Technical issue allowing double bookings

Stephanie94
Level 2
Oakland, CA

Technical issue allowing double bookings

Airbnb keeps allowing people to double book my place (same dates, same listing). Has anyone else had this issue? It's happened multiple times and I've had many conversations with customer service. I was told that it was a technical glitch and they were working on it. 

 

My Super Host status wasn't renewed (never less than 5 stars and hundreds of stays) due to having to cancel someone who booked the same days as a previous booking (which should not be technically possible). Airbnb claims they cannot find any of the records for phone calls I made to customer service even though there were many calls about various bookings. I was told to cancel the second booking and that it would not affect my Super Host status. Now I can't seem to get anyone to understand that there's no way this is my fault because it should be technically impossible. I haven't gotten any bookings since this happened. 

 

Please let me know if you're experiencing this and how you resolved it. 

 

Warmly,

Stephanie

3 Replies 3
Debra300
Level 10
Gros Islet, Saint Lucia

@Stephanie94,

Looking at your listings makes me homesick, and your place is very inviting.  It looks like you offer the same place in either a 1 bedroom or 2 bedroom configuration.  You may know this already, but do you have the calendars for both listings linked to each other?  When a reservation is made, the same dates on the calendar of the linked listing are instantaneously blocked.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1864/linking-calendars-for-multiple-listings

 

This is different than the calendar syncing feature that is used when connecting to calendars on other platforms.  https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/99/syncing-your-airbnb-calendar-with-other-calendars.  This function usually updates calendars on a schedule, e.g. every 2, 4 or 6 hours.  Which leaves windows where the connected calendar will show availability, and can be booked.  This is unique to Airbnb, because other platforms don't allow syncing between calendars on their platform.

 

Please note that the calendar linking feature is limited to just blocking the calendars between the primary calendar and secondary listings that are linked directly to the primary.  For example, a house has four bedrooms, and the host wants to list it with four different configurations depending upon the number of bedrooms that will be rented.  The primary listing is for the four bedrooms, and the secondary listings are for 1 bedroom, 2 bedrooms or 3 bedrooms, respectively.  Each of the secondary calendars is directly linked to the 4 bedroom primary listing.  Whenever the 4 bedroom listing is booked, it will block the all of secondary listings' calendars.  However, if 2 bedrooms are booked, it will only block the calendar of the 4 bedroom primary listing, and will not block the calendars of the 1 bedroom and 3 bedroom listings.  

 

 

Stephanie94
Level 2
Oakland, CA

OMG this makes so much sense! No one at Airbnb explained this and now I'm sure they themselves didn't understand it. Thank you soooo much! Yes they're all linked but I had no idea it worked as you started below. That's not obvious at all when linking then. Steph

Debra300
Level 10
Gros Islet, Saint Lucia

@Stephanie94,

To avoid the double bookings, be sure to only link the calendars between your listings.  If the calendars are sync'd with each other, remove that setup because syncing linked calendars will cause delays with re-opening dates on calendars after a cancellation or unblocking of dates.