Friday / Saturday booking as a 2-day reservation

[Stuart11]

I only want guests to be able to book weekends as a Friday/Saturday reservation, not Thursday/Friday, or Saturday/Sunday. I have the 2-day minimum set, but that does not stop guests from "instant booking" Thurs/Fri or Sat/Sun.

So, I turned "instant book" off, as the Airbnb rep said there was no way to ensure Friday/Saturday reservations with it on.

Any thoughts ?

[Sophia6]

You could block Thursday nights and Sunday nights in your calendar and only open them for bookings once the Fri / Sat nights are already booked. It would solve your problem but you would potentially miss out on Thurs / Sun night bookings.

[Stuart11]

Thanks, but I definitely do NOT want to block any days as you mentioned.

[Miranda4]

I wonder if you could do it this way: under Availability Settings on the calendar page, beneath the Minimum/Maximum Stay boxes, click "Add another requirement," and then, instead of "Fridays or Saturdays," click "Specific Dates" and enter the dates for Friday and Saturday, then set a specific minimum requirement of two nights. You'd have to do that for each weekend, so it would be some work, but really not that much, just four times per month... 

Has anybody tried this? If it's only a 2-day window, and you set a minimum 2-day stay within it, wouldn't that force bookings for both days, without blocking the days around it? I was interested in doing this for specific events, like the various festivals around here.

I guess someone could experiment with a trial instant book attempt--if it works, let me know!

[Stuart11]

I see what you are saying.

Thanks for the tip

This seems like it may work.

I am in the process of setting it up, and now I will see if it will let me do exactly what I want, but it appears as if this will work.

I do not know how someone could do the  IB experiment without creating an actual reservation.

Thanks again.  ....Ha HA .....you appear to know more than the Airbnb rep !

[Michael766]

Ha ha, thats great! glad it worked.

[Stuart11]

Here is what I know so far:

The system appears as though it will allow such a set-up as you described ( not that tedious, but as you said I did have to do the process for EACH weekend....which is  not a big deal in my case as I only allow bookings a coupe months in advance anyway )

HOWEVER, what I don't yet know is what will actually happen in an IB situation.  I say this because when I went to my own listing on the Airbnb site as a guest and entered info for a Thursday-Friday booking, it DID let me enter the info.....but I hesitated to hit the "request booking" button ( even though it is not on the IB setting since I don't know if the system will even let me do that for my own listing....so I plan to ask a friend to pose as a guest later today.

OOPS.....this seems to only work partially. It will block someone from arriving on a Saturday, but if someone books a Thursday, it STILL allows them to check out on Saturday.

[Miranda4]

Bummer. It seemed like a good idea... I don't understand why it does that. I guess it thinks they've satisfied the minimum stay. Have you considered requiring a three-day weekend stay? I guess that would cut out too many people though... 

Here, weekends don't matter much (in fact we often have weekdays booked before the weekend, even though usually the price is the same), so I haven't explored it so much. I think on one other site you can block off a "special event" that has a set price for x number of days and can only be booked as a whole, which would be helpful for us for certain festivals. Maybe someone should suggest that to AirBnB.

[Stuart11]

Where I am, most bookings are for weekends, followed closely by Sunday-through-Thursday 5-night bookings ( near to Kripalu which runs 5-day workshops Sun-Thurs ) ...therefore cutting into that 5-day block on either end by even one day often ruins the chance for a full 5 day reservation.

Since the problem is partially solved, I am now exploring how to deal with the remaining problem ...in the meantime, I still have IB disabled..but ultimately I want to use it, as I am already convinced that it is helpful .

Thanks again !

[Ainsley1]

I seem to recall AirBnB having a "Friday night and Saturday night must be booked together" option back a year and a half ago, but it seems to have vanished. Their 2-night minimum is not helpful at all. 

[Tony111]

Stuart and Miranda

I tried adding another requirement under specific dates, per your instructions.  This method works, but the Saturday shows blocked (grey) on the guest calendar, which could be confusing. If a guest were to try and reserve the Friday and Saturday, and see Saturday greyed out, it would probably be a non starter.

Any other suggestions?

Thank you,

Tony

[Nigel54]

Hi, I am new to this, but just found the option to prevent check-in on certain days. So I have the same issue and only want min 2 days and only want Friday and Sat bookings on the weekends. So I switched off Saturday as a check-in day.

[Rekha6]

But you don't want people checking out on Saturday.  So, how would this help?

[Ryan63]

I, too, have been wracking my brain to find some way to game the existing settings.  I'm still not getting what I need, but I think I might be able to describe the problem and solution in a way that a software engineer or interaction designer might understand. 

The problem: Someone books one or more days during the week, with a checkout on Saturday.  That splits the weekend, which effectively makes the home unavailable for a majority of potential weekend guests who generally want to book the entire weekend.  

Setting two-day minimums for Friday and/or Saturday doesn't solve the problem: A guest can book Saturday and Sunday nights, or Thursday and Friday nights, thus splitting the weekend.  

Blocking Saturday check-ins doesn't solve the problem either.  A guest could still book Friday night and check out on Saturday, thus making Saturday night entirely unavailable.  

The solution: No check-ins on Saturday.  Any guest who wishes to stay Saturday night must check in on or before Friday night.  The key condition here is "on or before."  We already have the option to stipulate a Friday check-in, but that just prevents anyone from checking in on, say, Wednesday or Thursday from staying through the weekend.  

C'mon Airbnb, this really isn't such a unique or unusual request, much less a difficult one to code!  This should have been available years ago.

[Barry150]

It is frustrating. Just had someone book a thursday check out saturday. Since weekly rates are lower than weekend rates I am forced (with instant book) to get less revenue. Doesn't make sense for hosts or Airbnb that gets a cut of all booking revenue.