That’s true and it’s a great way to judge who might be staying in your house. I’ve saved a few bad situations from happening through my gut instincts of who’s coming. It always turned out to be right. In later interactions with the same people who wanted to book, they turned out to be ugly and mean and foul and rude in their communication with me after I turned them down.
I’ve always done IB and have never had a problem.
Also 1 night guests are my majority stays. The vibe of my listing is a peaceful, quiet, clean, charming old house - sleeping well is the main event. Been doing this for years and have never come close to cancelling anyone. Touch wood. I live in a separate area of the house and this also is the reason for respectful guests I would imagine.
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The only time I used IB I had the WORST guest. She pulled the “my friend has service dogs” 5 days before her stay and said she knows I cannot charge a pet fee for them, but they just lie around and sleep all day. So I asked the questions I could–how are the specifically trained and who do they support. She offered to send a certificate (which we cannot ask for but are easily obtained online) and it turned out to be emotional support pit bulls. Unfortunately, the state of CA treats them the same. When I asked the question and then stated the dogs just be with them at all times (I live in a beach town) she redid the booking to add them. I had a horrible experience from the time she arrived. She complained about everything (out of my control–like street work done for half a day and a garbage truck pick up in the morning). It got so bad I asked her to stop messaging. Then she lied to AirBnb and got a 30% refund for 4 days. They did not allow me to submit my evidence. They just told me they were refunding her. Never use IB.
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Agree!! I’ve never used and never will.
We just had a guest book last minute. She started to express a lot red flags via too many questions that should have been answered from reading the listing. Since it was so last minute we decided to see it through. Bad idea.
This guest started making up complaints almost immediately. Saying things were dirty when they were not. Saying her kids got bed bugs when she did not. But the worst part was that when she called Airbnb they did not even contact us before they gave her back almost an entire refund despite already spending a night at our house. Yes, Airbnb just took her word for it. No evidence. And then penalized us for baseless claims that has taken me almost 2 weeks to claw back.
After professional pest assessment and TONS of evidence to the contrary. I was finally able to have them acknowledge that the guest was in fact totally wrong. But we’re still waiting on the remaining $3700+ that Airbnb basically took out of our pocket.
Since these new hosts policies, we have been treated the absolute worst we have ever been treated in the 6 years we have been hosting.
Sorry to here. OTOH, I have been using IB for many years for hundreds of guests and have had only a few issues that were specific to using IB. Bad guests can come non-IB, you know.
I personally would never make a wide ranging decision like that based on a one time experience, but YMMV.
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Thanks so much! Since most guests prefer IB, that means we have one less ‘competitor’. It makes our IB airbnb much more attractive and less ‘back and forth’.
Thanks again.
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As we see, bad guests are not ‘Instant Book’ specific. And not using your instincts and allowing a booking ‘just because’ is also not good business - better luck next guest!
While there are legitimate reasons why a guest might need to book a place last minute, there are also a lot of “red flag” reasons, and unless the guest has a lot of great reviews, maybe not worth the risk. And a host’s intuition is usually best not ignored.
Unless your bread and butter is short notice bookings, I’d set advance notice to at least 2 days.
Airbnb has gotten so bad. They won’t listen to the owners or allow us to submit proof. It feels like their customer support is AI chatbots. I kept asking to elevate my situation (they gave my terrible renter back over $800) but instead of acknowledging my request, they sent the same paragraph over and other apologizing for my frustration but insisting that their decision was final. It was the most insulting gaslighting I’ve ever experienced.
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It was two. The second one came in and immediately asked if dogs lived there because he is highly allergic. He booked a place that was dog-friendly. When I told him that, he started to complain that my place was unclean, which was untrue as I have all 5 star reviews and take video evidence of the house prior to the arrival of the next guest. I knew he was going to be problematic so I allowed him to leave in cancel. This is after he asked for a day late check in because they didn’t want to drive to San Diego in bad weather. So, I realized it’s much easier to communicate with someone first than allow them to book. I have a higher end rental and many people want to use my house as the gathering party pad.
Using instant book, all I have to do is cancel them no penalty. Or allow the booking but then cancel showing that the guest intended to circumvent my house rules and I get the booking cancelled and also their money. Win win
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When I asked a CS rep in a message if I was dealing with an actual person or a chatbot (saying I wasn’t trying to be snarky, it was a serious question), after she sent me links to help articles that didn’t pertain to my question, not once, but three times, she had the gall to take offense and tell me not to be rude.
I told her what was rude was wasting my time by not responding to my question, or asking for clarification if she didn’t understand it, and sending me useless links to Help articles instead. She passed it on to another rep at that point, who did take the trouble to actually read and comprehend my question and give an appropriate answer.
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I think there’s a lot of factors that can influence whether IB works well for hosts or not. The nature of the listing, how many guests it accommodates, how experienced the host is or how good at picking up on red flags.
And there are places that are off the beaten track that just don’t lend themselves well to IB. There’s too much to discuss with the guest before accepting, to ensure they really understand what they are booking. Things like composting toilets, no wifi, no stores or restaurants nearby, water shortages, etc.
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I turned off “instant booking” a few years ago - glad I did - I am not inclined to book people without a complete profile, no previous ratings, etc. My house is not suitable to children under 5 and even though I call this out, people attempt to book my house with infants. I gently decline. So I may not make loads of $, but feel my house deserves to have less wear in tear from small children and NO pets - ever. My house, my rules.
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It was definitely a risk that I would not have taken unless during extremely dry times. Thankfully, at the end of the day, the guest ended up only staying 12 hours and we were able to collect about 85% of the total reservation $ back. Was it worth it? In this particular case it still was. Would I do it again? Probably not.
Hmmm. I’m thinking of ways to make my rules tighter so I have documented a reasons I might need to cancel a guest. I find guests that won’t communicate and respond to messages to be a potential problem. I’m adding this rule:
- Must respond to host inquiries in a timely manner
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You have to define “timely” if you want a tight rule.
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I think this is unenforceable (as perPitonView) and also will be an issue between you and your guest, who would never consent to being ‘on call’ to respond to your needs.
Perhaps an easier way to make sure guests ‘respond’ to your (only in an emergency) needs would be to simply make sure their phone information is accurate. I do this by asking that guests reply with a short reply via text when they get check-in instructions.
One way to get guests to respond is to write your message in a way that makes it sound like it is them who will be inconvenienced if they don’t.
So “As I don’t offer self-check-in, please let me know your ETA between my check-in window of 3pm-10pm ASAP, so I’ll make sure to be here when you arrive. I can’t just sit home for 7 hrs waiting for guests to show up and would hate for you to have to stand around waiting for me to get home from shopping or wherever I might have to go do that day.”
Also, if you have a specific question, send it in a separate message, not as part of a longer one about other stuff, so it doesn’t get overlooked.
And make sure you make it clear that you need a response. Sometimes hosts phrase things in a way that could lead a guest to assume it doesn’t require a response.
It’s important to keep in mind that just because a guest doesn’t respond promptly doesn’t mean they are ignoring your message or taking their sweet time about it. I’ve had several guests who apologized profusely when I messaged to remind them to please answer my previous message- one was at a retreat where they weren’t allowed to be on their devices, one was camping and had no cell signal, one had just had a close relative die and her Airbnb bookings were far from her mind.