Calendar Blocked

[Sharon1410]

I had to cancel a guest trip. 

But the dates are still blocked in Airbnb. I cannot see the edit or availability button on the blocked dates. Can anyone help?

[Sarah977]

@Sharon1410  A host incurs penalties if they cancel a booking. You will receive a $50-$100 fine, the dates you cancelled will be permanently blocked so you can't rebook them,  "Host canceled this booking XX days before check-in" appears on your review page, which will make future guests wary of booking with you, and it prevents you from qualifying for Superhost for a year, or loses you that status if you have it. 

You can't unblock the dates.

Why did you cancel? If you give  some details, other hosts here can advise you what you might have done differently so as to avoid a penalty-subject cancellation. So it doesn't happen to you again.

[Emiel1]

@Sharon1410 

if you cancel a reservation, you are penalized by Airbnb. One of the penalties is: dates remain blocked.

more: Host-penalties-for-canceling-reservations

[Sharon1410]

Somehow, two guest booked at one time for the same beginning days. I phoned Airbnb, the said since this is your first signup, we will wave the cost. I was advised to turnoff the instant booking. But the dates are still booked. 

Also, the booking was not complete. No money was paid, I was at the stage of if I wanted to accept the person or not. The booking was not complete. 

[Emiel1]

@Sharon1410 

it is not possible different people booked for same dates. Maybe one of them was an inquiry, which is not the same as a boooking request (or an "Instant Book").

Your listing needs some tuning, as the section "sleeping arrangements" is missing.

The listing mentions "pets are allowed", but houserule says "Small service animals allowed". Whatever the size of the service animal is, it can not be denied access.....

[Sarah977]

@Sharon1410  There is something here you are not understanding and your explanation is confusing. Unless you are also listing through another platform, you can't get a double booking on Airbnb.  A "booking" means a confirmed booking- the money has been paid, the dates are booked and no one else can book or request those dates.

Did you cancel an Instant Booking? If so, why? You don't have the choice to accept or decline an Instant Book, only a Request. And declining a request isn't a cancellation. 

The way it works is that the first to pay gets the booking. So an Instant Book takes precedence over a Request that hasn't yet been accepted or paid for. 

If you can explain exactly what happened more clearly, like:

"I got an Instant Book.

Then I got a Request for the same dates.

I cancelled the Instant Book because..."

Then I or another host here might be able to help you understand what went wrong so something similar doesn't happen again. 

And you first said the dates are blocked, but now you say they are "still booked"?

And, as Emiel points out, your listing needs some tuning and you really haven't written a complete description. There are fields that aren't available to fill out when you first submit a listing, that will be available now. I suggest you snooze your listing for a day or two while you go back and edit to fill out a the fields and give more information.

P.S. Your beds need bedside tables and lamps. 

[Sharon1410]

No one paid. I was able to see and show Airbnb because of the time clock on every request. It was a request. No one paid anything. 

Hence me saying, something is strange. And... maybe so, my understanding is skewed, but this is almost too hard to do.  I am renting to nurses and vets. Maybe I'll just do month to month contracts and be done with this.

[Sarah977]

@Sharon1410  Yes, you are confused. You can't have cancelled a request that you hadn't even accepted yet, that isn't possible. You would have had to cancel a confirmed booking or a booking you accepted that was in the payment process.

And what do you mean you could see they hadn't paid because of the time clock? The time clock has nothing to do with a guest paying, it is the amount of time you have left to either accept or decline a request.

Yes, there is a big learning curve with Airbnb or any booking platform. Hosts need to spend time reading through all the Help articles for hosts to understand how everything works and ask questions on hosting forums if they need clarity (the customer service reps are abysmal at explaining anything) before they put up a listing, or they will run into all sorts of problems. It isn't overwhelming to learn, but it does take some time.

But if you are hosting nurses and vets for long term bookings, Airbnb really isn't the best platform for that. They talk up long term bookings, but there are really no protections provided for hosts with those. If you can connect with your target market in other ways, and do month to month leases with a real security deposit, check their references, etc, that would be better for you. Airbnb is primarily set up to work as a short term rental platform.

[Andrea4731]

There are three messages you can get from guests when they are trying to book: one is a booking inquiry where they are simply asking a question that all you must do is respond & pre-approve them if you would like; but that is not necessary. Then there is a booking request, this is where a guest has “paid” & completed all the steps to book your place & you have a certain amount of time to approve or decline. If you approve, they will be successfully booked. If you decline, Airbnb may ask for a reason of decline (I don’t really remember as I try not to decline many requests) or if you have Instant Book turned on a guest can just automatically book your place & you will get a message that they have booked. 

[Colleen253]

Further clarification to add to what Sarah said (below)….  “a booking inquiry where they are simply asking a question that all you must do is respond & pre-approve them if you would like; but that is not necessary.“

With an Inquiry, you must respond, so that is necessary. What isn’t necessary is pre approving or declining. 

Here is a bit of a deep dive into the topic,

https://www.airbnb.ca/resources/hosting-homes/a/understanding-response-rate-and-acceptance-rate-86

@Andrea4731 @Sharon1410 

[Andrea4731]

@Colleen253 Yes, that is what I meant. Sorry if that was not clear.

[Sarah977]

@Andrea4731 "Then there is a booking request, this is where a guest has “paid” & completed all the steps to book your place & you have a certain amount of time to approve or decline. If you approve, they will be successfully booked."

That is not actually correct. When a guest sends a request, they have not yet paid, they have just indicated they are serious about booking (as opposed to an Inquiry, where they may have questions they want answered before committing).

If a host accepts the request, Airbnb then goes on to charge the guest and the booking gets confirmed. If the guest already has all their payment info uploaded and approved by Airbnb (as is the case with guests who book Airbnbs a lot) the booking usually gets charged and confirmed within a matter of minutes.

But a lot of newbie guests book something before they have uploaded their information, so it can take up to 24 hours for the payment to go  through and the booking confirmed. And in some cases, the payment fails, the booking is not confirmed, and the blocked dates open up again.

So an accepted request is not necessarily a slam dunk and it isn't already paid. The payment process takes place after the acceptance.