Calendar for Saturday to Saturday stays - Confusing to potential guests - Sunday to Friday blocked

[Thomas977]

In the summer season, I have check-in and check-out only on Saturdays (rule in professional version of the calendar saying that check-in and check-out on sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday is not allowed). This means that Sunday to Friday is marked as booked (gray with lines on) in the calendar, even though these days are not booked. These days are only opened when the guest selects Saturdays for check-in and check-out. This causes many guests to misunderstand as they think the days in the calendar are booked, even if they are available. This is therefore very negative because Airbnb and I loose potential bookings. Airbnb should change the view from Sunday to Friday from "gray with lines on" (booked) to for example "GREEN with lines on". This is important for potential guests to understand that the days are available, even though check-in and check-out is not possible on these days.

Airbnb responded that this is not a mistake on their part and they do not want to change this..

Does anyone else have the same problem? Any suggestions on solutions?

https://www.airbnb.no/rooms/23200701

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Calendar-for-Sat-to-Sat-stays/td-p/657329?_ga=2.95888796...

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Availability-on-Calendar-Sat-Sat-only-showing-Saturday-avai...

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Host-Q-A/Weekly-rentals-on-calendar/idi-p/794399?_ga=2.167644478...

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Why-does-the-calendar-looked-blocked-off-when-i-set-up-a...

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/2-Night-Fri-Sat-Minimum-but-when-I-quot-Check-Availability-...

[Isabelle623]

Hello All,

  I have the exact problem. I then tried to do what James seems to have done. Explained in my listing description, removed additional requirements and switched off Instant book.

But now I have a booking request and responding is not enough it seems. I need to decline and I don't want to. What do I do? I sent a note to support, but doubt if they will help since they did not heed your requests too? 

What is amazing is that my page views went really up after I made the above changes. So, people are being misleaded by Airbnb seems not to heed this issue.

Regards,

Isabelle & Alex

[Isabelle623]

Hi Thomas and all,

  I think I have a so-so solution which could be a way out under the current circumstance. Probably not the best customer experience.....but the customers are in the situation because they did not read the listing details in the first place, so I reckon it should be fine. 

Anyway, here goes:

1. I set my entire summer to have minimum 7 days and check-out not allowed on Saturday as I prefer Friday-Friday and many people keep trying for Saturday-Saturday. By doing this, my calendar is not grayed out in summer. Of course, my listing does not show up if people search for less than 7 days. But then those customers will not fit my requirements anyway, so no loss

2. Next problem is when people send a booking request. Then we are obligated to Accept or Decline. I was getting really stressed about it as there was no 'Special Offer' button and I did not want to decline. In the last week, we received 4-5 booking requests where its clearly mentioned in the description and people still sent booking requests which contradict our request. But now I just realized that I can accept and then make a special offer from Friday to Friday and recommend the customer to accept or decline within 48 hours. And we the hosts don't get penalized. This way if the customer declines, they still get a full refund. This is what I meant by sub-optimal customer experience. 

So what do you'll think? I already implemented point 1. I'm hesitating to activate point 2. Will await your responses and see the pro's & con's.

Regards,

Isabelle & Alex

[Jarred12]

Hi @Isabelle623 ,

For point 1, how do you set check-out to not be allowed on Saturday?

Also have you implemented point 2? How has this system been working?

Thanks,

Jarred

[Thomas977]

Hi @Francesco-and-Simona0,

Thanks for sharing your experience with this issue.

No, unfortunately, there is no solution to this problem. My potential guests are very confused about the Saturday to Saturday check-in and check-out in the calendar. I'm sure I lose a lot of bookings because potential guests misunderstand the calendar!

In an attempt to "educate" potential guests, I have included this text in the Airbnb description:

"During the summer season, check-in and check-out is only on Saturdays. During this period, Sunday to Friday is marked as booked in the Airbnb calendar, but the days are still AVAILABLE and are opened when selecting Saturdays for check-in and check-out."

I really hope Airbnb will understand how negative this is for all parties and that Airbnb will make a change of the calendar view. 

Only booked days should be gray; available days without check-in and check-out should be "green with lines". Please listen to us Airbnb!

Regards,

Thomas

@Alexandra316 @Ashten0 @James415 @Andy446 @Isabelle623 @Dionne28 

[Alexandra316]

@Thomas977 This year, I just ended up changing my policies and allowing shorter stays but charging more. We'll see how it goes.

I agree that between this policy and the toothless cancellation policies, it makes it very difficult for me to rent out my cottage on Airbnb. They are missing out on a lot of commission: I rent, just not through them.  

[Mary419]

I agree. I have to choose a day people cannot check in or out for some of our city's events. And then people ask if that one day is already booked. Why on earth must they show it that way. I have sent feedback about it before. Nothing has changed in years. It likely costs us bookings from those who just move on to another listing that shows their dates all without X on them