Available Room being described to me by host as fully booked

[Ros0]

I sent a request to a person out of courtesy (they actually have Insta-book) to ask about parking and was told that the room was fully booked.

Yet just been chatting with a fellow colleague who wanted to know why I hadn't picked the location like 2 mins away from where we needed to be.

Have since found a place a little further away that seemed to have no issues with an immediate booking but curious - how do people deal with an obvious outright lie as the place is an actual BnB with a few rooms still showing available for those dates!

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

hi @Ros0

hosts who list their property on Airbnb only (or maybe on another one website) and have instant book on , specially if they are superhosts - they will probably have their calendar updated.

But there are a lot of other hosts with their properties listed on numerous websites and they do not update their calendar regulary.

So, you did the right thing, contacted the host before you instant booked to make sure you can book. I would do the same.

[Ros0]

yeah - in fact I have been doing a lot of booking (sports journalist and it keeps the costs down wonderfully when covering tournaments) and I often find it is a real conversation starter. 

And as a host I have declined a few real oddities (the guy who was having surgery and wanted me to come collect him from the hospital was aparticularly special one!)

Well the person I have booked with has been super communicative so all good. And I guess if it is a proper BnB of course it will be in other listings. 

[Andrea9]

@Ros0

And if you unfortunately end up booking with one of those hosts who don't keep their calendars updayed that @Branka-and-Silvia0 describe, they will most probably ask you to cancel (host cancellation penalties are quite high which is why they try to pass it on to the guests), then DONT do it, because you will lose your reservation fees. Let them cancel. If they don't react and you're afraid that you'll arrive to a 'closed' house, then call Airbnb about it. They have insight into the online conversation as proof. 

[Ros0]

Now this is getting curioser and curiouser. Was chatting to an Italian colleague and obviously searching again for parameters in the vicinity and those exact dates resulted in the same place coming up again. Then I got a message from AirBnB telling me to look elsewhere and another ,essa gente from the host embedded in there saying "as messaged, this room is not available" yet it also shows for my colleague in Italy with no issues. 

Anyway i I have since found a place (insta-book) with  a lovely welcoming message by the host, but was confused by the second AirBnB message ... I had not sent a second request at all. Does even looking at the place trigger some kind of message to the host because I am a host and I don't recall getting any kind of message telling me 'x has looked at your place twice' 

[Andrea9]

@Ros0

(I hadn't checked to see if you were a host, so could have saved myself the detailed explanation you know anyway, haha!)

Yes, does sound strange. I know I never get any message triggered by somebody just looking (that would be kind of creepy!)

There seem to be loads of hosts who are bad communicators, so maybe there was something about you that intimidated them.... like being afraid to host a fellow host, go figure... and 'not available' simply meant not available to you. Although when you're really picky that would be completely against ABB's anti-discrimination policy. Sounds like it will remain a mystery and you probably dodged a bullet 🙂

Good that you found a better alternative!

[Ros0]

Well quite - I am not usually given to the 'not available TO YOU' brigade simply because I (perhaps naively) like to think the best of everyone.

And yes - it most certainly is against AirBnB's policy so I think you are right - I dodged a real bullet 🙂