Guests ask questions and you build some rapport, and they decide to make the booking you have been helping them with. Unfortunately these dates are no longer available. Someone else booked a single night in the middle of that five night booking.
What do you do? Is there anything you can do?
In this instance I didn't warn the guest to book quickly as the stay was only a few days away. Weekends are very busy and people book all the time, but I try not to rush guests into booking. The problem is I want the multi-day booking, but I don't want to block the dates in the event the guest doesn't actually book it.
If you are not aware, the preapprove is terrible, it can give you a non-revenue (unpaid) blocking of inventory and cost you bookings. You also can't rescind a preapprove, but the guest offered it can decline and get you out of the non-revenue blocking state.
In this instance the guest didn't understand why they couldn't book and wanted me to 'fix' this problem. My response was to offer to list a usually unlisted separate space nearby to cover the one night already booked and allow the guests to book the previous reservation less that one night. I don't think they understand this fairly complex accomodation.
Thoughts?