Features

[Nuno-Y-Daniel0]

Hi, 

This a thread for leaving some wished features that you would like to see on Airbnb.

Idea: To be possible to change the minimum of nights for specific periods on the calendar. This could be applied between 2 bookings already confirmed the nights left are below the minimum set.  

Feel free to share your thoughts! 

Warm regards, 

Daniel 

[Helga0]

@Deb0, @Lizzie

The end of year cards existed in former years, it was a nice feature. (Electronic cards only) I suppose half of the guests change their emal address all the time or use a temporary address anyway, young people often don't even use email. 

But the cupon code for rebooking would be nice. And it would be an elegant solution for those guests who make pressure to pay the next time in cash, as they have been here already. Something like 3 % allowing to say: "I offer to take over half of your part of the service fees, but pay via the system." 

[Nuno-Y-Daniel0]

@Deb0 about the coupon just had a experience with a guest that left the apartment earlier cause of the bad weather. They booked for 4 night and was rainning like hell all the time. They ask if it was possible for 1 night refund as they decided to go back home 1 night before. In exchange i offered them 1 night if they decided to come back in the future. Coupon would work great here. Not only for keep guests coming but to minimize some bad experiences that can happen! 

[Helga0]

Daniel, your suggestion changes the price for every guest according to his initial choice of stay. That is a good thing, if you fidget around with a lot of parameters to be competitif for different cases. What Kelly and I looked for was more a way to reduce our work and not necessarily snatch every guest but to offer the place to those who look just for such a place and are prepared to pay for it. I took my South France home offline for the moment as it is just not worth it to enter in price wars with all the empty tourist lodgings or to write lots of mails for nearly no outcome and to bother the key person for 10 requests "could you hand over the keys?" If only one in a while books.
But before airbnb, we got several expensive business bookings every low season. Just because it is a home and an office.
From airbnb's point if view it would mean, the tourists book the cheap empty guest apartments and once in a while someone books mine and they get more commission.
From a data base programming sight, it is easy to install: there are always 3 options in a form: No and block / Alert and proceed / confirm and proceed (or just proceed).
At the moment it is set to no, but it would be easy to set to alert and proceed. An hour to create the option alert form and test it. Longer for the political discussion before that.

[Deb0]

@Nuno-Y-Daniel0 You're welcome! It's been a feature for at least a couple of months. I believe they sent me an email when it was released. It's great to have more control over the calendar, eh? Thanks Airbnb!

[Deb0]

@Lizzie Thanks for checking on the holiday cards. Perhaps they could whip together a "Happy New Year" card for us all to send out to past guests? I really enjoyed sending the holiday emails the past couple of years. Plus the graphics were so creative, I love Airbnb's design / style! 

[Nuno-Y-Daniel0]

@Lizzie an idea suggestion around the Airbnb events for some cities. In Porto for example, in the peak of the summer there's thousands of tourists hosted in the city through Airbnb. Why not get them together around the events? Specially at night and around the table is a good way to some hosts meet together. This could even work better with business travelers as they often travel alone. 

Fifa Euro 2016 is coming and i do know for experience that foreigners in the city do like to know what places (restaurants, bars, coffees) are the best to see this matchs. Porto receives hundreds of French/Spanish tourists that love soccer. This could be easy to set up and celebrate the event as embraces hosts from Airbnb for a different experience awhile travelling. 

This event is just an example but big sport matchs are happening all the year long. 

[Deb0]

Hi @Nuno-Y-Daniel0,

The calendar should already include the ability to specify different minimum stays for different time periods. When you are on the Calendar page do you see "Availability Settings" in the top right corner? If so click on that, then click on " Add a Requirement". You can select specific minimums for specific date ranges there. Hope this feature is available to you, I use it frequently and appreciate it.

[Helga0]

Thank you @Deb0 ! I found the feature now, it should work. That's very welcome to have.

[Nuno-Y-Daniel0]

@Deb0 thanks for your tip. That's exactly what i need it! Didn't have noticed that line in the settings.  Great for sharing! 

[Nuno-Y-Daniel0]

@Lizzie this last 3 days i have received 3 inquiries about my listing although it accepts instant booking. During all this period that can go for 24hours i can't receive any other requests and so it was unavailable for other hosts in 3 days for over 2 days. Honestly his time should be much shorter. It could be like 12 hours during night country periods and 8hours during day for example. If instant booking is active it shouldn't even block the calendar for inquiry messages.

Most of the messages are related with availability inquires even if instante booking is on.

[Helga0]

@Nuno-Y-Daniel0, a normal inquiry does not block the calendar. That happens if someone books

but does not qualify for instant booking

or his credid card does not pass,

or airbnb or you ask for profile verification  and that does not pass or the guest did not understand that he has not finished yet.

It seems strage that you get three such requests in a row. 

[Nuno-Y-Daniel0]

Hi @Helga0 thanks for your comments! Actually the last inquiry was a booking but seems i am not receiving the Airbnb emails during the afternoon and that's why we got here a misunderstood. Although i am still not sure if an inquire do not blocks the calender, it would more normal to work as you said.

[Helga0]

Daniel, if you see the calendar in the message thread of the inquiry, it shows the requested dates as yellow, but if you look at it in the listing or on the app the dates sre free. That's the normal way. The yellow "pending" on the global calendar is very rare. Don't even see it every year - therefore I think it's unusual or it was not really blocked.

[Nuno-Y-Daniel0]

Seems to have been here some email delivering issues during this afternoon so i'm not sure about this now. I'll update in the next inquiry chance @Lizzie.

[Helga0]

I always get the app notifications first. Sometimes the mails are delayed, phone mail first, computer mail second, 5 minutes delay usually, sometimes longer. If I'm online in the account, the app notification is still faster then the account, but online is faster then mail.