If I'm out of the country and can't be reached, what should I do?

[Irina11]

I am going to Mexico for 2 weeks and won't be able to respond or host.  Should I block everything and unblock when I return?

[Scott80]

yup just snooze your listing.

[Victoria57]

@Irina11 if you are on a PC/Laptop go to Host -> Manage Listings -> Calendar and More. In the menu on the left scroll down to the bottom and change the dropdown menu to snoozed. You will then see a screen to enter the dates and will receive an email 24 hours before the snooze ends.

[Robert78]

Hold on a second. With all due respect to the previous comments, I strongly advise against using the snooze option. Go to your calendar and simply block off the dates you will be absent manually. If you use Instant Book, there is no need to disable it either. And this is why:

If you activate snooze, not only will your listing not be visible for enquiries made during the period you select, but you will also become invisible for future bookings outside of that period, which could harm potential future reservations. 

Seriously, how unreachable will you be? No email, text, facebook? You going off the grid? Kinda awesome, if that's the case!

Have a fabulous vay-kay! :))

[Helen3]

@Robert78 personally unless I had Instant Book turned on and didn't mind guests booking who didn't meet my requirements I would snooze my listing.

If you don't and just block out dates, you could come back to find guests who don't meet your house rules have booked and you have to untangle it all when you come back.

I find 1 in 4 people who request to book don't meet my listing or house rules requirements - want to stay for longer, have too many people, have children, have dogs etc. Fortunately I don't have IB turned on for this reason and politely decline these.

[Robert78]

@Helen3 Yeah, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but plenty of hosts use IB, myself included. I think that so long as you set it up correctly, meaning only allowing IB from guests with positive reviews and have an IB message set-up with a pro-forma greeting and relevant information about your current whereabouts, then I don't see a problem. The system is very elaborate, yet subtle. There is a degree of sophistication required to host in the current environment.