Strange booking Glitch

My husband and I went camping last night and had no internet or cell service until we rolled back into town this morning. As soon as we got home I logged into Airbnb to leave a review for the guests that checked out on Sunday, and what do I find but a new “comfirmed” booking request. The request came in and was instantly confirmed at 9:00pm last night. I thought I might have been reading it wrong and it was an instant booking, but the guest just joined (August of 2020) and has no prior reviews, surely they can not instant book.

I sent her a message and she messaged right back that somehow she ended up with 2 confirmed bookings, but the other one came through first. I told her she could cancel and I would accept it for a full refund. I’m waiting to hear back, but I imagine she’ll be on hold for a while…

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I’m not sure whether you mean it was an IB booking or not? What are your settings? I don’t require previous reviews in my IB settings so I get a lot of Airbnb first timers.

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Depends what settings you have put on your listing @TamiS

Why do you feel they shouldn’t have been able to book?

New guests with 0 reviews can instant-book if you don’t have the setting enabled that requires recommendations from previous hosts. If you do have that enabled, then I agree, that would be a glitch.

If the booking is at least 16 days away (for strict cancellation), she can cancel within 48 hours of booking and get a full refund without having to call and without you having to be involved. make sure she knows that.

I just checked and of course my requirement for “recommendation from other hosts” was turned off. I turned it back on, but the strange thing is that my instant bookings always say “booking confirmed”, this one says “request accepted” just like all of my other “requests”.

The booking is for this weekend and I have a moderate cancellation policy. I still haven’t heard back from the guest.

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Yay, heads in beds.

Next!

RR

I’m happy to take the booking and told her as much, but she says she got booked in two places (which I think is part of the glitch). She said if she can’t cancel without penalty she’ll keep the booking. I still haven’t heard back from her and would like to know one way or another so I can rebook if she is cancelling.

I would tell her that your offer to fully refund is only good for 8 hours or something You need to charge her for blocking up your calendar otherwise.

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Better yet don’t offer a refund to begin with, cancellation policy is there for a reason. IMO hosts need to stop giving away money, it’s bad enough that Air gives away our money on a whim.

RR

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I sent her another message asking that she let me know right away. I should have set a time limit though. I’ll remember that for next time.

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We also had a strange booking glitch. I had a message on my Airbnb mobile app from Karen requesting to book a weekend, I pre-approved her but she couldn’t complete the booking as she hadn’t finished her account setup. So we waited half an hour or so and I got a message to say the reservation had been completed. I looked at the calendar and it said Athena had booked. WHAT??
I got my husband to check on his laptop but NONE of my messages to Karen were visible. We eventually got it sorted. Athena cancelled, Karen confirmed. I rang Airbnb to help sort it out. They denied it was a glitch with the website.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen somebody post about a very similar glitch to this before, but that host didn’t have instant book turned on. It just turned on by itself and there was a status in the reservation that said “request accepted”.

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I do not allow children under 12 stay at 2 of my properties, 2 bookings this week with young children- both booked mentioning the children in the booking, both went straight though- had to upgrade them to a child safe property.

I went through my whole listing yesterday to make sure all the right boxes were ticked. I had to reset my check out time from flexible back to 3:00pm and both the not suitable for kids options, in addition to the instant book requirements. It’s really frustrating that these things get turned off so often.

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Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I don’t think some of these are glitches at all. I think Airbnb’s algorithms are programmed to turn on IB or change check-ins to flexible, or suddenly accept children, in order to make things easier for guests to book. They know you’ll eventually catch on and reset it, but in the meantime, you might end up getting an IB you’re reluctant to cancel, or getting a few bookings from guests who are planning on checking in at 2AM and were real happy to see “flexible check-in”.