availability and instant settings - not working properly?

[David11304]

hi all -

I am a new host and wonder if anyone can advise on the following:

1) I set a 3 month availability window - which seemed pretty straight forward to me. No bookings more than 3 months out. But, AirBnB seems to have ignore this - I just got an instant booking for more than 4 months out. Am I understanding this correctly?

2) I turned on instant book, and added the feature where a guest must have stayed before without incident, etc. In this booking, I can see that the person has had 2 airbnb stays in 5 years, but no reviews for her by other hosts. Is this common? It seems like hosts leave reviews for guests for everyone's benefit, so 'no review' may actually be kind of a bad thing. Or maybe I'm over thinking this 🙂

thank you! David

[Joan2709]

Hmmmm....that is strange @David11304 .

I suggest changing your availability to "unavailable by default" (it won't affect any bookings you have) and then manually open up dates as you like for now. This way you aren't relying on the system to properly open up dates on a 3month calendar.

I would check the calendar daily to ensure dates you want blocked remain blocked. Lots of Hosts mentioning dates mysteriously opening up on their own without being unblocked by the Host.

[David11304]

UPDATE:

Support escalated and they suggested I manually block the dates to avoid bookings to far out in the future. I did that.

The escalation team sent an response saying everything looked fine and it was blocked starting 3 months out. 

I sent them a note asking them to read the entire ticket, and that I had manually blocked those dates at their own recommendation. Then I opened the dates,  and took screenshots showing that the 3-month window was set but the calendar still shows availability for a year.

They sent me a response with instructions about how to set the settings, and saying they would close the ticket if i didn't respond within 2 hours.

I sent the screenshots again.   As of right now, I have the 3-month window set AND I see that my listing shows available for more than 3 months. Maybe it's just me that sees that, I don't know. 

Not a great support experience so far!

[David11304]

Another response, and this one is hard to get my head around. From Support:

 Please do know that the said settings were for this calendar year 2023 and any changes that you would like to apply by next year must by set by next year as well. It means that your 3 months in advance availability window should be set on January 1, 2023, and it will take effect for the whole year. Please do know that your current calendar settings is only applicable for this year hence it will appear that anyone can book by next year.

It's hard to believe that this is true - it would mean everyone needs to 're-apply' that setting annually, and as you got close to the end of the year it wouldn't work properly.  Very odd response.

[Therion0]

There is a bug going on and Airbnb should look into it. I'm having a similar issue. My advance calendar is set to 12 months but my booking are blocked after March 27th as of today Jan 25th. I called support and they had me manually unblock the days, I kept expressing this is not the answer. If I select 12 months i expect to see those days available. I checked VRBO which also has 12 month advanced selected, and its showing the days after Mar 27th and being blocked by Airbnb. 

Side Note...i just played with the settings and up to 6 months its works properly, once i selected 9 months the calendar didn't open all months. Is anyone else having this issue?

[Kathryn617]

Same thing happened to me.