Listing Hidden by Airbnb - Nightmare Situation - No Idea What to do

[EliteStays0]

Hey All,

I posted my first new listing on Dec 14th and everything was going great. Fully booked for all of December and 1/3 of January. Received many 5 star reviews already. However my listing has been now hidden by Airbnb. Here's what happened.. 

About a week ago I activated Pricelabs through Hosthub in order to automate pricing and sync calendars with Vrbo. Since I did that, not a single booking. I then got a message 2 days ago from a guest who was unable to book. They were getting a 403 calendar error message.

I then contacted Airbnb support through chat and they noticed that about 5 other guests had tried to make reservations but couldn't. The representative then immediately hid my listing from search on the spot! They said it would be unhidden automatically by the system once the issue was resolved.

I then immediately went into my settings and disconnected all third party apps. After that, the guest that contacted me was able to book the reservation, however my listing is still not appearing in search 48 hours later.

I've been talking to Airbnb support but they dont seem to know why the listing isn't automatically unhidden yet. 

I'm concerned something got permanently messed up with the listing because of Hosthub, and the system may never recognize the issue is resolved.

I have no idea what to do. Is there a way I can contact tech support directly? Or some way I can manually jump start my listing again?

[Bhumika]

Hello @EliteStays0 ,

I have connected with the technical team to have a look at what can be the issue in your case. I will get back to you in case I receive any updates or require more information from you.

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[EliteStays0]

Thank you so much Bhumika. I was starting to lose hope. 

[Bhumika]

Hello @EliteStays0 ,

This seems to be a product bug and currently, they are working on resolving it.  Unfortunately, we have no workaround for this issue but rest assured the team is working on it.

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[EliteStays0]

Ok thank you

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@EliteStays0 you will no be able to take the reviews across to a new listing but they will remain visible on your profile.

If I were you I would create a new listing and at least you will get the search bump for a period of time. Perhaps in your description you could ask people to look at the reviews and explain why.

Not ideal but Airbnb has clearly messed up technically and they may never solve the issue - Its a shame as you would hope a tech company could do tech better!

[EliteStays0]

Thanks for the response. Yes its definitely unfortunate. I’m surprised this isn’t a more common issue. Seems like Im the only one this has happened to. Looks I may have to create a new listing 

[EliteStays0]

Hi @Bhumika 

Wondering if it would be possible for me to freeze this listing and create a brand new one for the same property? Could the existing 5 reviews be ported over?

This issue could take days or weeks for it to be resolved. I'm losing multiple bookings and thousands of dollars every day.

Also, new listings are apparently boosted for the first month and I've already lost 3 boosted days so far. My boost ends on Jan 13th I believe. 

[Bhumika]

Hello @EliteStays0 ,

Not sure if you could port your reviews to the new listing, you will also need to check in with customer support about it. While creating a new listing seems a good idea, I hope @Huma0 @Mike-And-Jane0 would be able to provide you with some better advice regarding this.

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[EliteStays0]

Hi Bhumika. Can you please connect with the technical team to see the latest status. Is there any hope of fixing this, or is it beyond repair? I can then make a final decision whether to create a new listing. Thanks

[Erica-and-Tim0]

I’m in the state of Washington and dealing with the same issue. We connected Lodgify third party software to our account to help with property management and everything was working fine for a few weeks. Then, all of a sudden we get an email from Airbnb saying that a large percentage of attempted bookings were being blocked by Lodgify software so we should disconnect. They said they would hide our listing until the calendar availability was updated.  We promptly disconnected on Jan 11, 2023 and still our listing is hidden almost three weeks later. We’re losing income. We bought another Airbnb based off of the income we’re making from this listing. All Airbnb can say is “the engineers are working on it, you need to have patience!”. Okay…. I’ll try to sit here and have patience while I’m not getting my paycheck. WTF. We rectified the issue immediately and Airbnb can’t figure out how to turn us back on. Totally unacceptable. What’s worse is that I now can’t even send someone a direct link to book- it comes up as “error on page”. Our listing is totally hidden!!!! Help!!! 

[EliteStays0]

Hi @Bhumika Can you please connect with the technical team to see the latest status. Is there any hope of fixing this, or is it beyond repair? The listing is still not visible 

[Bhumika]

Hello @EliteStays0 ,

As of now, the bug persists and there is some ongoing work. I am really sorry that we have not been able to resolve it for you still. 

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[Fay316]

@BhumikaWould you mind contacting technical team for our listing too? Thanks a lot.

[Bhumika]

Hello @Fay316 ,

Yes, I will surely forward it to the team. 

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