Major Global Calendar Issue! Front End Guest Calendar Available Check-in/Check-out Dates

[Jeanette139]

I am an Airbnb traveler as well as Superhost. I've discovered what is a MAJOR issue for Airbnb, travelers and hosts in the front facing guest booking calendar. It is a very simple fix that will greatly increase revenues for Airbnb and Hosts and is currently costing ALL of us money!

Here is the problem;

As a traveler, I often have some flexibility with my dates within a few days, I am sure this is normal for most travelers as I am in communication with them regularly as a host. As a result, one of my strategies in finding a place to book is to find a home that I like, then clicking on the Check-In date calendar for that listing, which then automatically brings up the little calendar showing availability for that home. Then, without having to put any dates in, I can scroll through the months and see what dates are blocked and what are available for that home. This allows me to know if this home is available to rent on the days I need. Unfortunately, I have learned that when you do this, it shows either the check-in date or the check-out date, whichever date field you have clicked on, as BLOCKED. Example, if I need a place from Feb. 3rd to 6th, and I click one-time on the Check-in date field, it shows Feb. 6th as BLOCKED. This is untrue - Feb. 6th (I am using my own listing as an example), is open for booking, it's just that someone else is checking-in that day. Vice versa, if you click one-time on the check-out date side, the calendar shows Feb. 3rd as BLOCKED. Again, not true, February 3rd is open, it's just that someone is checking-out that morning.

Now, if this was me looking for a place, I would immediately determine that the dates Feb. 3-6th are NOT a viable option for this home because I can't get in on the 3rd or maybe out on the 6th. As a result, I now EXCLUDE this home as an option. This isn't good for business for Airbnb, the traveler or the host.

I then checked Homeaway/VRBO calendar to see how they manage this issue. They have set it up correctly. The Feb.3rd date has a half-stroke on it, as does the Feb. 6th date. Therefore, I can see that Feb. 3-6th is available. This is a very helpful feature for both travelers and hosts. It also prevents me, as a host, from having guests asking to book on the 4th (even though they may have wanted the 3rd) and in return losing the revenue from booking the night of the 3rd.

This is how it should be done.

So, in summary, you can see it not only inconveniences both travelers and hosts, but this problematic feature is costing everyone money!

Today, I received a message from a guest looking to change her dates because of a family function. Her message was this:

"Hi there! I know it looks booked on the 17th of May, but I just wanted to check in and see if there's any possibility of changing this reservation to the 15th-17th?"

This emphasizes my point and why I am finally writing about it here! The 17th is NOT BOOKED! I have someone CHECKING-IN on the 17th... so if this guest had not asked me, she probably would have cancelled the booking and I never would have known the real reason why.

How many other bookings have I or other Airbnb hosts missed because of this ridiculous calendar oversight that is a very simple fix?? How much revenue have both Airbnb and Hosts lost because of this issue?? How many travellers have been disappointed because they thought dates weren't available because of this issue?? WHY HAS NO ONE ELSE NOTICED THIS ISSUE??!!!

We need this fixed ASAP - it's affecting our bottom-line... and YOURS!!

[Ben551]

Ummm.... I gotta say, I actually don't want guests who are so daft that they can't work out they are booking "nights" not "days"..... 🙂  So, I guess I'm fine with how it works currently 😄  This is a level of intelligence screening I would rather keep...

Otherwise I'll have to put this sign back up on my front gate...

[Susan727]

Really insulting.  “The big red button” to speak in the vernacular of the low IQ person you expect me to be, since I would be one of those travelers that you described,  says check availability 

 However, it is not a availability calendar it is a calendar of dates that Are available to “check in” on.   I’m not sure I want to stay at a place hosted by someone who does not value the consumer experience .   When I travel I often am very open to  booking my trip around the venue. I value where I stay in the experience I’m going to have At my lodging pretty high on the scale just under the community that I’m visiting.  I’m looking for a unique  or  highly comfortable experience.   when checking out an area and knowing that I want to go sometime in October for example, I typically put my filters in and scroll through until I find places that peak my interest.    I generally no about how many days I want to be in the area or I’m trying to match a really good travel or flight deal and have several options.   When I land on a place I will hit check availability I know that this is not unique to me this is the way that a lot of consumers shop for hotels and vacation spots. I don’t really want to have to go several pages in to try to see how many days the host has a minimum stay and try to guess  how much time they need to get their place ready all I want to do is quickly glance to see if I can stay at your beachfront resort for four days, if I can’t and those dates aren’t visible then I’m moving on .  I am happy for you however that you make enough money and are successful enough with your Airbnb that rather than work towards solving an issue to make it more user-friendly for everyone that you can be Flippant.  

[Kath9]

@Jeanette139, I have to say I'm really confused by your post. In your words: 'If I need a place from Feb. 3rd to 6th, and I click one-time on the Check-in date field, it shows Feb. 6th as BLOCKED. This is untrue - Feb. 6th is open for booking, it's just that someone else is checking-in that day.'  If you are booking from Feb 3rd to Feb 6th, then the assumption is you are booking for the night of the 6th, therefore, it will be blocked if someone else is checking in that day.

Then, further down: 'The 17th is NOT BOOKED! I have someone CHECKING-IN on the 17th...' Again, if someone is checking in on the 17th, then the night of the 17th will be blocked. @Ben551 is correct when he says that people are booking nights, not days.

It may also be that you have a one-day prep time between guests, so just check your settings.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Jeanette139

I agree with you.

In the earlier version of a calendar ( until a year ago) you could clearly see what days are available and you could mouse-over them to see the prices for those days.

Then Airbnb changed that

Now, when you click in "check-in" field you can only see what dates are available FOR CHECK IN.  Then when you click on "check out" field you will see only dates available FOR CHECK OUT.

You can't see the prices for those available dates either

To see available dates for this and the following month the guest has to scroll down the listing and will find it under the listing description. So basically, now they need 3 calendars to show what was shown before in just one calendar on the top, in the booking form.

VERY STUPID "IMPROVEMENT" ...but, we are all used to that....

I started hosting in summer 2016 and I have to say Airnbnb website was much better then.  The only real improvement since then is multi-calendar/listing.... Everything else is a FAIL.

AIRBNB - call back your old team from 2016 !

They knew how to build user friendly web, we miss them !!!

[Susan727]

I have only once before come to the community,  but I have been battling this exact issue with Airbnb super host support sending them little pictures both texting them and calling them to no avail.  This is a huge problem one that I am only now just recognizing that I have actually changed airplane tickets or gone to a less desirable lodging situation thinking that a place was not available for the days or length  of a stay that I would be interested in.   The Airbnb super host support person Rosie could not wrap her mind around the fact that I was not talking about a person actually having a problem booking  specific dates.   This went on for weeks.  I am toward her to bump this up to a supervisor, that she clearly did not understand programming  or web design that I did not fault her for not being able to help and asked her for the love of God to surrender my case to someone with more experience, all of this of course fell on deaf ears .   I have now shared my pictures that look pretty much like yours with examples of what my calendar looks like to me and what my calendar looks like to the average person wanting to stay at an Airbnb,  to several other local hosts,  as well as scores of people not familiar with the app to see if they Could find a property by  Setting filters based on price and size  and scrolling through the available  homes until something looked interesting and then asking them to check the availability calendar of the home they liked and of course not a single one of them  realized that there were actually more days available than what showed or that that was actually not a availability calendar but a calendar of available check-in dates.   This is   Incredibly costly for both Airbnb and for hosts.  You would certainly think they would be motivated to fix this. I can’t even imagine how much money they have lost in service fees making this ridiculous assumption that everyone knows the dates that they want to travel or start tapping around on an app seeing what some web master has hidden if you poke around enough .   As of this morning I have spent an hour composing a role-play for my support person Mieka  I think,   After seeing how many people have already pointed out this issue I can tell that my efforts will more than likely have been just a waste of time.  I find it almost laughable as a person who spends over $200,000 a year on Internet Marketing and graphic /web design salaries In an industry, Realestate,  that closely parallels that  industry,  that understands that over 95% of consumers looking at real estate platforms are doing so on their cellphones, that my Airbnb super host support Technicians  routinely  tell me that they’re not allowed to have cell phones and so  they are actually on the computer app and therefore not exactly sure if what they’re looking at  or trying works the same or looks the same as it does on my cell phone.   This is very frustrating.   I am glad that they are able to help the 5% of the people who are still working at a desktop, it will be helpful for when they transition to selling ads in a newspaper or phonebook.   

 More frustrating is that until today I had never even visited the VRBO app but I did so simply to look at their availability calendar, which is perfect easy to use and if I were on that platform would show every night that I actually have available for booking at a glance. Much is people won’t scroll past the first page when they  do a Google search for something most people are not going to do anything other than quickly check the availability calendar and then Move on  to the next home.    I really wonder how much the availability calendar has to do with the one night vacancies that I will occasionally have in an otherwise full calendar.  Is it possible that someone looks at the availability calendar and says wow OK she’s open from September 1-4 I like that place and then that’s exactly the nights they book for not realizing that I have the fifth open and someone else coming in on the sixth but that I allow same day turnovers?  On a final note, but a totally different subject, Airbnb if you were reading this when my average nights stay is 375 a night, and  I only have one on booked night in June, please quit telling me that I could boost my June bookings by 300% if I cut my price to $135 a night it’s insulting and just makes your programmers look really lame.   For the most part I am incredibly happy with Airbnb this availability calendar is really under my skin I know for a fact that I lost a booking because July 4 does not appear to be available yet, it is. 

[Susan990]

Thanks for highlighting this calendar graphics issue.  I remember when the half-stroke displayed on ABB same as VRBO platform.  The calendar design and other graphics displays changed a while back and were clearly not written by anyone who knows much about this business.