Double booking due to linked listing on AIRBNB

[Caroline2213]

I want to share my experience this week with Airbnb.  Since our company has started listing our properties in August of 2022 airbnb has been wonderful to work with.  So easy to set up your site, able to reach someone easily etc..  But wow for four days I have been emailing and calling Airbnb and finally the issue was resolved.

To explain; I have 7 properties listed with airbnb.  Two of the properties are entire homes for guests to book.  Within both homes are two individual apartments.   So a guest can book the entire home or just part of the home.  

I have had my calendar linked (by enabling on their site) to avoid double booking so the entire house is blocked when one of the apartments is rented or the apartments are blocked when the entire house is rented.  This worked perfect—-until it didn't.  I had 5 people double book recently.  Can you imagine that nightmare?  

When I called airbnb initially they did get a refund back pretty quickly for a person who was 30 days out—but that was a struggle because when she put as reason to cancel a scheduling issue on my part the site advised her that the host (me) has to cancel.  No way was I cancelling as I did nothing wrong.  I called and finally the representative called the guest and got it cancelled.  The other guest cancelled when I asked him to—although I was told I was not allowed to ask him to cancel even though one rep told me to ask the guest to cancel.  Then it took me four days to solve for the other guests so they could get reimbursed without me cancelling.  They were waring me down for sure.  

The reason they said that the double bookings occurred is because I had instant book on.  This was not told to me when I linked in the beginning and when they send me the help information—-I don't see anywhere that it says "turn off instant booking if you are linking your calendar".  Remember I was linking my calendar to a property on airbnb not on any other site.   

I guess I just want to know ……am I crazy?   Should I have known that?  But I have to say I am glad I didn't just cancel these guests and take the penalties and fees that come along it.   I fought the good fight—-but my goodness I am exhausted.  I hope I help someone by posting this.  

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Caroline2213 Whoever told you to switch off Instant Book if your calendars are linked is just wrong (as happens a lot). It clearly makes no sense because with IB off there is actually less need to  link your calendars.

Can I just ask was it an Airbnb booking that double booked or did you block the dates in your calendar for a private booking? If the latter then blocking one calendar does not block the linked calendar.

[Caroline2213]

Hi @Mike-And-Jane0.  Yes all bookings were Airbnb bookings.  I think what they are saying is don't trust you linked calendars even if its linked through Airbnb.  Yes they told me the reason why I had double bookings with the houses is because I had instant booking us even though it was linked.   

So in a sense I could not even have the listing synced you're right.

[Nur785]

I've made a mistake linking my property calendars that could have resulted in the same situation, but I caught it before I got any double bookings.

This is what happened to me and how I resolved it. It may offer you some idea. 

I have a town house which also has two apartments in it. 

I set up as the house as the "Main listing" that contains the two apartments. This was done through linking calendars  ( I think of sync as syncing with outside calendars, the one for airbnb listings was called linking). 

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1864

I made the mistake of choosing the wrong listing as the 'container' property (Step # 5 in the article). I had to go and correct it for the calendar to display correctly.

Could you maybe have clicked on the wrong property as I did?

Alternatively, could you have accidentally unlinked your calendars? 

It just seems to me this has nothing to do with instant booking but something went awry with the container vs. contained listings. Maybe through a glitch on the site etc. 

I hope you figure it out soon and update us on it. 

[Caroline2213]

Thank you so much for replying.  My listing was linked correctly and I never changed it.   There were no problems at all for 5 months  and it worked fine.  Airbnb report did not state that it was linked incorrectly at any time.  The Airbnb report simply stated that because I had instant booking on double bookings were the result.   They advised me to turn off instant booking for any linked listings.    

[Nur785]

I'm sorry you are going through this. Hope it gets resolved soon. 

[Caroline2213]

Hello again.  This is what they wrote to me:

"While calendar syncing is a great tool for Hosts, we generally do not recommend enabling Instant Book if a host relies on sync services.  This prevents double-bookings as syncing can experience short delays, and we cannot guarantee that a double booking won't occur."

Let me know your thoughts.  

[Felicia268]

Caroline2213 I'm curious if you ever found resolution with this issue?  We are having a similar issue with our listing.  One of the three 'child' listings is listed as Instant Book.  I'm having trouble with AirBNB acknowledging the issue.  I can't say that it has ever worked correctly as it is a fairly newer listing that isn't book very much.

We want the flexibility to mark a 'child' listing unavailable manually, which in-turn should mark the 'parent' listing unavailable.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Felicia268 Marking one of a pair of linked listings unavailable does not make the other unavailable. This is per the system design and allows people to block one part of their property without blocking the other in situations where they may be staying (there are other examples). Booking one half of pair of linked listings does automatically block the other listing.

I am afraid it's just a question of remembering this otherwise inadvertent bookings can occur.

[Joan2709]

Hi @Mike-And-Jane0 

I haven't had a "Parent/Child" situation yet, but some potential clients are looking at that. I thought if you had all your calendars linked, and say one of the child listings (room booked), then the parent whole home listing calendar would be blocked for those dates? Can you help me out on that?

Parent Listing (whole home, 2bedrooms)

Child Listing 1 (1 bedroom)

Child Listing 2 (2nd bedroom)

Calendars linked on Airbnb. Someone books 3 days in Child Listing 1. Shouldn't that automatically block those dates in the Parent (whole home)?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Joan2709 Absolutely - Yes. If a linked listing is BOOKED then it blocks the linked listing. IF however the host BLOCKS a linked listing then the linked listing is NOT blocked. 

Many people have two listings for the same property with differing numbers of bedrooms. They then block the smaller listing in high season so do not want to have the linked listing blocked.

Hope this makes sense

[Joan2709]

@Mike-And-Jane0 

Thanks so much! Thank you for explaining! Yes, makes total sense. Thats what I thought, but wanted to verify with someone who has done it. It makes sense in high season you want the whole house to be booked for sure! Good to know. Reservations are different than manually blocking dates and makes total sense. 

If I end up co-hosting for someone who has a large property and would like to use this feature, I have a better understanding of it now. I guess for a new listing you can set it up and then test it all out by trying to book as a guest and make sure it all works correctly before turning on instant book on any of the listings. 

Thanks again!

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Joan2709 me again - I don't think you can link both the children to the parent. Each listing can only have 1 link to another listing. I may be wrong though.

[Joan2709]

@Mike-And-Jane0 

Ahaa...hmmmm...I'll have to think about that? 🤔  

Sooo....

Parent (2bed home)

Child 1 (bedroom 1)

Child 2 (bedroom 2)

Link Child 1 to Parent

Link Child 2 to Parent

If anyone books either Child 1 or Child 2, the Parent should be blocked automatically. If anyone books the Parent, then Child 1 and Child 2 should be blocked?

If you want to keep whole home only for high season (say 3 months) then manually block both Child 1 & Child 2 calendars for 3 months?

Not sure I have that correct? 🤔