Custom trip lengths & restricting check-in days w/in that window

[Geoffrey271]

We have been using both Airbnb & VRBO for roughly 8 years now and either by coincidence or luck we have somehow not run into a situation like this until recently and after discussing this with Airbnb today it does not sound like there is a solution on Airbnb, like there is on VRBO, so I wanted to ask the community if they have experienced this and potentially have any advice?

Our bread and butter months are basically mid-June to mid-August and we try to achieve 100% occupancy in this window with 7-night minimums.  VRBO allows us to create a custom window and impose both a 7-night minimum AND a specific check-in and check-out day of the week.  We always choose Saturday to Saturday and it's worked out pretty well historically.  We currently have our VRBO calendar set up as such and I suppose we assumed the same to be true on Airbnb, but after we received a booking this week on Airbnb for next July from a Sunday to Sunday, I was surprised to find out that Airbnb does not allow for the same custom check-in/out day of the week, like VRBO does. 

In this particular situation, this now leaves us with a 1-night opening between the prior Saturday check-out and the new Sunday check-in that will likely go un-booked because 1-night rentals are not very popular in our town.  Furthermore, this now creates a 6-night gap that doesn't jive with the 7-night minimum and Saturday to Saturday check-in/out that is being imposed on VRBO, so it's really a conflicting situation between the two synced calendars.

Again, we have always managed to maintain a Saturday to Saturday cadence in the past, so I'm not sure if Airbnb has recently removed the capability for hosts to restrict check-in/out days or not, but while this is currently an isolated/one booking issue for us, it could potentially compound if we were to get additional non-Saturday to Saturday bookings on Airbnb.  Hope this all makes sense and we're all ears, so hopefully someone out there can understand/sympathize with/educate us!  Thanks!

PS - We are aware of the ability on Airbnb, under availability settings, to restrict check-in/out days, but this would be for the entire year and not the specific window that we need, so it does not work for us.  

[Joan2709]

@Geoffrey271 

What do you have set on your calendar availbility settings on Airbnb?

[Shelley159]

Hi @Geoffrey271 

You can customise it to only apply for part of the year if you turn on professional hosting tools and make a rule that you apply only to the dates of your choice.

[Shelley159]

https://www.airbnb.co.za/help/article/2499

[Greystone0]

HI @Geoffrey271 ,

I have only found that the check in & out days apply to the entire calendar for AIRBNB so our work around is:

- we block off the entire high season in AIRBNB and then open strategically.  We sometimes have a comment that additional blocked time may be available  for "Summer 2025 or August 2026 or whatever" and to message us.  

- we open up 'weeks' in AIRBNB surrounded by blocked dates thus making the booking window only what we want, if that makes sense.

- this has worked well at keeping the integrity of our calendar and from having orphan days that we cannot sell in a high season, which sucks. 

Wishing you much success!

[Joan2709]

@Greystone0 

You can use Professional Hosting Tools and a Rule Set to override the default settings on the entire calendar and apply those to specific dates on the calendar.

Here is a Rule Set where we have restricted Sat check-in/out over a holiday to preserve the holiday weekend:

We also use Rule Sets to prevent discounts we have set for 3night stays on the entire calendar. We use this to prevent a discount on a 3night stay over a holiday weekend.

[Greystone0]

@Joan2709 This is very clever and not something we have thought of yet. This is really great information.

[Joan2709]

@Greystone0 

Rule Sets are powerful tools, but can be tricky 😉 😜

Once you apply a Rule Set, always check it as a guest trying to book and verify it is working as intended. I have noticed recently when I tried to add a Rule Set to increase a price, it didn't work properly. I haven't gone back and checked it again to see if it's working now - but just a word to the wise 😬

[Geoffrey271]

@Greystone0 @Joan2709 This is great and I'm going to look into this for sure.  I didn't know about Professional Hosting Tools/rule sets, so thank you!  

I don't understand why Airbnb simply doesn't allow for the ability to control our own calendars like VRBO does, without this confusion or circumvention, and why they didn't point me in this direction yesterday when I called them directly?

Either way, thank you all for your help and validation of our struggle!

[Joan2709]

@Geoffrey271 

No worries...the CC is a great place to get the scoop on how the platform works. Unfortunately, Airbnb CS reps are not well trained and many do not know how the platform works, or are given the tools to properly advise Hosts and troubleshoot issues.

Here is a guide on how to use Professional Hosting Tools and Rule Sets:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Host-guides/GUIDE-Use-Pro-Tools-to-Set-Calendar-Custom-Pricing-a...

[Greystone0]

Sorry, that was incorrect, you can do a custom rule set as mentioned! 

https://www.airbnb.co.za/help/article/2061#section-heading-0

We have used this method but doing and undoing it started to feel tricky.  Sometimes we have guests who stay longer and create orphan days that we then want to rent out of course, so the check in or out becomes wrong. 

Otherwise, the check in and out days apply to the entire calendar (if you don't use a 'rule-set').