My guest asked me to cancel the reservation, which I did and now by calendar is blocked.

[Isobel18]

How to I unblock my calender?

[Helen3]

Oh dear @Isobel18 it sounds like you haven't familiarised yourself with how airbnb works, before letting your listing go live.

When you were going through the cancellation process, you would have seen notifications from Airbnb warning you that you would be penalised for cancelling a booking (see Airbnb Help Centre, host cancellations).

If a guest wants to cancel the booking, then they should cancel it. Never the host.

All you can do is call Airbnb and point them in the direction of messages from your guest saying they wanted you to cancel.

[Mark116]

@Helen3  To be honest, I don' t think it's an issue of people not familiarizing themselves with the process, it's the fact that airbnb uses a very, very unscrupulous method to get hosts to cancel when they think they are just approving the cancellation from the guest.  

The reason so many hosts fall victim to this ruse is because it's just that, a sneaky maneuver designed to fool the hosts into cancelling.  There is literally no reason that such a message should ever exist except for the purpose of harming the hosts at the expense of guests.

You really should not blame the victims here.

[Sarah977]

@Mark116  Yes- it's a really nasty subterfuge. I would never have known about it if I hadn't been alerted to this scam on these forums. And I'm not one of those people who set up their listing without reading all I could find on the site. I spent days reading everything and making sure all my settings were correct before publishing.

[Helen3]

@Mark116  I disagree.

The guest asked the host to cancel the booking. The host chose to go into the booking and cancel the booking, despite there being a least two notifications through this process telling them that they would have financial and other penalties for doing so.

I truly don't understand your remarks about unsrupulous methods, or the host falling victim to sneaky manouevres by Airbnb . Airbnb did not ask the host to cancel the guest did.

@Isobel did not say the guest indicated to Airbnb that it was a host cancellation. Which is a completely different situation.

I am not 'victim-blaming' and it is rather insulting and inappropriate that you should make such a remark.

I stand by my remark, that when we are setting up a business on Airbnb, it makes sense to read up on the basics before you let your listing go live.

[Mark116]

@Helen3  We will have to disagree.  When the host gets an automated message asking if they will approve guest X's cancellation request and they hit okay, and then get penalized, this is deceitful and is yes, victimizing the host who thinks they are approving a guest cancellation not initiating a host cancellation.  

[Gordon0]

Rule No. 1: Never cancel because the would-we guest asked you to. 

[City-Limits-Ranch0]

If your Guest tells AirBnb

"My Host, he wants to cancel Me!"

AirBnb will email you.

They'll  ask you if

This tale is true.

What should you do?

You should decline!

The reservation is quite fine!

Just tell them no.

If he wants out

Then he may go but there's no doubt

The Guest should have to pay the price.

You're quite the Host,  but not THAT nice.

[Daniel1598]

@Isobel18 I agree with @Helen3 @Gordon0 here. To answer your question just go to the listing's calendar, select the dates to unblock, and then make them available.

In the future, always respectfully request that the guest initiate the cancelation. Your hosting stats won't be penalized.

[Sandra856]

Hi @Daniel1598 🙂

Airbnb blocks the dates as a penalty when a host cancels on a guest. So @Isobel18 can't unblock the dates. 

[Daniel1598]

@Sandra856 my goodness.. thanks for the information. I assumed it was similar to the rejection of an inquiry. Apologies, @Isobel18. In that case, speak with support and reference the guest's messages asking for a cancellation. In my experience they've been super helpful.

[Helen3]

@Daniel1598  If you look up host cancellations on the Airbnb Help Centre, it explains the penalties for when a host cancels a booking.

As mentioned above Airbnb imposes sanctions as it rightly takes host cancellations seriously.

That's why I suggested she call Airbnb in my initial post to see if they would remove the sanctions.

[Sandra856]

@Isobel18 This is a situation that happens a lot. Call airbnb as soon as possible an tell them that you didn't understand (as a new host) that you would get penalised if it was the guest that wanted to cancel. They can see your communication thread with the guest on the airbnb message feed that it was the guest who wished to cancel.

You can find the phone number to airbnb under the help section. 

[Daniel1598]

^ 100%

[Sandra856]

@Daniel1598 Hahaha.. Same same 🙂