Calendar Sync Problem Across Multiple Listings for the Same Property – Unfair Host Penalties

[Kagan10]

Hi everyone,

I have three Airbnb listings, all for the same property.

The first listing is for 1 bedroom,

the second for 2 bedrooms,

and the third for 3 bedrooms.


All three use the same photos since it’s the same place, just offered in different configurations.

Here’s the issue: Airbnb’s system only synchronizes the calendars of two of these listings. If one of those gets booked, the other automatically blocks the same dates — which is great. However, the third listing still appears as available to guests.

This means I constantly receive booking requests for dates that are actually unavailable. Every time, I have to manually decline and explain the situation to the guest. Sometimes, when I miss one, it leads to a double booking — I then have to cancel, apologize to the guest, and Airbnb charges me a $53 cancellation fee.

This isn’t fair. The problem is clearly due to Airbnb’s system limitation, not host negligence. Yet, Airbnb puts the financial burden on hosts.

I’ve contacted Airbnb support many times, and they’ve confirmed there’s no way to synchronize all three listings under current conditions. I’ve already submitted feedback and suggestions about this issue.

After my most recent experience — where a double booking happened while I was driving and I had to cancel immediately — I’ve decided to pursue this legally. I refuse to accept a system failure that penalizes honest hosts.

I’m curious — has anyone else faced this same situation? Have any of you taken legal action or found a successful way to resolve it?

It’s frustrating that Airbnb would treat a long-time Superhost like this, especially when my property is already around 70% booked for the next few months.

Would appreciate any advice or experiences you can share.

Thanks in advance.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Kagan10 It is incredibly simple to deal with this. Just choose the least important configuration and make it 'request to book'. That way the other two can be manually blocked if you accept a booking for the third. Just be aware that both will need blocking as blocking one of two linked listings does not block the other.

On your legal pursuit you are wasting your money. You accept the platform when you accept a booking and no amount of whining that it could be better will convince a court to award you anything other than the other sides costs.

[Kagan10]

Thank you, everyone! I will try all these options, although I have already spent enough time on this in the past, even with their technical support.

This is a technology company. At this age and capabilities, a glitch like this should have been fixed by now. Or at least they could have excluded the cancellation penalties in such cases.

I am leaning towards booking.com. I am frustrated with the cancellation fees associated with Airbnb, especially for the listing that already has a booking on their platform and ended up booked again on their platform due to their dysfunctional system.

As a superhost, I feel cheated and ripped off by Airbnb. This situation has affected my ability to sleep, and I am irate. It has even impacted my personal life. I am currently opening accounts on other platforms and will proceed from there. I don't even want to see their emails in my inbox anymore.

[Joan2709]

@Kagan10 

Supposedly you can link a calendar to more than one listing, but I got this information from ChatGPT, so no idea if it works or not??? 🤔

If you try this, let us know here if it works for you? This blocks listings for reservations ONLY. If you want to use the property for personal use or need to do maintenance, you'll have to block all 3 calendars manually.

[Joan2709]

@Kagan10 

Your setup should work as long as you have the calendars synced correctly. I would need to see how you have them synced on the calendars.

Think of it this way - 

The largest listing (3BR) is the "Parent".

The next largest listing (2BR) is "Child A"

The smallest listing (1BR) is "Child B"

Now - Link Sync the Child Listings to the Parent on Child A/B calendars:

Link (sync) Child A to Parent 

Link (sync) Child B to Parent

Tagging @Guy991 as he is familiar with syncing multiple listings correctly and might have some advice. @Mike-And-Jane0 have suggested another way to do it by turning OFF Instant Book on one listing. However, you should be able to do it automatically as shown above (I think 🤔)

[Guy991]

Hello @Joan2709 ,

The issue is that when you link child A to the parent and child B to the parent, if A is booked, the parent will be blocked but B will remain open. As far as I know, it is not possible to link one listing more than once. It should have been A linked to B, and then A to C and B to C, so they are all connected.

Have a great weekend, 

[Guy991]

Hello @Kagan10 ,

I can’t wait for Airbnb to announce that they are adding multi-level linking and improving their tools for multi-listing properties under the same roof, such as boutique hotels. At the moment, Airbnb doesn’t support multi-level linking the way you and other multi-listing owners would like to use it, but I believe that eventually they will have to include more features for properties with several listings, like a house divided into multiple units.

Whatever you choose, I would not recommend continuing to cancel stays, not only because of the penalties but mainly because of your record. Too many canceled reservations are not good for your hosting history.

In that case, as suggested, you can turn Instant Booking off and manage the reservations manually, but that means you will actually need to review every request to make sure it doesn’t double-book the property.

If you don’t want to do it manually, what other hosts in similar situations do until Airbnb improves its system is check which listing brings less traffic and unlist it, keeping only two listings that are linked.

My recommendation would be to simplify and keep only two listings. Since the least booked one is the one-bedroom, which is also the smallest and brings in less income, I would unlist that one.

[Joan2709 · Accepted solution]

@Guy991 

Could @Kagan10 keep the 3 bedroom and 2 bedroom on Instant Book and leave the 1 bedroom listing as Request to book as @Mike-And-Jane0 suggested? Would that work?