeah, if someone likes the look of your place then they can still send a request, even though it’s outwith your “booking window”. I cursed Airbnb as we got a couple of those until I realised that all they could do was send a request, not IB. Just answer, saying “nah”, then the request will eventually expire (I think!).

Thanks - yes, we do have a one-day gap specified on our listing as described by Jefferson (thanks anyway, friend), so I’ll follow your suggestion on future. Thanks again

[JohnF]

Got to be honest, the few we’ve had turned out to be cracking guests. Messaged them back and said apartment not ready till XXpm, every time they said no worries.

One now a regular direct booking; unfortunately, his Oloroso capacity similar to mine, which means bugger gets done next day

JF

[adrienne12]

declining does hurt us. ABB wants us to approve 88% of requests so what I do is this: i send a message saying “I can’t approve your request but I wont decline it either because Airbnb wants us hosts to approve 88% of requests even if they are not possible, therefore I kindly ask you to find something else.”

What this does is one of these:
a) the person books something else in which case their initial request’s status becomes “Not Possible”
b) cancel their request
c) does nothing in which case the request expires but the time they inquired about stays blocked.

[JohnF]

Do you actually get that many requests, which by declining would affect your stats, that you don’t want to accept?

JF

[LoneStar]

100% sure it is possible. I have 2 listings for the same exact property with different booking policies.

[RiverRock]

@Oded

I need to call them for each decline I want to do!

EZ, just turn on IB and start hosting.

RR

[Helsi]

Why was the guest unsuitable @justMandi

[muddy]

@Brandt

You don’t have to decline a request if you have replied to them. Just let it expire.

Wrong. If you don’t accept or decline a booking request, you’ll be penalized on your response time, for sure. It’s only inquiries that you can simply answer and let expire.

[justMandi]

Thanks, Helsi.

This guest wanted to come in nearly 2 hours after our cut off time. Because this is a home share, and he spoke only Spanish, this was going to involve both keeping me up and certainly some noise.

We are also quite far from the airport.

I contacted him within 2.5 hours of his request (I was driving) but he never responded, so with 5 hours to spare I cancelled.

He is a newcomer. I explained how to cancel and that he should not be penalized, but i never heard back from him.

[Brian_R170]

@southendbootboy

We stipulate on our calender that we have to have one blank night between guests - and yet twice in the last week we’ve received booking requests at about 6pm or 7pm for that night. I’ve declined both

You can set a 1-day preparation time to ensure that this never happens.

[NordlingHouse]

@Brian_R170

But, it really doesn’t make sense that declining an inquiry hurts you, especially since it’s the logical thing to do when somebody wants a discount that you’re not willing to give or wants to use your listing for something it can’t support.

I think that both you and @Oded are confusing INQUIRIES and REQUESTS TO BOOK. Although AirBnB tries to make them look as similar as possible in order to trick you into accepting both, they are quite different so you need to read the emails sent by both carefully.

1. Even though it appears that you must either accept or deny inquiries, you do not need to do either one. All you need to do is respond by message to the inquiry within 24 hours and ignore Air’s prompts and email to accept. The message stops the clock. If you don’t want to accept them because (just an example) you have a shared listing unsuitable for children but they are asking if you will, you can just reply “Please read our rules, which outline why our place is not suitable for infants or children.” Even if the answer is “I’m sorry, but we don’t (do|allow) that” that’s enough. To save yourself grief, keep answers as terse as possible. Don’t give reasons, or anything else that will prompt the inquirer to start questioning or arguments.

2. You must either accept or decline requests to book. If you need to decline because guests want to break your rules, book more people than you allow, or do a third party booking, YOU should not decline them. Instead, you should call AirBnB Customer Disservice immediately (don’t waste time messaging them and waiting, call) and ask that CS decline them because they are violating your rules or some other valid reason why either CS or the guest should cancel, not you. If you have a valid reason for a no-penalty cancellation and you get a newbie or airhead CS rep who won’t accept it, try calling back about 3 mins later (so airhead gets busy on another call in hopes that you will get an actually trained or experience person who will understand your rules and AirBnB’s TOS.

I and others in this forum could help you a lot more if you would post a link to your listing. We find it easier to offer tips and advice when we have as much info as possible about your listing, especially the description and the rules. That’s because you need to write your rules so that you can cite them as the reason Air CS should cancel them penalty-free.

I did that last week, but I had my ducks lined up before calling. I checked both my rules and Air’s Terms of Service to make sure I had all the facts, with the appropriate citations from both on separate browser tabs. I also made sure to pleasantly ask the CS person to help me. Once we got past the Identification stuff, I said "I have a problem and I need your help. I have a 3rd party booking and I would like to have it cancelled without penalty and then explained why (3rd party booking; if the CS person tries to get you to accept it and you don’t want to simply say NO because you won’t be protected by Air’s Terms of Service).

I had called the 3rd party booker (an employee of our local non-profit regional theatre) and told her I couldn’t do it because Air doesn’t allow 3rd party bookings. It turned out the theatre had an employer booking account but the previous person in her job had set up the account but she didn’t have the password and couldn’t change the listing. I asked her to cancel the booking and told her I would have CS help her set a new password for the theatre’s account. She said she would just have the guest book since he was an Air member.

When I called, all prepared, CS canceled the booking and while I was on the phone the guest booked the room I wanted him to book because I need to do some repairs in the one the theatre booked. When the theatre employee got the callback of course she was inside during a performance with her calls blocked, but I got the brownie points for helping and since she saw the rooms when she dropped him off I’m now on their list of places to house their out of town designers and other talent, great for me because I average less than one booking per month during the theatre’s season.

So please post the link to your listing so we can offer the best advice possible.

[Brian_R170]

@NordlingHouse

I think that both you and @Oded are confusing INQUIRIES and REQUESTS TO BOOK.

I hope not. All of the 10 declines sure looked like inquiries to me and @Oded was penalized for declining. All I’m saying is that if you aren’t required to accept or decline, then declining shouldn’t count against you. It just isn’t logical.

[NordlingHouse]

@southendbootboy

We stipulate on our calender that we have to have one blank night between guests - and yet twice in the last week we’ve received booking requests at about 6pm or 7pm for that night. I’ve declined both - does this mailing from AirBnB to the Op imply that I have to accept them? We’re in our 70’s and don’t want to be running around in the evening to get the room sorted, etc.

You need to set it for NO same day bookings!

And NO, you don’t need to accept them, but you DO need to call Air Customer Disservice and ask them to help you adhere to your rules and settings by having CS give you a no-penalty decline.

[NordlingHouse]

@Oded

She also added that from now on I need to ask the guests to withdrew the request and if they don’t (which we know they won’t), I need to call them for each decline I want to do!

Yep, that’s how it (sorta) works. It would help if you share your listing so we can see if there might be a way to reword it so that folks won’t be asking.

Some folks have said things right up front like “Maximum of 2 persons with no exceptions. If more than 2 guests or their guests appear at (listing) your booking will be immediately cancelled without a refund.”

[NordlingHouse]

@justMandi

Speak of the devil. I had an unsuitable request yesterday. I asked him to cancel but he didn’t. In fact there was no communication at all from him.

After a 20 hour wait with no response I called air. They told ME to cancel.

How would you have handled this?

I would have made sure that my rules were clear and that I could cite the relevant parts of Air’s Terms of Service, and tell the Customer Disservice airhead the exact reasons it should be cancelled. Then I would stand my ground with the citations if she/he said no, and ask for a supervisor. If I got the occasional arrogant airhead, I would hang up, wait about 3-4 minutes and call back in hopes I would get one that actually knows what they are doing.

[muddy]

@Brian_R170

All I’m saying is that if you aren’t required to accept or decline, then declining shouldn’t count against you. It just isn’t logical.

Since when are Airbnb policies logical? It’s like the guest review form where they ask guests “Did you get one towel?” Hosts have gotten warning messages from Airbnb because the guest marked No. Why? Because they got 3 towels. The logical question should be “Were you provided at least one towel?”
And how about getting review prompts when the guest never even arrived? Anything logical about that?

[TognBee]

Early this year we had an odd “Enquiry”;

Marie

Bee & Rog, Just see your property and Im willing to manage a b00king(it is very well equipped and is ok for our standards), 7-9 nights depending the fly tickets. I want to tell you that this is the f irst time I use this site and I am still not sure that I know all the details. I want to make sure that everything is in order and timely done without any mistake. While viewing all the details in your listing my relative accidentally f0und your ad posted by another pers0n. Analyzing b0th listings we found only 2 different things, the price and the name of the host which is different from yours(it is listed under Sofiya name). For this reason I allowed myself to disturb you and make sure that everything is okay and legitimate… Please check the other 0ne and let me know your position asap, which 0ne is y0urs… This is the AB & BNB L1NK: www.airbnb-rooms-1637.c om Just copy it to your WEB BR0WSER and remove the space between C0M and you will be able to see the listing. I apologize once again and I want to make sure that everything is in the wish of not making mistakes or paying wrong for my trip. Marie from Denmark.

Lots of things rang alarm bells so I contacted CS. This is the response;

Hello Marie,
thank you for reaching out to us! I am Micky from the Airbnb Experts Team.
Sorry for this inconvenience!
Please do not click on that link or follow it up, that is a phishing attempt.
Please report this person in the chat thread so that the team can take action asap.

Well Micky (Mouse?) - an Expert, calling me Marie - the person sending the Phishing message. I wasn’t impressed, especially as I was required to report the person. Could he not have done that directly?
I was then inundated by (auto) messages from ABB prompting me to respond to “Marie”.
I rang ABB, after the first message, to express my concern at possibly being penalised for not responding to an enquiry. I was told not to worry.
I usually try and do communication through the written word - that way I have a record of what I was told. I didn’t worry - I felt there was enough of a paper trail if there was ever a problem.
I’m not happy with CS generally as there have been a number of times I’ve had to call them and, generally, they have not been what I would call helpful. I’ve also not responded to the “How did we do” survey. I may be paranoid but a negative response could leave us vulnerable when / if we need CS again.
One last thing - I was told that “once you decline a request you will not get penalize. The only time that you will get penalize if you cancelled an accepted reservation.”
I hope that helps others in this thread.

[southendbootboy]

@Brian_R170

You can set a 1-day preparation time to ensure that this never happens.

We do have a set 1-day prep time but we’re still getting requests