Expansive search feature

[Salvador110]

As a recent host, I miss a search option that I don't think guests have.

In my area people don't come here by plane or train too often, many just arrive in their cars. So for them it is not very important the specific dates of arrival and departure.

Now, the problem that I see: Our city is usually packed with reservations. Sometimes I have holes of 3 consecutive days in my schedule. I would be happy to fill these with reservations, but when the guests use the search engine, they only see my place in the listing if they enter the exact dates of arrival and departure that I happen to have free.

I propose an "expansive search" feature, whereby a user would select JUST ONE DATE on the search form and maybe other parameters. Then the search engine would list just the places that have availability for that day. Then the user would be able to select (hopefully) my nice apartment, and browse into my calendar for the specific free dates next to his initial selection.

As things stand now, if the user selects a single day when searching, my listing is not shown because my minimum stay is 3 nights.

Wouldn't this "expansive search" be a nice feature?

[Linda108]

A guest can search without entering dates, @Salvador110 .  In that case, your default rate will be displayed.  They cannot contact you unless there are dates entered however.  So once they find a listing that meets their criteria, they can enter dates and send an inquiry or request to book.

[Salvador110]

OK, I can see that my proposed Expansive Search function would certainly help guests and new hosts, but not superhosts or hard-earned-rating ones. That is probably the reason why it won't get much support here. But a search without specifiying dates will produce a list of places which are 95% booked for the next week, and that is surely not what the guest wants.

[Salvador110]

I found a partial workaround for my 3-nights hole next week given my 3-night minimum stay. I set 3 x my base price of 90 eur = 270 eur for the first night, and the minimum 9 eur for the next two nights. Minimum stay 1 night. Check in on Mondays only. A bit of an overkill, but at least now my listing appears on the search engine results when guests make queries for Oct 7. only or Oct 7-8 as well. Let's see how it works...