Strange calendar malfunction made blocked dates available on multiple listings.

[Deirdre2]

Something very strange happened with my airbnb listings yesterday. I was sitting in my doctor's office about to have a small procedure done, when a message pops up that one of my homes has been booked for May 4-7. But I have had those dates blocked for months. I immediately call the guest and let them know this is an error and then start trying to cancel it. Within minutes another message pops up that another one of my homes has been booked for May 4-7! That home is also already booked by my regular offline clients. In a panic, I check my other listings to find that two other listings now show May 4-7 open too. I block the dates. I then try to remove the homes from Instant Book until I can figure out what is wrong, but I can't complete the process on my phone. The only listing that still has the dates blocked is one with a VRBO booking (I have it set to import from VRBO).   I live in Louisville, KY--The first Saturday in May is the Kentucky Derby-- 250,000 people come to town and everything is booked months in advance at rates that at 10x the normal rate.  So, as soon as my blocked dates were somehow unblocked, people started trying to book them.

I called Airbnb but was still on hold when the doctor came into the room. I was a little groggy for the rest of the day (drugs from doc), but today I still can't figure out what could have happened. Has anyone every had anything like this occur?

[Clare0]

@Deirdre2 I would be very curious to know what you have set in your Availability Settings under Booking Window.  I'd bet you dollars to donuts that you selected the 3 month availability.  If so, the system will open all dates 3 month in advance.  In this case, seeing as how today is February 7, the system will make all dates available to May 7.  Tomorrow it will open dates to May 8 and so on with a rolling 3 month availability.  If this is the case, you need to be aware of that and block dates that become available. 

Let me know if this is what is happening!!

[Deirdre2]

Hi Clare,

I have many dates past May 7 set as available for booking, so I don't think that could be it.  The bookings were made yesterday, February 6 for the dates of May 4-7.

[Clare0]

@Deirdre2 Hmm, my guess was apparently wrong, sorry!  What kind of device / operating system are you using? Airbnb's app and Safari are not reliable for managing listings.  Chrome and Firefox are best.  I use Chrome exclusively for managing my calendar with my phone only for notifications.  Never had a problem. 

I go in the opposite direction for managing my calendar.  I block all dates by default then open the days I want to be available.