Bookings

[Laura2237]

I’m new to this- but we have had lots of requests! However- most of the requests have been for long term stays- 1-7 months so far. (Literally we have only had one request that was less than a month long stay).

It would make things INCREDIBLY easier if the guest and I could speak in the phone to gather more details— especially since I have a teenage daughter at home.

Is there a setting I missed or any suggestions?

[Sarah977]

@Laura2237  Go to your calendar page. Click on "Availability Settings" , top right corner of the calendar. Scroll down to "Trip Length", click on "Edit". Now you can set your minimum and maximum stays. Make sure to click on "Save" when done.

One of the best pieces of advice I could give to new hosts is to spend however long it takes to go through all of your hosting pages and click on everything one by one so you can familiarize yourself as to where to find things. Ideally this should be done before going live with your listing. I find it helpful to make notes for myself in a little book I use for that purpose so I can refer to it if I can't remember where to find a setting or info. You can also use that little book to make a note of guests' phone numbers and email addresses-  Airbnb disappears those things when a booking is over, so it's useful to have them on file somewhere for future reference. Maybe you want to send previous guests a Xmas card,  contact guests you've made a good connection with if you happen to travel to their area to suggest getting together for coffee, maybe you want to let past guests know that you've upgraded your place, or changed photos on the site, or whatever. The site is counterintuitive in many respects, they hide things where you might never expect to locate them, so making notes can save time when you need to access something ASAP.

[Letti0]

@Sarah977  Actually the guests full name and phone numbers are still there just not on the inbox reservation after 2 months. You need to go to Transaction History and click on the green payout amount. The you click on the reservation ID ie. HMNXXXXX and you will still see the itinerary for the trip with all the information. Of course I don't relay on this method as it could disappear at any time based on AirBnB's history, but currently it is available. 

@Laura2237  I really do not recommend long term stays especially for new hosts. It's best like @Sarah977 says to limit the occupancy time to shorter stays for a few reasons. The number one reason is you are giving them tenancy rights with bookings over 27 days and you could need to evict them if they won't leave. The next big one is if they are a crappy guest it's going to be hard to get rid of them and you are usually stuck with them for the duration. At least if it's a short term guest you only have so long to have to deal with them.

You are not going to be able to speak to the guest until they actually book, this is a problem that has long been an issue with hosts. AirBnB will not give the number because  their service fee's could be in jeopardy if you and the guests agree to an off platform deal for booking, so getting the number in advance on AirBnB is never going to happen. If you are a Preimer Partner on HA/VRBI you get the number in advance, but they do not allow single rooms there so it's of no value to you.