Availability Window has been set to 9 months does not update on guest side

[Justin2035]

Yesterday June 2 I had a guest request to be able to book a few days outside the availability window for what would have been a 54 day stay. I adjusted the availability window to 9 month and informed them they should be able to book now. They replied that they still could not. After further investigation, I confirmed that changing the availability window on my calendar for 2 of my listings does not affect the window on the guest interface. I notified support and was supposed to receive an update from engineering in 30 mins, an hour later I called back as I had not received any new information. They now have two open cases on it and have confirmed that it is a bug on their end. I have not received an update from engineering yet as of this morning and have called once more.

Why is one of the recommendations I see regarding this issue use a channel manager? Why should I have to spend money to make the app work properly?

I don't sync my calendar with any other platform. I solely book through Airbnb. 

[Joan2709 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Justin2035 

Are you using Pro Tools and the multicalendar? If not, suggest you turn on Pro Tools and take a look at the multicalendar while you wait for Airbnb to resolve. See if you can block then manually unblock the dates you want using the multicalenar. Worth a shot.

[Justin2035]

That actually worked! So switching them from blocked to unblocked on the multi calendar opened them up finally! Thank you so much.

[Joan2709]

@Justin2035 

Yay! Glad it worked!

@Shelley159  made a good point about your max nights stay setting...be sure that is set to accomodate the longer stays if that is what you want. 

There have been ongoing issues with ability to block/unblock dates on the regular calendar beyond your original availabiity settings. Mostly this was Hosts wanted to block dates past their availability window so they don't open up automatically on the rolling calendar. The only way to block dates past your availability window was to use the multicalendar. Sounds like that has not be resolved by Airbnb (as of yet).

[Justin2035]

The minimum nights wasn't the issue for this particular case. It was a long term booking.

This issue makes it substantially more difficult to try to bias towards a hybrid model though. 

[Joan2709]

@Justin2035 

Yes...agree. We changed our availability to "Unavailable by Default" for this very reason. This allows us to verify prices and manually block or unblock dates as we need to. All the other Availability options are on a rolling calendar....doesn't always work. We also use the multicalendar quite a bit.

[Justin2035]

Doesn't that affect your visibility on the platform? How do you receive requests for bookings?

[Joan2709]

@Justin2035 

Doesn't affect visibility at all. You simply choose Unavai by Default and immediately go in and manually unblock whatever dates you want as far out as you want. We normally keep at least 12 months open. It is also a good tool to ensure your prices are where you want them BEFORE dates are opened.

We generally price then open up dates as each month passes in order to keep 12 months open. We have listings that use Instant Book and others with Instant Book turned off. 

[Justin2035]

Ahh, I see now! Thank you for clarifying

[Shelley159]

Hi @Justin2035 

After you changed the availability window, did you actually check to see whether those dates are open on your own calendar, or are they still grey? If they still show blocked on your side as well, you can click on the dates and choose to unblock them manually. You may get a message that says they are blocked because of the availability window, which you can then choose to override.

[Justin2035]

They are open on the host side

[Shelley159]

@Justin2035 perhaps also check your other settings, specifically the maximum nights (under the availability tab). Make sure the maximum is long enough to accommodate this booking.

[Justin2035]

Maximum nights is set to something 720 days on all my listings, so that wouldn't be the issue

[Emilia42]

@Justin2035 

Can't you just manually open the dates for this guest? Instead of relying on your advance notice settings?

[Justin2035]

It shows that the dates are open on the host side, so I don't know what you mean by manually opening them