Watch out! One day notice is not 24 hours notice

Seif8 · ‎06-11-2019

Hey peeps,

I just realized that setting a minimum one day, advance notice for a guest to be able to book my property, doesn't actually mean a full 24 hours, instead, it's governed by the date of the day. This may seem harmless, like booking on the 5th for the 6th of November, but imagine what could happen when a guest books at 11:45pm on the 5th, just 15 min before the 6th.

Well I learned that first hand with my current guest who instantly booked my place at 11:45pm on the 5th with a check in at 8am... ONLY 8 HOURS AWAY!
Luckily for the guest, I was still awake, as I was preparing to go to bed , I managed to see his instant booking and I successfully checked him in this morning.
Now, in a less fortunate scenario, if I had slept just an hour earlier, my guest would have arrived all the way from his home country, through the airport and right to the doorstep of my listed apartment (with his luggage) while I would still be deep in my sleep at the other end of town completely oblivious.

Naturally, I have now changed the minimum advance notice to 2 days (aware that it could easily be 24.5 hours not 48, due to this bug)

I believe one way to fix this bug/problem is if airbnb uses time stamps to calculate 24 hours, instead of relying only on dates. This will surely prevent incidents such as mine which probably happens to many other host/guests.

Just thought I'd share this with the community so less hosts/guests would be inconvenienced.. I already send feed back to airbnb as well.

Cathie19 · ‎07-11-2019

Yes @Seif8 , this is a deadly mistake we all make, unless we read and learn from hosts who give the heads up in forums such as this one. The information, like you’ve supplied, is invaluable.

I previously thought the one day/24hours notice worked from my published check in time.

WRONG!😱

This forum had me racing to my settings to change them to two days notice. Effectively allowing me one day and about a minutes leeway.

Though check in time for me would assist in stopping the 8am check in! It would be 2pm!

Here are just just a few of some earlier threads....

Your advice and others, makes this a very valuable forum.

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Tips-Tutorials/Advance-Notice-Settings-Same-Day-Requests-A-Commu...

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/one-day-advance-notice/td-p/1102250

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/1-Day-No-Longer-24-Hours-Notice/td-p/447666

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Clarification-Tutorial-Calendar-Rules-Using-Advanced-Notice...

I’ve also begun to change my immediate days of available/blocking. This assists me, because Airbnb is not my only work/employment. So this along with my settings, acts as a second layer avoiding the unexpected and unprepared for guest. For me, if I can’t do things 100% right in my preparation, then I’m not open for business.