an honest error and now I can't unblock 3 days at Christmas

[Alison224]

Hi, 

Please can someone help me? I set up my listing late last night and posted it live.  I selected smart pricing, understanding that this would increase the price during holiday periods. I intended to go through the calendar dates and set the specific pricing in the morning for Christmas holiday period.  Really unluckily, less than 9 hours after I listed it, I discovered that Smart Booking did not increase the price during this peak holiday period.  I received and instant booking for 3 days 26-29Dec, booked at the new listing discount price and for 3 days immediately after Christmas which meant that there would be no way I could get it cleaned and do a turn around on Christmas - effectively stopping any bookings for Christmas eve / day being able to be made, I messaged the visitor apologising and explaining the situation and asking her to cancel the booking while I set up the calendar and to re book if she was happy with the settings I put in place.  I ended up having to cancel the booking myself. I then discovered that I was unable to to unblock these 3 days and make them available for bookings again.

I am a completely new to hosting and made an honest mistake in creating my listing and was very unlucky that within just a few hours a booking was made before I had got my head around what I needed to complete and fill out on the listing.

I have tried to create a new listing with all the correct settings but dates 26-29 Dec are still blocked out as unavailable on this new listing, having deleted the old one? Please can someone tell me what I can do to make these dates available again on my house and listing? 

Thank you anyone for your help and guidance, this is all a bit stressful.

All the best 

Alison

[Linda108]

There are so many specifics to attend to as you go live with your listing, @Alison224 I can understand how you thought you had time to get this all done before someone booked your place.  Also, Air BNB policies regarding host cancellations are automatic and you have run into one of the policies which is to block dates that are cancelled, even when you try to fool the system by starting over with a new listing.  Probably you need to speak with a rep of Air BNB and see if your being a new host can be taken into account and have the penalties reversed.   Here is a guide to contacting Air BNB.

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Contact-Airbnb-A-Community-Help-Guide/m-p/16165#M728

Good luck with your new business.  You can get a great deal of information in the host developed tutorials on this Community Center under Help.  Hope this helps.

[Alison224]

Hi Linda

Thank you for your reply, ok I will follow this up with a rep, thank you for the link and for your help.

Best wishes

Alison

[Fred13]

As you already can suspect, Smart Pricing and Instant Booking can lead to interesting situations.