Imagine my delight when I had a request for a full-month’s stay at my guest cottage in November. November isn’t exactly tourist season in inland New Jersey, so a month’s stay delivers Christmas presents. I replied to the inquiry; the woman wanted to come by to see the place before booking. She sent another inquiry, saying she was surprised that I hadn’t replied because my profile says I reply within an hour.
I replied. She sent another inquiry, puzzled that I hadn’t replied. I’m doing all of this on my cell phone while at the shore. Finally, I called customer service (thank you so much for posting the number – I couldn’t find it anywhere on the site). The woman I spoke with was very nice, could see that none of my responses had gone through, and had no explanation. She said that it appeared that she could send a message for me, so I asked her to let the prospective guest know that I couldn’t communicate with her through the system, so she could call me on my cell.
I provided my cell number and waited. Nothing. Bupkis. There were three more messages from the potential guest yesterday, and one this morning saying that they were really interested. I still can’t communicate with her. Now I’m going another round with customer service to see if they can make this happen. It’s over $3,000 to me that may be making its way south.
Hmmm…other hosts had problems communicating with guests over the past few months during times the system is down. Airbnb has been doing maintenance or updates.
If you have your phone set up to receive texts whenever you get a message via Airbnb, a few months ago they changed it so you can’t reply to those texts, you must go to the website or use the app to do responses.
Airbnb Customer Service can also call the guest if you are having trouble getting through. The problem could be the guest had a typo when they entered their email.
I’ve had long term (30-90 day off season) guests want to see the unit before they make a commitment. Renting a place to live full time for 30-90 days is different than for a week. For a week you can handle a higher level of inconvenience than if you are living there. I usually offer to meet them at Starbucks and escort them to view the condo. So far, every time I’ve let guests preview the condo, they’ve rented.
I think you misunderstand the Airbnb system where you are unable to contact a guest or host via cellphone until the booking is confirmed.
If your pictures were adequate then they wouldn’t need to pop in and “view” the listing. The intention most times is for the guest to try and circumvent booking on Airbnb and then booking direct with the host. This is obviously what Airbnb is trying to avoid.
So it’s only when you have an accepted reservation that you can call or email the host.