Airbnb blocks dates because I kicked out a guest?

[János2]

Guest booked half year before the most popular week, when a festival is arranged in Budapest. I did not yet set for that week the higher price, and they do not accept the higher price, so I kicked them out. But now I can not offer that week, because Airbnb locked it. Is it any workaround? I have automatic checkin selected.

[Kathie21]

Not that I know of - that kind of action is precisely why Airbnb does block dates if you cancel a booking.  It's up to hosts to manage their prices and calendar - if you don't know the exact festival dates so that you can set a higher price, you need to block out the approximate period until you do.  It's certainly unacceptable to try to raise the price after someone has booked - now you will get nothing for those dates, and I'm afaid I have no sympathy.  If you make a pricing mistake and someone books, you just have to live with it.  I believe you will also lose your Superhost status for a year at the next review, and that 'host cancelled' review will stay there as an off-putting warning to future potential guests.

[Christine615]

Correct -  usually organizers know their dates well before the dates are made public. Next time call the festival and get an approximate time frame. Then block those dates or manually raise the price on your calendar for those weeks until the dates are set. Then you can change the other days.

You just go to your calendar, select the day or multiple day and select "block" which keeps people from booking until you are ready, or type in a higher price for those dates which will override Airbnb settings. You can change the prices back once you are sure.

I have the opposite problem - I had two separate guests book my calendar at Christmas (one for ten days) then cancel close to the time but within the "moderate" cancellation policy. Luckily people immediately booked those dates but I think that guests who cancel an Airbnb they've booked for a while should be blocked from booking somewhere else. That keeps guests from "price" shopping.

So many things Airbnb needs to do to improve. Including putting on the guest's wall "Guest cancelled." (Same as they do when a host cancels).

[Kath9]

@János2, I agree with @Kathie21, you won't be getting any sympathy from other hosts here. It is extremely unethical to ask someone to pay a higher price after they have already booked, and then to 'kick them out' for refusing to pay more is very poor form - imagine if the shoe was on the other foot? It is your responsibility to set your prices yourself - if you forget to do it, it's your problem, not the guest's. The penalty for cancelling guests is that those dates will remain blocked so no one else can book - this is to prevent hosts doing precisely what you have done. So instead of getting some payment for those festival dates, now you will get none. And you will probably lose your Superhost status too - and rightly so. For once, I am siding with Airbnb on this one.

[Sarah977]

@János2  What a rude thing to do to your guests. This is the kind of host behavior that turns guests off using Airbnb.

[David-and-Fiona0]

!00% behind Airbnb on this one

[János2]

Thanks your opinion. As I remember earlier it was possible once in a year refuse someone if you have the automatic checkin selected. Isn't it?

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@János2

it is still possible to cancell penatly free if you have instant booking option enabled BUT...  you have to call Airbnb to do it for you and they will do it only if you have very good reason for cancellation (Airbnb will weigh it) for example if have a reason to be unconfortable to host them because they have bad reviews, or intend to brake your house rules by bringing kids or pets etc... Not setting the right price or overbooking is NOT the reason you can cancel without penalties.

On the begining of my hosting I made the same mistake, I forgot to change the price for New year and someone booked already in August. Later it happend 2x again - once for the big music festival and another time for Davis cup - guests booked way before I found out about this events. It was my fault and they get lucky .

[Sarah977]

@János2  Was your post wording "kicked out" meant to mean you cancelled their booking way before the dates they booked? Because "kicked out" in English means the guests were already in your home and you made them leave. So if that isn't the case, then most of us wouldn't have reacted so strongly to what you wrote.

But if you cancelled because you hadn't gotten around to updating the prices on your calendar for dates in the future, that's still not okay- it's host's responsibility to set prices accurately for any open dates. If you find that hard to keep up with, set your calendar so people can only book 3 months, or 6 months in advance. 

Cancelling because of a pricing error, while not fair to guests, isn't anywhere near as bad as actually kicking them out when they are already staying in your place because they refuse to pay more money than was listed when they booked.

[János2]

Yes, cancelled them, half year before. Sorry.

[Sarah977]

@János2 I thought that might be the case, after I looked at your listing and you had really nice reviews and guests said you were so nice and helpful. I was thinking, "How could a guy like this suddenly be nasty to his guests and make them leave the house just because he wanted more money?"

Too bad there's not just a worldwide language so misunderstandings like this can't happen 🙂

If you get a lot of bookings 6 months or a year in advance, then I can see the need to have your calendar open far into the future. But if the majority of bookings are for shorter advance periods, like I said, just change your calendar settings to not so far in the future. Even for a week where there is a big event 8 months down the road, there would be so many people looking for accomodation for those dates, you wouldn't have any problem getting bookings for those dates even if your calendar was only open a month before the event, as most places would be booked up by then and people would be desperately looking.