Approve Airbnb inquiries with Hostaway

Dear followers,

Airbnb is based on trust and fast communication. For your convenience, and for a better guest experience, you are now able to respond to inquiries and pending requests automatically, see guest verifications and approve reservations straight in the Hostaway dashboard!

Airbnb Inquiries

In Airbnb you can set your listing to be instantly bookable or ask the new guest first to make a reservation request that you can approve or deny. It's good to know that both options have a different behavior before you decide to what option you go with.

Instant bookable:

When activated your listings will rank higher in the Airbnb search results so more reservations can be expected. The reservations can only be canceled by the guest and not by you as host.

Inquiries:

Guest has not entered credit cards, Airbnb calls it "Contact host" but it allows the host to pre-approve within 27 hours. No action is necessary from the host, but pre-approving gives the guest an easy way to book.

Pending reservations:

Airbnb calls this "Request to book". The credit card has been entered and the host needs to choose Approve or Decline within 24 hours. The host is required to give a response (Approve/Decline) within 24 hours.

Finding the inquiry

When you have connected your Airbnb account(s) to Hostaway and preferably activated the email forwarding options as well. The new inquiries will show up on your Hostaway overview page under the section new inquiries. You can also find them on the reservations overview page by filtering on date received and/or filter inquiry.

Approve or decline

Once a new inquiry is received you will see that a countdown clock has started. Within the next 24 hours you can pre-approve the reservation request and send a reply to the guest based on the questions he or she might have sent to you.

Receiving the new Airbnb reservation

When the guest decides to make the reservation it is depending on some technical processes how these will come in. Inside Hostaway software the transition from pre-approved to new reservation can happen in 2 ways.

Pre-approved inquiry changes status

This means that the same reservation details inside hostaway with status pre-approved will change to a status new reservation. You will no longer see the inquiry request for the specific guest.

Pre-approved inquiry canceled and new reservation created

For some inquiries it is possible that the original inquiry will keep showing up in the system. A new reservation will be received by Airbnb with the full name and other details of the guest.

Over time all inquiries should behave in the same order but when you see the above happening it is a known behavior.

Additional Features for Fast Responses

• Automations now include the events Pending Reservation, Inquiry and Cancellation
• You can see the guest reviews and qualifications in the reservation and messaging pages
• You can assign a conversation to a colleague or manager
• You can approve guests straight on the Messages page
• Conversations can be starred and easily found later

Thank you for your feedback so far. If you have any questions feel free to ask them at support@hostaway.com.