Why's the apartment still listed as available if fully booked?

[Tong-Seng0]

Hi All,

I tried to book an apartment in Ximending Taipei yesterday. Before booking, I contacted three hosts to seek their confirmation whether they allowed me to storage luggage after check-out. To my surprise, all three of them replied and informed me that their apartments had been fully booked on that date, despite still listed as available when I visited the respective apartment listing, citing that they'd forgotten to update the booking tables. What a lousy lame excuse!!!

Does anyone experience the same problems with such hosts? Is it a common problem in Airbnb?

Thanks.

[Clare0]

@Tong-Seng0 Unfortunately, many hosts also use other booking sites and fail to keep their Airbnb calendars updated when their listing is booked outside of Airbnb. 

Please do us all a favor and flag any listing that shows as available yet the host says otherwise.  These hosts give us all a bad name and should be at least reprimanded by Airbnb if not removed altogether. 

Thanks for bringing up this subject!  Clare

[David126]

ABB does not integrate well with other booking systems, so can happen.

Just using ABB does put all your eggs in one baskedt and different sites appeal to different customers.

[Tong-Seng0]

Thanks David for the info as well.

No wonder I can see from some of listings that:

1. the hosts cancelled the reservations x days before arrival

2. the hosts changed their rooms during check-in.

Does it happen only to certain countries only?

Thanks.

[Jerald14]

.

[Jerald14]

So is it that hard to update your airbnb listing right after confirming a booking on another site? IMO that would be the responsible, professional thing to do 🤷‍♂️

[Tong-Seng0]

Hi Clare,

Thanks for your reply.

In fact, one of them is still listed as available now and she doesn't even bother to update it.

How can I flag it? Which option do I choose from the report listing?

Thanks.

[Taryn4]

Hi Tong,

One thing I might recommend is for you to write a little bit more about yourself on your profile. Some hosts are weary to let guests into their homes with limited information (but are unfortunately reluctant to tell them why). I see that you are verified with one review. However, I can tell you from experience, as a host, that it's really nice to have a great feeling about a guest (and a sense that you know who they are). We've said no to guests we felt weren't a good fit for our household (had strange requests, wouldn't answer questions directly, hadn't fully read our listings)

Maybe try this tactic first (before flagging the hosts) and try again. Maybe you'll get more favorable results in hosts accepting your stay if they just know how great of a host/person you are. 🙂 

Happy Travels!

Taryn 

[Fredrik14]

Thanks for the information. Just find this thread when I had a similiar problem my first time using the service. The place shows up as available, but when booked it the host contact me excatly 24 hours later (which is good I guess?) and reply it was already booked. When tried other dates the place again shows up as available, but the host later confirmed it is not. Because it was the first time I am using airbnb I thought this how it works using this service, and was almost close to sign out for good due to this issues.

But I tried another host just in case, and this time it just took a minute with the reply and confirmation, which was just wonderful after all the frustration with the other host.

So, any idea how I can send info to airbnb about this "host" which always seem unavailable? The host has good rating so probably a good place to stay and service. However, if newcomer to airbnb has problem with the booking they are other options.

EDIT: The place I am trying to stay is a small town with not that many places to stay (low supply), but very popular town to stay in summer, so probably this host can choose whatever (high demand!). But the host also send me details to other booking site for other places which the host also seem to run, so still good services. But probably this is not what the airbnb wants to achieve, having hosts that recommend other services ?  

Thanks in advance. 

[Kika1]

probably the host was just letting you down indirectly, because you werent a good fit for them.

also, asking to leave luggage after check out might have scared them that you might be a difficult guest who wants to get more than they pay for.