I had to cancel a booking for 3 nights and can't make available again.

[Penny71]

Hey

Please help.

Someone booked over a pre-approved booking so i had to cancel the booking dates.

The system won't let me make them available again to the original Guest.

Penny

[Hilary-And-Ed0]

Hi @Penny71,

Unfortunately you are probably out of luck.  A pre-approval is just an allowance to let someone book, but it is not a booking.  You can pre-approve more than one person at a time, and whoever books first gets the booking, even if you pre-approved the other one first.  

Airbnb penalizes hosts who cancel bookings in a few ways:  blocking those dates for other bookings, ineligibility from becoming superhost for a year, and occasionally a monetary fine as well.  This is to prevent discrimination.

I used to try to delay pre-approving a second person for dates I had already pre-approved for someone else because I felt bad, and thought they had the "right" to book, but now I don't worry.  I just let them know that someone else is interested in the same dates, and then go with whatever happens.

If you ever need to book for an "extenuating circumstance" (flood, fire, serious illness), the penalties will be forgiven if you call the company.  Even in those situations, if possible, it is easier to call the company and have them cancel.

[Jordon2]

I set up instant book, under the assurance that I was allowed to review the guest, and cancel their reservation if it didn't suit our place. Someone who has no reviews and an account of only a couple months use booked. Being that it was our first booking, I didn't feel comfortable letting an unknown person, with no profile details into our home.

For this, Airbnb has blocked out these dates now, which are the middle of a range of available dates, making it very hard for us to find another guest. Frustrating and unfair to be treated this way when this is our home, and we should have the right to both set the criteria for guest booking and choose guests that meet these criteria.

Any help on how to get this block removed would be greatly appreciated.