The Reservation was made 6 months ago for Graduation Weekend (May 17th/18th) and the Guest has no Reviews. It is for 6 adults, all family members and two children. I did research on Facebook and Zaba, etc. and felt pretty good about them. Good Jobs and seem like stable folks. Graduation Weekend is the highest paid for the whole year and I have a Strict Cancellation Policy. It is always a concern that there will be a graduation party held at my house which I clearly state in my Rules No Parties. I wrote her on the Airbnb Site and Texted (twice) but have had no response. I never had this happen before. They are going to have to contact me to get the Digital Code to get in the Front Door??? I this unusual??
Our experiences with poor response has always been because of third party booking. If the “Booker” and the actual guests are not constantly in touch you will not get prompt response. When it is review time forget it as the actual booker doesn’t have a clue what to say and so they just won’t. This has happened to us three times and it is not easy to know this has happened unless the guests fess up. Not seeing pictures of guests makes it easier for third party bookings.
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Not at all. We have guests booking up to a year in advance and it’s unusual for them to get in touch until a couple of days beforehand. The chances are that they are more concerned than you are about how they are going to check in.
Have you left a message for them?
I don’t contact guests until the day before check in - they are unlikely to have very accurate travel plans until then. If they are travelling from overseas, I leave a message for them the day before that in case they don’t have proper access to the app when travelling.
In one or two cases, I haven’t heard from the guest until a couple of hours before check in. They have never been problematical at all.
I’ve had a couple of bookings where I’ve tried to confirm details (parking, arrival time), and received no response at all, then they turn up on the day at booking in time.
I’ve even been halfway through an inbox conversation, which then stopped dead, but they still turned up on time 3 weeks later.
Customers, eh?
Interestingly I had this experience recently with a host. I found what I considered to be the perfect place for an upcoming trip. While the host was a SH with over 500 reviews, 252 on the room I booked. It wasn’t IB but I went ahead and requested 2 nights along with a friendly message about the purpose of my trip. It took her 23 hours to accept my request. No message along with the acceptance. After a couple of weeks I still hadn’t heard from her. I was about ready to cancel but decided I would only stay one night with her, maybe only one night in her town. I sent a change request along with another message about my plans. Another 23 hours with no response. So deleted my change request and canceled altogether. I’m not willing to take a chance on a host that disinterested in my business.
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Yes I agree hosts must communicate in a timely manner. We all know some guests don’t but for us its always important to be professional.
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If the guest does not have the messaging/email portion of the app enabled they will not automatically receive your messages. They need to go to their inbox and read the messages. If you are concerned you can reach out to the guest via text message to their phone directly with a quick note about contacting you. Be sure to specify you are their ABB host and need additional information.
I assume this means a voice mail since @CosmoCiro418 did say that 2 airbnb messages and texts have already been sent. Yes, the next thing is a voice mail to the number provided for the guest. There’s not much else you can do.
I personally don’t get too concerned until 48 hours day before check-in. I have flexible cancellation policy, though. I’d be less concerned for myself with strict cancellation policy. 