Recent Instant Book

Has anyone with instant book gotten a booking needing to approve recently? I have requirements (ID , recommended by another host). This guest seemed to meet everything , had like 30 positive reviews. 5 Star. Was not sure why it was getting kicked into approval.

Do you mean the guest used instant-book but Airbnb still asked you to approve, or do you just mean that you have instant book enabled and the guest met all the requirements, but the guest still sent a reservation request? I had the latter happen once. I think that guest was just used to making reservation requests, but who knows, maybe he just wanted to vet the host.

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Do they have the choice? It was not a pre approval, once I hit accept it was reserved. Maybe it was a request.

I assume so, but it might come from a specific sequence, like searching while not logged in, clicking on “reserve”, then logging in to complete the request.

Could it be that the guest was “not recommended” by a previous host (despite having all 5* reviews), I may be wrong but I think that blocks their ability to instant book.

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This happens to me when they indicate either an early arrival request or beyond my normal check in time.

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I think this has happened to me recently. It is rare that I get enquiries, most people instant book. This guy made a booking request with some rather strange questions/statements:
Are these dates available?
Well of course they are, otherwise you would not be able to request to book :neutral_face:
We need two beds
Uhh…yep, there are two beds in the room as shown in the photos.

He booked within minutes of me pre-approving.
He has one review. The text is just “Good” but he has only 3* for communication. I’m not surprised as his communication is terse to the point of being quite rude. I don’t need super friendly stuff or reasons why you’re staying but politeness costs nothing. The host that reviewed him only has a handful of reviews so I’m now guessing that she didn’t like him and didn’t recommend but was too shy/polite to say anything publicly.

We’ll see! I am going to make a confession… now that I can see his profile photo he looks like a proper miserable git. I know, I know… so many times I’ve said it doesn’t matter what a guest looks like. But the brain does it’s own thing :smile:

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I realize that this is an old thread but the same thing just happened to me. In the past instant books were confirmed by Airbnb automatically. Now I get one headed “booking request” from a guest with six prior reviews. Airbnb keep changing their procedures and website without any prior notice. What is the point of “instant book” if guests who qualify cannot. What if I had declined, would that have counted as a cancellation?

It is “possible” that a prior host posted a “passive / aggressive review” - they wrote nice things and gave them 4/5 stars but hit the last review button “Would Not Host Again”.

That is the only thing that I can think of, other than “weird tech stuff happens”

I do not like the Air requirement for “has reviews and does not have negative from hosts”. It also prevents new accounts from IB. We WANT new accounts instant booking us. That is 40-50% of our business. We do not have a “sales prevention dept”.

After we get a booking, we use the chrome airreview plugin, and double-check guest history. It is working well so far.

It is also possible that although the guest qualifies they CHOSE to request instead…