AirBNB website

[Nicki20]

We have an existing complicated booking system with trip length variations & multiple price changes throughout the year.  I have spent way too many tedious hours already trying to get my head around the airbnb system with no personal support to call for clarification.  I listed my property 2 days ago & am already about to pull the pin on it.  I blocked our busy period set for 7 day bookings only starting on 30 Dec but the week prior I had set for 4 day bookings only.  Seems you can book from the 29 & then book 4 days into my only 7 day period !!! Basically buggaring up my potential 2 full week bookings !!!  I cancelled the booking siting it was already booked as clearly I haven't got all the settings right after 10 hours of trying to set up. Whilst I can accept all this - Airbnb have now blocked those dates (cos they are so helpful) so that my suitation doesn't reoccur - I want them unblocked - how does one go about this - beg to cyberspace !!!  Insensed beyond belief !!

[Marzena4]

Maybe Airbnb is not quite for that type of business. It is more for guests rather than hosts, @Nicki20. The fewer limitations for guests, the better your search result. As for peak-season prices, you have to do it manually and well in advanve to predict trends.

[Lisa658]

@Nicki20

The simplest but perhaps not the best solution for me was to just block Ultra Peak dates on the site and have them available elsewhere.  For me the biggest reason was that these dates on other sites are immediately prepaid to us at the time of booking and non-refundable. 

Christmas is usually booked out by the end of August and if we rebook we can refund but many people book really far in advance for these dates so the closer you get to arrival, the fewer guests are looking.  I prefer not to work within the limited cancellations and payment policies on offer here for peak dates. 

If you want a flexible policy for the bulk of the year you also have this policy for peak dates so short of setting up a second listing with the different policies, I felt it was better to just not offer these dates.  

You could also just move your weekly window forward by 6 or 7 nights if you wanted to and when peak dates book then change it back to your regular minimum night stay.  Not optimum but it should work.

As for cancelling a guests booking, you will incur a financial penalty for this and not have the dates open for booking.  This is a really big no, no.  Perhaps you should snooze the listing while you familiarise yourself a bit more with how things works so it does not cost you any more money!!  You can try calling customer support and see if they will give you a first time user pass on this but don't count on it.  You are supposed to read about all this before you go live.

Lisa

PS The support number for Australia is 02 8520 3333