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Because they are taking my place off the market for two whole days. This also blocks my synced calendar on all the other platforms I’m on.
People plan their vacations to Hawaii months in advance. Hardly ever are there last minute bookings. Sometimes but it is the exception.
This is only the beginning. They are going to keep squeezing us on cancellations until cancellation policies are cancelled altogether.
How do you know what my occupancy rate is?
Apologies if I missed this earlier on in the thread, but what’s this new ‘book and look’ policy? Is this Airbnb?
Yes, Air introduced it in some markets. That’s my nick name for it.
You can put a deposit down on a place and keep looking. Forget where the thread is.
Interesting! Is this enforced too, or something hosts can opt in for?
It’s not in place yet. I think it is being tested right now.
Based on what? …
And how do you handle guests not showing up, their credit cards don’t go through , your listing is blocked for 24 hours even if you can’t charge their card?
I am
Not at all for the new 48 hour period but I wish that some grace period was there. I recently booked a hotel through Priceline and literally a second later I realized it was for the wrong month. It took me all kind of tricks to get my money back as hotel
Refused to refund me. My 100$ just down the drain because of I made a mistake that I am sure many people do.
Happens less and less frequently, as people can now opt to prepay. And the few times it happens, it’s only 24 hrs against Air’s 48, and then you cancel immediately. And guests not showing up, yipeee…charge them for the stay according to my strict policy and personally…my favorite scenario!
How do you charge them if their credit card is not validated? I don’t know may be something changed for the past year but when I was in booking , most times cards were invalid because booking.com didn’t validate them automatically .
Also if you are booked the last minute in booking.com
and they block you for it means today is blocked and no one else can book it and then guest doesn’t show up and the card doesn’t go through.
With Airbnb they give guest’s chance to cancell within 48 hours 14 days prior to their arrival date. It’s very different situations
People by nature have commitment issues. I have friends who work in digital marketing and their entire job is to target online marketing toward people once they have looked at a product online. Also heavily target consumers who have placed items in online shopping carts but don’t complete the transaction. Items abandoned in shopping carts is above $5 trillion each year. Businesses know consumers need a push to close the sale.
Likewise, travel sites prominently display free cancellation options to encourage consumers to complete the booking. Not all travel is a necessity. People will be looking at a vacation destination and may never end up there; anything a travel site can do to encourage a booking helps.
Also, I trust the army of data analytic people at Airbnb. This 48 hour cancellation features was used by hosts already on the platform as a test phase. I would imagine they pushed it site wide based on an uptick in bookings for those listings. Airbnb makes its money based on bookings after all.
As I have already mentioned, I was one of the hosts who used it during the trial period. I saw no uplift in bookings, just three cancellations and a lost booking.
I think hosts would have to be rather naive to believe that whether or not it would benefit hosts was a key criteria Airbnb took into account when introducing this. Their bottom line was and is - will this make it more likely that consumers will use our platform to book accommodation. If it does and therefore makes them more money they will introduce it, regardless of how it might affect a host. Airbnb customer services admitted to me that they hadn’t thought through the issue of disclosing a hosts details and address to a guest who could easily cancel the booking within the next 48 hours.
There was no way they could have done a proper analysis between the trial and making it mandatory. It was only trialled for a few weeks before it was made mandatory. I strongly believe the intention was always to make this mandatory and the trial a sop to make out hosts were being consulted.
My head is spinning with the analysis that this policy will increase bookings for airbnb but decrease bookings for hosts.
I give up you clearly you don’t read and/or are being deliberately obtuse @Brandt.
And it wasn’t an analysis, it was my opinion.
@Arlene_Larsson and @KKC I haven’t said anywhere that the 48 hour policy would decrease bookings for all hosts. Quite clearly some will lose. some will gain.
I said Airbnb’s main reason for introducing this was to encourage guests to make more bookings through their platform, whether with hosts who have strict cancellation policies or not.
Useful post @lila
I have already spoken to Airbnb about my security concerns and given them written feedback.
Interesting it wasn’t trialled in the UK in December it was trialled in January/February and then notifications came out in March that it was suddenly being made mandatory.
Let’s put it another way. It will increase bookings for Airbnb most definitely. All their data is right. Those looking loos can keep on looking after they booked with you, have held your place up (and all the other calendars you sync with) and cancel. They will find another Airbnb place! Airbnb wins. You will lose the booking. Oh then the next person comes along and does the same thing. And you lose again! But Air gets another booking.
How is that a win for you?
If you just joined and have less than 15 posts we can delete you. So don’t answer anymore! 
I will try to do it now.
It increases bookings AT THE RISK (AND POSSIBLE EXPENSE) of a host. The host absorbs all the risk of the policy change. So who is winning, really? The parties with no risk–Airbnb and the guest himself. Capice?
EXACTLY. That’s exactly what is going on. These policies were not there while they had to build up supply for a product. Now that they have it they are going to boost demand. Pure economics.
How are you determining which hosts get more bookings and which hosts get less bookings? If total bookings are increasing wouldn’t it be on average positive for hosts?