Frequently Asked Questions about Airbnb

Airbnb recently issued a new rule stating that they will be collecting and remitting occupancy taxes for certain areas. If Airbnb is collecting and remitting any taxes for your property, you must have a separate rate type for Airbnb in ThinkReservations. If Airbnb is not collecting and remitting any taxes for your property, then you must collect all applicable taxes from Airbnb guests when they arrive at your property. You can add verbiage to your Airbnb Listing Summary, which states you will be collecting taxes upon check-in.
To see exactly which taxes Airbnb collects for your area, log into Airbnb: 1. Go to Your Listings and select a listing 2. Click Manage listing 3. Click Local laws 4. If you see a section for occupancy taxes, go to the booking page to confirm there's also a section for occupancy taxes there.
If Airbnb collects some or all of your taxes, you must create an Airbnb Rate type in ThinkReservations. Click here for more information on creating a rate type. Once the rate type is created, make sure that it is mapped to your Airbnb Listings in Settings > Airbnb. Finally, navigate to Settings > Rate Types: 1. Click on AIRBNB rate 2. On the General Information tab, where it says in the center "OVERRIDE TAXES" 3. Change that to YES 4. Mark with a checkmark the taxes NOT being collected by Airbnb (aka the taxes you are responsible for collecting from the guest) 5. Click Save.

• Reservations booked on Airbnb (post connection)
• Rates
• Availability
• Restrictions
• Listing Details as found in ThinkReservations > Settings > Airbnb
• Number of bedrooms as found in ThinkReservations > Settings > Rooms
• Number of bathrooms as found in ThinkReservations > Settings > Rooms

With Limited Sync, Airbnb and ThinkReservations are still communicating and syncing information. However, the information is limited to only rates, restrictions, and availability from ThinkReservations. Look in ThinkReservations to see what rate type you have associated with your Airbnb account. (This is similar to our connection with Booking.com and Expedia.) All other information regarding the listing (including occupancy, listing description, etc.) is pulled from what you've set up for the listing on your Airbnb account, not what is set up in ThinkReservations. This option can be handy if you don't want to offer Airbnb the same number of guests you would accept directly over the phone or on your website. 

Limited Sync:

• Reservations booked on Airbnb (post connection)
• Rates
• Availability
• Restrictions
• [Listing Details handled on Airbnb; not through ThinkReservations]

There are a number of possible reasons your listing is not synced with Airbnb:

• In Settings > Rooms, any of these options are marked, it will prevent from connecting:
  
• There are less than five amenities marked on the listing page.
• There are less than seven high-resolution images for the listing.
• The Listing Summary is blank.
• There are less than 30 days of availability over the next 12 months for the listing. 
• The listing is still pending approval. After the new listing(s) are created, it sometimes can take 2-8 days for Airbnb to process and approve.
• You didn't meet the requirements for listing.

Airbnb only uses the restrictions that are set for the arrival date, or first date of a stay. For example, if you have no restriction on Thursday, and a 3-night minimum on Friday, a guest booking on Airbnb would be allowed to stay only two nights on Thursday and Friday. This would not be possible in ThinkReservations as a 3 Minimum Nights Through restriction on the Saturday would require a guest to stay 3 nights if available. The difference is in what Airbnb currently supports.

To connect your ThinkReservations account to the correct Airbnb account, you must first disconnect the wrong Airbnb account from ThinkReservations. There are two methods you can use to disconnect your ThinkReservations account from your Airbnb account. Which method you choose depends on which type of Airbnb account you have. Please review the two methods below and follow the steps accordingly.

METHOD 1
Log into your Airbnb account.
Click on your profile photo/icon in the top right and select Account. 
You should then see this screen (if you don't see this screen, go to Step 3 of Method 2):

1. Select Privacy & sharing >
2. Find ThinkReservations under the Connected Apps section and select 'Remove Access.' 
3. Follow the prompts to complete the removal.
4. If you do not want any listings to remain on this Airbnb account, please go to Host > Listings.
   1. Click the three dots to the far right of any listings that you want to be deactivated and click edit.
   2. The listing will open in a new tab; scroll to the bottom and select Edit in the Listing status section.
   3. Select 'Change Status' and then 'Deactivate.' Note: Deactivating will permanently remove the listing and all reviews from your Airbnb account. It cannot be undone. You may want to consider unlisting instead of deactivation.
5. Walk through the steps to deactivate your listings on that account.
6. See additional information below for reconnecting if needed.

METHOD 2 

1. Log into your Airbnb account.
2. Click on your profile photo/icon in the top right and select Account. 
3. You should then see this screen (if you don't see this screen, go to Step 3 of Method 1):
   
   
   
    
4. Select 'Connected Apps' from the menu on the left.
5. Click on ThinkReservations to open the menu for it and then select 'Remove App.' 
6. Follow the prompts to complete the removal. 
7. If you do not want any listings to remain on this Airbnb account, please go to Host > Listings.
8. Click the three dots to the far right of any listings that you want to be deactivated and click edit.
9. The listing will open in a new tab; scroll to the bottom and select Edit in the Listing status section.
10. Select 'Change Status' and then 'Deactivate.' Note: Deactivating will permanently remove the listing and all reviews from your Airbnb account. It cannot be undone. You may want to consider unlisting instead of deactivation.
11. Walk through the steps to deactivate your listings on that account.
12. See additional information below for reconnecting if needed.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR RECONNECTING

Once you disconnect, you may need to reconnect to an alternative Airbnb account. 

If you haven't set up your Airbnb listings in ThinkReservations yet, please follow the steps outlined in this support article: Getting Started with Airbnb. Please use this link to schedule an appointment with a member of our OTA team if you would like assistance with the setup: https://calendly.com/ota-team

If you already had listings set up within your ThinkReservations account, our tech team may be able to push them to the newly connected Airbnb account, rather than you recreating them. Please reply to this email letting us know you have connected to the correct Airbnb account and would like your listings pushed back over to Airbnb. Please make sure to include your Airbnb username and password in the email. We will then send the request to our tech team to push your listings and let you know when the process has completed.

No. Merging preexisting Airbnb listings with new listings created in ThinkReservations will not impact your host status, search results, or reviews. Once merged, the listing will retain the same listing ID it had previously in your Airbnb account.

ThinkReservations makes the information available almost instantly. Airbnb's update schedule is hourly. Sometimes changes might take longer to show on Airbnb. Airbnb checks availability a second time during the booking process to ensure availability for the listing.

Airbnb informed us that if an update fails for any reason, it is immediately automatically retried three more times. After four failed attempts, nothing happens until the next validation/sync is initiated. Once re-validated, the listing is again synced and put back online if taken offline. If the listing still isn't synced after these automated processes, the first attempt can take one hour, but subsequent attempts can take longer.