Hosting while out of town

[Sheridan8]

Hi folks! I'm new to hosting and curious about how check-ins work when I plan to be out of town. Say for example I am out of town Friday-Sunday but I have someone who wants to book Thursday-Monday. How can I reflect this on my availability calendar without making it seem like I'm booked Friday-Sunday?

[Alexandra316]

There really isn't a way to do that. You can say that you only accept check ins on Thursdays, for example, but that would be in effect every week, and I assume you only want it for one specific weekend.

If for a specific weekend, you only want a four day booking, as you've given an example of above, you could set a four-day minimum on those specific dates.

You could also consider getting a frend or co-host to do the key exchange, or setting up self-check in with a lockbox or keypad: then you wouldn't have to be there.

[Kath9]

Ah, thanks Sheridan, this is a question I've been struggling with myself. I am totally OK with going away and leaving guests as long as I have personally checked them in first. But if I am away Fri-Mon, I can't leave any of the days available because what if someone books on the Friday, and then someone else on the Saturday, then someone else on the Sunday? Then I am not there to do the changeover..

I didn't know that you could set a minimum time-frame for specific dates - that's a great idea Alexandra! The only other way I can see is to get a co-host to come in and change sheets and do a handover.