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Post by Olivier François on May 24, 2016 21:33:22 GMT
After reporting many posts on new CC about newbies unable to disable Instant Booking, mods gave this answer few hours ago:
(( Thanks for starting this discussion here. I have been feeding back your comments to the team and I have received a response to this which I wanted to pass on to you:
'As we advance in our abilities to match hosts and guests, we are working on developing Instant Book so that it's helpful to everyone. As part of our efforts to learn from hosts and improve the feature, select new hosts can only share spaces that are Instant Book listings. If you have feedback about Instant Book, share it with us.'
I understand you may have many thoughts on this and I would encourage you to share your feedback via the link above which will go back to the Product Team.
Thanks,
Lizzie ))
This is the most insane improvement I ever heard about from airbnb product team. We all now how difficult could be dealing with IB even for experimented hosts. To impose IB for newbies is the best way to generate cancellation and disappoint guests. I think this will win the price for worst experiment.
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Post by Olivier François on May 24, 2016 21:34:02 GMT
After reporting many posts on new CC about newbies unable to disable Instant Booking, mods gave this answer few hours ago: (( Thanks for starting this discussion here. I have been feeding back your comments to the team and I have received a response to this which I wanted to pass on to you: 'As we advance in our abilities to match hosts and guests, we are working on developing Instant Book so that it's helpful to everyone. As part of our efforts to learn from hosts and improve the feature, select new hosts can only share spaces that are Instant Book listings. If you have feedback about Instant Book, share it with us.' I understand you may have many thoughts on this and I would encourage you to share your feedback via the link above which will go back to the Product Team. Thanks, Lizzie )) This is the most insane improvement I ever heard about from airbnb product team. We all now how difficult could be dealing with IB even for experimented hosts. To impose IB for newbies is the best way to generate cancellation and disappoint guests. I think this will win the price for worst experiment. |
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Post by High Priestess on May 24, 2016 22:54:50 GMT
This IS insane. It's a very bad decision -- of all the people who shouldn't be using instant book, it's newbies most of all -- who dont' yet know how to write house rules, who don't know how to screen guests, who sometimes hardly know how to use the website! Forcing newbies to accept all comers is an incredible blunder....also newbies are particularly vulnerable to problem guests, who seek out newbies who don't yet know what they are doing.
I find it weirdly synchronistic that this should come about only a few days after reading articles in which many critics of Airbnb, saying there was racial discrimination in Airbnb, thought that the solution was in taking away freedoms from hosts to decide whom they wanted in their own home, and expanding instant book. I was very worried about this, knowing well how political pressure can affect corporations, and so now I have to wonder if this new development might be related to this criticism of Airbnb.
I hope more hosts will understand the problems that are developing as Airbnb makes changes which often seem to violate its own terms and conditions that promise that hosts, not Airbnb, are running host's listings. These kinds of moves make it seems that Airbnb is trying to turn into a giant hotel and appropriate hosts' private property for its own ends.
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Post by High Priestess on May 25, 2016 14:32:53 GMT
Forcing hosts to use instant book also seems in direction violation of Airbnb's own terms and conditions, where this is stated (and stated in all caps for emphasis!): It's the fifth paragraph under item 2, here: www.airbnb.com/terms |
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Post by helgaparis on May 25, 2016 18:42:15 GMT
That is insane and it explains a few newbies with IB on their homes I came accross the last days. One with her house, that she wants to rent during holidays, but the calendar open afterwards. She and the kids will camp in Summer, but certainly not in December.
I can imagine thr scene: she hosts maybe a few times during the hilidays, then she forgets all about it till next year and suddenly there are strangers at the door during the school year...
Maybe it's a way to find resilient hosts?
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Post by High Priestess on May 29, 2016 2:19:08 GMT
See the posts on the Airbnb Community Center about this seriously concerning issue: community.airbnb.com/t5/New-Hosts/Disable-Instant-Book-can-t-find-option-anywhere/m-p/97293#M10427and community.airbnb.com/t5/New-Hosts/Disable-Instant-Book-can-t-find-option-anywhere/td-p/96135/highlight/falseand community.airbnb.com/t5/New-Hosts/instant-booking/m-p/95902#M10302and community.airbnb.com/t5/New-Hosts/Remove-instant-booking/m-p/115547#M12066 excerpts: .... I decided to join the hosts and offer my own apartment. One problem; After creating my listing and looking at the preview I saw quests can book my apartment without prior agreement; the so called 'Instant book' option. I check all the help pages, but every answer points me to options that are no longer there, or at least not for me. I would still like to have some kind of control over the guest, for example when because of work the guest schedules and mine doesn't match up for exchanging the keys. I really am *NOT* up to letting people book without a quick exchange beforehand. Is there some way to disable this instant book setting? Or maybe a way to contact the airbnb team about this? This is really frustrating, even more so since everybody else in my town is able to host without instantbooking enabled. I was looking forward to hosting, now not so much.  .... I had the same problem and this was the reply from Airbnb staff... My name is Michael with the Airbnb Trip Experience Team, and I wanted to reach out to you today regarding your reservations due to Instant Booking. When you sign up for Airbnb and activate your listing, guests will be able to book your space without needing to request approval. This feature can’t be turned off, but you have the option to require all guests to meet additional requirements before they’re able to instantly book your space. This gives you more control over who can stay in your listing. Here are a few ways to control who gets to book instantly: 1. Set your reservation preferences You can use reservation preferences to control when and for how long guests can book your space. You can also block days before and between reservations to give you time to prepare. Read more about how to set your reservation preferences here:https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1210/ 2. Set guest requirements. All guests will have to provide Airbnb with certain information to book. You can also decide whether you’d like all your guests to meet additional requirements. Read more about guest requirements here: www.airbnb.com/help/article/1170/3. Set House Rules. In addition to meeting guest requirements, you can set House Rules that guests must agree to before booking. You’ll be able to cancel penalty-free if a guest breaks your House Rules. Read more about setting House Rules here:https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/472/ I hope this helps! Please don't hesitate to let me know if there's anything else I can help you with. ...... this is a horrible new policy on Airbnb's part! All new hosts should have the option to turn off Instant Book! ..... While I can't say it's the case for your listing, AirBnB has recently admitted that it is conducting an "experiment" with numerous (uninformed) new hosts, in which they turn on Instant Book (without host permission and without a way for the host to opt out). This has been reported by many new hosts and *confirmed* by AirBnB. As horrible as that sort of behavior is, AirBnB hasn't backed off or apologized. Many, many complaints have been submitted. If you believe this has been forced on your listing, please submit your own complaint. ..... I'd be livid if instabook was forced on me. It's my home, and I am entitled to be careful with who I'm admitting. If I was unable to screen for people I felt were not a good fit, I'd definitely be withdrawing my listing. |
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Post by Mabel on Jun 2, 2016 21:44:01 GMT
Unless I am wrong, with Instant Book enabled, even though the host will not be penalized if they feel the guest is a security threat or whatever and cancels the reservation done with Instant Book, that guest now has your full address and phone number. I don't believe there is any way around this. I had turned on Instant Book in a crucial effort to get my rankings up. I normally don't accept reservations from people who live in the immediate area. A guest booked last minute, and I had reason to believe that he was not on the up and up but I had to then consider that if I were to cancel the reservation he would not be happy with that, and he would already have my personal info. Turned out to be innocent of anything other than extreme cluelessness (as far I know anyway). Still, anyone know of any way around this security issue of addresses being provided before you have a chance to determine how much of a risk while using Instant Book?
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Post by High Priestess on Jun 8, 2016 3:51:36 GMT
HI Grace -- I didn't see this post of yours until today. There is a potential way around this issue, however it is not straightforward and involves extra work on the host end. I will send you a private message to elaborate.
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Post by High Priestess on Jun 10, 2016 4:48:02 GMT
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Post by helgaparis on Jun 10, 2016 10:57:35 GMT
Remember the months, when new hosts could not set strict cancellation policy? Somebody at airbnb has a sadistic streak and likes playing with people.
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Post by Maria Lurdes (Milu) on Jun 10, 2016 11:39:16 GMT
This is so insane. I can imagine that some new hosts that don't use resources such as forums, or have friends that host, will likely go bonkers having IB forced on them. It's so shortsighted. Are they trying to sabotage their own brand?
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Post by High Priestess on Jul 6, 2016 22:57:56 GMT
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Post by keith on Aug 1, 2016 14:09:53 GMT
I think the REAL reason for this requirement has nothing to do with guest satisfaction but more to do with AirBnB staying off competition.
If you have a listing on multiple platforms, and it's on Instant Book on AirBnB then you CANNOT have it on instant book on another platform or you risk double booking.
While this may be done under the guise of avoiding/preventing discrimination I'm reasonably sure the real reason is to force people to have airbnb as their listings primary booking location.
Without instant calendar sync with other platforms, you really are forced to give airbnb first dibs on every available night.
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Post by High Priestess on Aug 1, 2016 14:38:23 GMT
Good point, Keith -- I hadn't thought about that. Whatever the reason, I find it very concerning that Airbnb would remove host's right to screen guests --
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Post by Maria Lurdes (Milu) on Aug 1, 2016 14:44:11 GMT
100% agree - this is only about getting the booking $ in the bank, the same with every platform. The synching between platforms has never been reliable because it's not a priority for Airbnb (or for others). What do they care if your listings on other platforms aren't up to date? Over the years and thousands of guests I've had a number of conflicts. Some from total user error (me being the user) but a lot from lack of comprehensive synching between platforms. The synch will work one day, and the next day you get an error. It doesn't matter whether I'm attempting to synch between Airbnb-Wimdu or Wimdu-VRBO, none of the platforms make it easy.
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