Cleaning buffers prevent reservation extensions

[Debra300]

I have a long-term guest who is staying with us while he's working in the area.  He initially booked for exactly 28 days, which had him checking out on a Tuesday.  Ten days ago he contacted me, because he wanted to extend his stay by a few days, but he said that the cleaning booking wouldn't allow him to submit the change.  I had chosen 48 hours buffer between each booking, and had to remove the buffer so he could submit his change.  I called Airbnb support, and inquired why was the system not allowing guests of an existing reservation to submit extension requests, because of cleaning buffers.  Of course, the rep is new, and didn't have a reasonable answer.  He responded, "It's because you manually chose the buffer."  I informed him that the buffers are systematically applied to the end of each reservation, and should recognize the difference between a new booking request (can't book during a buffer period) and extension of an existing reservation.  "Well, I don't know.", is all the further explanation that I received.

Unfortunately, this use case can cause the loss of bookings.  Yesterday morning, my guest sent me another message saying that he will need to stay longer in the area, and wanted to extend for another month, but again he was being blocked by the cleaning buffer.  Within 20 minutes, and before I could respond to his message, another guest had a booked the space.  This worked fine for me (new booking is the same duration as the extension), but I felt really remorseful for our guest, because will have to look for another rental.  Other hosts may lose out in these types of situation, because the new reservation may not be as desirable as an extension of an existing reservation.

@Katie @Nick @Quincy @Liv @Lizzie,

Would you please help with getting this item in front of the technical team?

[Nick]

Hi @Debra300 that's unfortunate, thank you for bringing it to our attention. I'll send it over to the team now and update you via DM when I know something. 

Thanks

[Lisa723]

@Debra300 This confuses me—I signed up for that buffer (we’re actually doing four days) but it silently disappeared and I no longer even see the option.

[Debra300]

@Lisa723,

Below are the preparation time options that I've see under the Availability tab. I think the 72 hours option associated with the enhanced cleaning protocol roll out this past summer was discontinued on July 31.  I don't recall ever seeing an option for longer than three days.  Was that an option, too?

Our spaces are considerably smaller and has less furnishings than yours so the 48 hour buffer works well for us.  I really like it, because it takes the stress off of rushing to turnover the space, and also allows us to give guests the full 24 hour stay on their last day.  Thus far, this has eliminated requests for late checkouts.

[Emilia42]

@Debra300 I get nervous about this as well. I've had many guests who are proactive in sending me a reservation change to add a day/alter dates (the way I like it) both before and during the stay.  But if the day shows as unavailable/can't be booked then I am sure there are many who move on/cancel thinking they cannot extend their stay/alter dates. Why should they think otherwise. It would be in Airbnb's best interest to change this.

[Debra300]

@Emilia42,

Yes, you make a good point that this issue may cause unknown lost opportunity for hosts.  It just adds another item to my greeting message, "Please let me know if you want to change your reservation to arrive on an earlier date or depart on a later date, because the Airbnb system may not let you systematically alter the reservation."

[Emilia42]

@Debra300 That's good verbiage. I should add something similar. 

[Nick · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone, I spoke with the team about this, and the issue lies within linking the listing as well as synching the listing. If the listings are on the same platform, hosts only have to use linked listings and not sync it. Using both features will cause double action and more confusion.

Hope this helps