Booking Status Inquiry/Request -- difference?

[valdiego]

Hello
I have a question about the difference of the booking status Inquiry vs booking status Request.

Is this in wording only, or does it influence the functionality (room availability/blocking for example)?

More specifically, Airbnb requests/enquiries (i.e. non-confirmed bookings) come in as an Inquiry (which doesn't block the room -> expected).

• However, when these bookings are then pre-approved (within Airbnb), the guest in principle gets a 24 h guarantee that the room is held, until the guest makes up his mind. While Airbnb will, during this period, not accept other bookings, the status of the booking within beds24 doesn't change (it stays as a non-room-blocking Inquiry)... So theoretically, the room could be booked from another channel (it admittedly hasn't happened to me), but I think it would be good if beds24 booking status would be changed to a Non-Confirmed (but still room-blocking status).
• In the same logic, when I "Decline" an enquiry on Airbnb (i.e. basically close that reservation), it would be good, if the beds24 Status were moving from Inquiry to Canceled.

Any thoughts on this?

[lesleywoermeijer]

In Beds24 - Inquiry does not block the room. Request will block the room.

If you Import the Inquiries/requests from Airbnb, they will be imported with Status = Inquiry.

If the Inquiry is declined, then Airbnb will send a cancellation and the booking status will be updated.

You can choose not to import these Inquiries to Beds24, go to Settings > Channel Manager > Airbnb > Mapping > Inquiry & Requests and set = only with with booking number.

[valdiego]

In Beds24 - Inquiry does not block the room. Request will block the room.

That's what I thought as well, but this depends apparently on the settings in "Settings/Properties/Booking rules/Request Bookings'. By default they were set to "No Blocking". I changed them to "Block" -- and now the option to change them back to "No Blocking" has disappeared .... Anyway, quite confusing.

If you Import the Inquiries/requests from Airbnb, they will be imported with Status = Inquiry.

That's correct, but it's not, what is written in airbnb Channel Manager documentation:

If you import inquiries Beds24 will create a request booking.

If the Inquiry is declined, then Airbnb will send a cancellation and the booking status will be updated.

That's incorrect. I have declined several inquiries on airbnb (mainly because of pets/party plans etc.) and they systematically stay in status Inquiry within beds24. (Booking 57582408 is an example, which is still in that status and it's clearly inactive on airbnb after a decline). this is clearly a missing, but desirable feature.

You can choose not to import these Inquiries to Beds24, go to Settings > Channel Manager > Airbnb > Mapping > Inquiry & Requests and set = only with with booking number.

Thanks for pointing me to the possibility to disable functionality, but that's not what I want to do. Here are the issues I currently see with respect to the Status/Blocking character of Unconfirmed airbnb bookings: Maybe you can point the user community to solutions for those:

• Is there a possibility to Pre-Approve or Decline an airbnb Inquiry booking (imported as Inquiry into beds24) from within beds24; I can do that from within the airbnb messaging system by pressing the appropriate buttons; those messages are available within beds24, but the Pre-Approval or Decline isn't possible inside beds24. I have to log into airbnb for that.
• As stated above, it would be good to automatically move Declined airbnb inquiries to status Canceled within beds24, instead of leaving it eternally as an "Inquiry", after it's long gone within airbnb. Failing that, could you point us to an appropriate trigger within a template variable (so an autorule could be triggered), which updates once the Decline is done on the airbnb platform. Currently, the log entries of e.g. the above reservation show absolutely no change in the beds24 booking, after an airbnb inquiry has been declined.
• The (desirable) icing on the cake, would to be able to handle Pre-Approvals or special offers against airbnb Inquiries within beds24. If an airbnb Inquiry is Pre-approved the booker has 24 hours to accept it (and make it a confirmed reservation). Failing to do that, within that time, will have the booking lapse (and canceled). The booker is reasonably expecting that during this 24 hours pre-approval window, the room isn't sold through other channels (airbnb is actually blocking it during that time on their own system). however, since beds24 keeps the pre-approved booking as an Inquiry, it continues to not block availability and can theoretically be booked through another channel/direct/manually. I believe the correct way of handling this would be to move pre-approved inquiries to Request status. (and maybe avoid that Request bookings then block availability on the channel itself).

[lesleywoermeijer]

Thank you for your feedback and suggestions.

We have worked through your points and updated the documentation.

The documentation regarding the Inquiry/Requests and the option in Booking rules has been depreciated, you can see this in the context help page for this setting https://beds24.com/control3.php?pagetyp ... rairbnbmap

Inquiries will be imported with Status = Inquiry, inventory will not be blocked in Beds24 and will be updated to confirmed when approved in Airbnb.

Requests with Status = Request will block the room (unless you have the depreciated setting in Booking Rules) and updated to confirmed when approved in Airbnb. Pre-approved Inquiries should be sent by Airbnb as a Request.

I can confirm that Airbnb did not send an update for the inquiry, Booking 57582408: Airbnb 1870497391. You can use the details below to create an auto action to set the status = Cancelled for Inquiries after X days.

Auto action to update your Airbnb Inquiry bookings to Cancelled - See this example in the wikipage https://wiki.beds24.com/index.php/Auto_ ... three_days

If you have any new instances of updates not being sent from Airbnb to update the status of bookings, please create a support ticket so we can check the logs.

As the channels make features available, we update the capabilities in Beds24. Currently Airbnb have not provided the option to approve/decline Inquiries/Requests from Beds24.

[valdiego]

Thanks for clarifying and updating the deprecated documentation.

Let me please clarify a few things on the airbnb interface still:

F

• For declined (within airbnb) inquiries: Are you saying that the expected behavior is that airbnb sends a cancelation automatically to beds24 in that case? Because if that is what you expect, that's not been happening once (I'm going to send you the booking references which I all changed manually to Canceled, although they have been declined on airbnb.
• Cancelation of (declined/too long unconfirmed) inquiries: I understand I can do an auto action based on time (after booking, if still not confirmed after - say 72 hours), just to avoid too many rubbish bookings. But that's not the right way to do this. Once it is declined (for example the guest asks in first message - can we have a big loud party at the property? - I decline and then the booking should be canceled right away, not after 72 hours). Obviously, I cannot influence what airbnb sends to beds24 (or not) in case of a delination... but, as you rightfully said, after a decline, airbnb should send a cancellation to you, failing that, at least some kind of update that we can process in auto rule.
• Pre-approval of airbnb bookings; On this point you write:

  Pre-approved Inquiries should be sent by Airbnb as a Request.

  I agree: But ... Is that wishful thinking? or are you describing the expected behavior? Because, once again, it never happens. Pre-approved airbnb bookings remain as an enquiry within beds24, unless I manually or (through a time-triggered autorule) change them. Here one could think of a useful. If inquiry 24 hours after booking .. then change to request. Once again, the more straightforward way of doing this would be for beds24 to be notified by airbnb of the pre-approval and do something with it without an autorule.
  
  I am not sure, whether "Request" is the appropriate beds24 status, though. I have moved a pre-approved (airbnb) booking from Inquiry to Request manually, after (manually) pre-approving it. The problem with that is that "Request" also blocks availability on the channel on which it was originally booked (just like Confirmed does). The result of that is that the client cannot confirm a pre-approved booking anymore -- it shows as "NO LONGER AVAILABLE" on the airbnb channel itself, which is not at all what we want.
  
  My humble suggestion here is that for Request bookings, availability should be blocked on all channels/direct, but not on the channel on which it was booked.

[lesleywoermeijer]

Thank you for your feedback, can you please create a Support ticket regarding any recent bookings that have not changed status when the Inquiry has been accepted/declined in Airbnb, then we can check the logs for the details sent from Airbnb.

Unfortunately it is not possible to set the inventory to closed for some channels and not others when you receive a pre-approved Request booking.

If you have the option in Booking Rules, Request bookings - Do not block the room/Block the room, then you can choose the outcome. Otherwise Request bookings will Block the Room. Status = Inquiry will NOT block the room.