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Without any message to me my calendar is blocked for the next three nights by a guest who’s ID is in the process of being verified. I don’t like that air blocks my calendar without an actual booking!
Has anyone had this situation after which the booking did NOT take place? I’ve had this before and the booking has worked out fine.
It doesn’t appear that I can message the guest to find out what time they think they are coming.
Thanks for the info. I did call air - unfortunately, I got a bit of a dud this time. (Last two reps have been great). I had to tell HIM how to locate the guest’s profile. He really didn’t know what verification is pending. He said at the end “I should get back to you by the end of the day”. “End of the day?!” I said “That’s past check-in time”. So he said “Oh, it should be within the hour”. He also didn’t realize that the pending verification does block our calendar.
She’s a new member - since April - we’ll see! We are about to celebrate our 1 year ‘air-niversary’ (yes I just came up with that just now!), so I counted up some stats. We were at 26 countries and this booking will make it 27. And it’s only two people - less money, but since they are in my home, lots less stress and energy. I need to count my blessings…
But - if not resolved in the next 45 minutes I will tell air to cancel
I had this exact situation earlier this week and I can’t see what we can do about it. It doesn’t show the guests name. In the end the guest didn’t go through the verification process and those nights unblocked so for 24hrs it was blocked. Annoying.
I learned something today! If you click on ‘verification pending’ a screen pops up on the right. In small red letters it says ‘guest profile’.
Yes, this reservation expires in 8 hours - it’s almost 11 a.m. here. That means at 7 pm my calendar for tonight is unblocked - yay! Which means my whole weekend is blocked
However, I finally insisted that I speak to a manager - the guy I got initially was nice but I had to tell him many things, including that my calendar was blocked. He insisted it wasn’t. He insisted he couldn’t see the profile of the guest - I had to tell him how to do that, too. Then he insisted that our hands were tied - there was nothing we can do.
The manager DID tell me that we are waiting on something for the guest to do - and she hasn’t responded to their contact attempts.
Since I’m on IB I can cancel without penalty since I’m not comfortable with this guest. I haven’t done that yet but will as soon as I finish my breakfast, which is long past due!!
another reason for me NOT to turn on instant book. I just had a guest book with me and it would not let me pre approve until he finish his verification. At least I was ale to guide him through it.
I often have this “pending verification” because many of my guests are newbies. Only once the verification did not go through, and the same guest sent a reservation request on HomeAway. He told me he was not willing to upload a copy of his ID but would have no problem showing me his ID at check-in.
Funny thing is she DID have her passport verified - and the rep told me payment was verified - it was her online ‘presence’ they were waiting for. At that point she may have said “Dios mio, forget it” (She’s from Ecuador.)
Finally, after pushing a bit, I got a rep who was very cool and knew just what the dealio is, and retracted the booking request.
I have an American friend who emmigrated to NZ and got her citizenship there. She is currently residing in Suzhou China and wanted to book an Airbnb in Germany. She was not able to get online presence verified because she doesn’t use any social media. Not even her profile on the university website was good enough. She apparently went through a lot of hassle to try to get verified and now she is totally turned off on ABB. The was a Korean guest who tried to book my room and couldn’t get verified. Then I saw he left a review on another host’s profile here in town. Not sure what happened but I have plenty of bookings so I’m not going to worrry about it.
@dcmooney I had this problem while I was in conversation with a guest. She was in the process of booking but she couldn’t finish it, my calendar got blocked but she did not get a confirmation. On the contrary, she got a message that the dates were blocked. She thought I was not accepting her request and got upset… I called Airbnb immediately, not to lose her booking. It turned out to be a glitch of the system, not to blame on the guest. She had provided everything. The customer service was very efficient, again, they solved it in less than a couple of minutes. If I had not called… I suggest you call. I notice hosts are reticent to call Airbnb, why? I always do and I’m very happy. I’m a super-host… but I don’t know if it really makes a difference.
That may be true, actually. One call center will redirect me to another line and the message says “hey there, super host! We’ll be with you in a minute”
But I’ll be joining you in that 30 minute queue before to long - no way anyone can keep up the pace. I told a potential guest who was asking a ton of questions, including ‘is your neighborhood safe’ that she might be able to find a place that would be more suitable for her. Look at me, changing my policy to strict and turnign away business…
omg I actually had that exact thought this morning…I’m turning! I’m turning!!! Having to hunt down guests who got themselves lost and called me to fix it, twice, really…tipped…me…oooooverrrrr
Which means my whole weekend is blocked