How to open calendar when long term guest leaves early?

[John6181]

I have a 30 day guest leaving a week early. I want to open the calendar as of the day he leaves; but his reservation is there. How do I do that?

[Emiel1]

@John6181 

Airbnb does not allow double bookings.

So to free up the dates you need to shorten the reservation by using the  "change" option.

As it is a "long term stay", shortening it will convert in a "short stay", recalculating the price accordingly.

You can also manually amend calculated price in the price-field of the change form.

[Huma0]

@John6181 

If the guest has chosen to leave early and accepts that they will have to pay for the whole reservation (which they do, according to the long term cancellation policy), then there is no need to get another booking. You are already being paid for the nights.

If, on the other hand, you would like to refund the guest for any unspent nights, then you could follow @Emiel1 's advice and put in an alteration request to shorten the stay. 

If you are looking to get paid twice for the same dates then, no, that's not allowed.

[John6181]

No, I'm not looking to double book it. I would refund him "if" it got rebooked. But since I can't open the dates, I guess that is that.

[Huma0]

@John6181 

You can open the dates. 

Either the guest cancels. They will still get charged for the entire stay according to the long term cancellation policy, but you can refund them any rebooked nights.

Or, you send the guest an alteration request with the dates changed to end the stay a week earlier. Again, according to the long term cancellation policy, they should still be charged for the full first month but you can refund rebooked dates. The guest needs to accept the alteration request for it to go through, so in both cases, you need to work with the guest. You can't just do it by yourself.

Just bear in mind that they might not get all their Airbnb fees back and, personally, I don't think you should pay these out of your own pocket for rebooked nights as Airbnb, not you, will be receiving the fees.

[Huma0]

Actually @John6181 just double check the policies for the second option there. I think that if the guest requests the date alteration they will still get charged the full first month with a long term stay, but if the host does, I'm not 100% sure.

In the latter case, it might default then to a shorter stay, they get the refund (which might be more than you expected if you have a monthly discount).

I think if you go the second route, it's better to get the guest to make the alteration request. You will be able to see what your payout is before you accept it.

It's probably just easier and safer to get the guest to cancel the stay.

[Huma0]

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/1361/cancellations-of-longer-stays

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/913/changing-a-reservation-for-a-place-to-stay#section-heading...

[Huma0]

Whenever I have been in this situation, I got the guest to cancel the stay, explaining that the sooner they did that, the more chance there was of me rebooking the dates, but that there was of course no guarantee.

[John6181]

Thanks all. Looking at it closer it seems the answer is: (1) get the guest to cancel/adjust their dates. (2) click "enforce cancellation policy" when airbnb sends me the notification (3) then the calendar will open up. I could just do nothing, but I personally don't like being in limbo. If he's gone, I want to send cleaners in etc...