Why have Blocked dates becoming unblocked?

[Jacqueline610]

Hi, does anyone else have a problem with dates you have blocked out, for a particular reason, becoming unblocked.  I have recently received a 1-night booking in the middle of a week that I most certainly had blocked out as I am away.  This happened on a few occassions last year also.  In the beginning, I thought I had made a mistake until it happed a few times. 

Can Airbnb unblock dates if it seems apparent that an area is heavily booked and guests are looking for someplace to stay?  I find this very frustrating as I can't cancel this reservation because I will lose my Superhost status. I now have to either cancel my personal plans or pay someone to cover the 1-night reservation in the middle of my blocked out week.

[Ana1136]

@Jacqueline610 yes this happens a lot unfortunately. Call Airbnb, explain the situation and have them cancel for you but don't do it yourself.

[Robin4 · Accepted solution]

@Jacqueline610  @Ana1136 

Jacqueline, unfortunately this is an ongoing problem and one hosts have had to contend with ever since Instant Book was introduced. Many representations have been made to the company to fix this issue but, to this point our concerns have fallen on deaf ears.

What is happening, you set your booking window to, lets say, 3 months and an event comes along outside your booking window which you block on your calendar....it may be 4 months down the track. As the rolling booking window comes to that date that you have blocked it automatically opens it for booking.

At this point the are only two ways around this....

1/.....Set your booking window to 'All future dates' and you can then be confident the rolling booking window will not come into effect!

2/.....Disable 'Instant book', all booking requests will have to be approved by you.

As Ana says, this is a well know issue with CX so, get onto them and explain and they will cancel this booking as a neutral cancellation....you won't be penalised.

Cheers......Rob

[Brett479]

I'm having this problem right now. I blocked dates in Dec '23 back in February for people who are flying in from different places around the country. 

In April, Airbnb allowed two bookings of those dates.

They are now putting it back on me to have to cancel the guests and be penalized.

No matter what happens, my guests that I blocked for, or the guests who booked through Airbnb get screwed.

I might pull my house from Airbnb. It's a year round home for bookings and very popular. Somehow, I don't think they will care. 

Any suggestions?

[Jancine0]

This just happend to me twice in the same day! I host 25 condos and am very scared since I block dates often for the owners of these condos! I called Tech Support and they cancelled the reservations without any penalties, but this is crazy! 

[Crystal3]

7/14/19

This has happened to us two times for Summer 2019 dates. We blocked 2 days in July, checked the calendar and they were blocked. Then someone booked and we had to cancel our personal plans.

Then it just happened again for 3 days in August. We blocked them several weeks ago, checked the calendar and they showed blocked. Then we get a reservation for those dates last night. We asked the guests to please cancel which they did, explaining that we had blocked those dates and would be out of town. We felt sorry because it was their first Airbnb booking . Now we are paranoid, constantly checking our calendar to make sure other Blocked Dates still show up.

Jim & Crys

European Dollhouse 

Eliot, Maine

[Ute42]

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@Crystal3 

That's happening to me all the time.

The only bookable dates in my calendar should be sept. 23 and 24. But the airbnb software is opening dates to book almost every second day. Some other fellow hosts in Germany are having the same problem.

[Alice595]

@Jacqueline610 @Robin4 @Ute42 @Jancine0 @Crystal3 

I have found that blocked dates would be bookable when there are customized rule sets applied on those dates. The rule sets overrides any existing rules.

Hopefully your unblocked dates were not a result of customized rule sets.

[Jaimee11]

This has happened to us twice in two days. Its so frustrating. Afraid of losing super host status too. Hoping to figure out how to call someone as I can't seem to find a number!