Lockdown UK

[Ben38]

Can I ask why Airbnb has blocked all my calendars for bookings during the UK lockdown when the government restrictions allow bookings that are work-related and also allow people to book who haven’t currently got another main address? Airbnb  are only allowing bookings that are for more than 28 days long.
During the last lockdown we managed to survive and pay our mortgages thanks to a few short term bookings - guests coming to Brighton for work or who were between house sales and purchases and homeless as a result. Now we haven’t got that it’s worrying. 
What’s more when I do a search for available properties to let in the Brighton area i see several still available. How does that work? What makes them exempt? 
We all hope this lockdown has the desired affect and things open back up in early December but if they don’t and this continues to April next year as some have suggested it might (bearing in mind the furlough extension just announced) a lot of us will be struggling. It might just be the scraps - a short term work-related book here and there that helps us survive. 

[Helen3]

Wow @Ben38  you have a wide range of properties you manage there - congratulations on becoming an Airbnb property management company with multiple mortgages. 

yes you are correct you were fortunate to be able to continue to take key worker bookings during the last lock down. Those of us with shared homes were not so fortunate and lost all income from March to July.

I’m sure with your property portfolio you use a range of channels as well as direct bookings so I would focus your attention on using them to generate bookings. 

you are also correct that it makes non sense for Airbnb to close our calendars. 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Ben38 

For somebody who relies on STR income rather than a job paying PAYE this calendar restriction must have a serious negative impact on your potential earnings in Brighton.

What some hosts don't realise when you list on multiple platforms is that calendars between platforms need to be synched in order not to accidentally double book. This lockdown on your calendar will lockdown your linked calendars too, which is highly undesirable and restricting bookings on other platforms.

I searched Hotel Tonight - an Airbnb owned company and they are offering rooms in Brighton without issue, so i can see no reason why the decision to accept bookings is taken away from hosts on Airbnb?

I do think the choice of whether to have availability should down to every single host as every single host is different and has different circumstances.

Perhaps you can get your dates unblocked by contacting CS. Hopefully you can. Good Luck.

[Emma-and-Mark0]

There are a couple more conversations on the community about this. We've been on chat with Airbnb for a couple of hours today regarding this and they have interpreted the rules to mean we can only host certain stays (e.g. work stays) in November and that we can only hosts these type of stays if they are for 28 days or longer. We have asked for the matter to be escalated. I'd encourage everyone to contact Airbnb about this as well as their interpretation of the rules is clearly wrong, and as you say @Ben38 this could potentially go on till spring next year.

[Carey75]

Hi Ben,  just wondering if you have managed to resolve this  situation with Airbnb or if  your Brighton properties are still empty? It seems nobody is travelling at the moment due to lockdown...