removing cancelled bookings to make dates available again

[Clair10]

I've had a nightmare time with Airbnb with dates becoming available on my calendar and bookings being made before I've got to block the dates from being booked. Subsequently I now have 2 cancelled bookings showing in my calendar (and a charge) that can't remove. I was learning to live with these but now my guests who had originally booked with me outside of airbnb as they have been coming to my place for years are unable to maintain their holiday due to ill health :-(. However, I can't now release the dates. Can someone please help because it's been the most frustrating thing already!!!

Thanks C

[Anonymous]

@Clair10  Everybody makes mistakes, but the tools are available to prevent this from happening again. All you have to do is adjust your calendar settings so that all future dates are "Blocked By Default," and selectively open up the time period that you're available to book. 

If you still find it too hard to keep the calendar updated fast enough, you can turn off Instant Book as an extra layer of precaution. 

There's not a way to manually release dates that have been blocked due to the host cancellation penalty. The only way this can happen is if you can persuade someone in customer service to make an exception to their policy and do it for you.

[Clair10]

Thanks Andrew, I have it set exactly how I want it as my guests like to book up to 12months in advance and I now open it 9 months beforehand to try and avoid the same thing happening again but it was coincidence that a month was released and booked at the same time. Then as I was trying to resolve the issue another person booked because from a user point of view it's not clear that a cancellation has completed as it still shows in the calendar - for me this is not user friendly. However, this is not my problem. The problem now is because I have 2 cancelled bookings listed in my calendar I can't actually release those dates as available. Do you know how this can be done? Thanks

[Lawrene0]

@Anonymous answered that question, @Clair10 . There is no way you can release those dates as available on the Airbnb calendar. It is a penalty. Guest cancellations have to be taken seriously by the system since they encourage guests to leave the platform and never use it again.

As Andrew said, you can try phoning Airbnb and begging to be let off just this once, but it is unlikely to work. Best thing will be to try to book those dates through your other channels. 

[Clair10]

That's ridiculous. Airbnb don't have a monopoly on bookings so if a guest from another source cancels their holiday due to unforeseen health issues, or any issue for that matter why is it then not possible to re-release the dates. I've already been penalised by being charged a fee for the way in which airbnb works and now you want to apply another one? Crazy! surely everyone loses this way!!!

[Gordon0]

Ridiculous or not, @Clair10, it's the way it is.

If an Airbnb guest cancels on you, the dates open again (despite whether you get paid for it or not), but if you cancelled on two guests as seems to be the case here, you lose out financially two-fold;  the 'fine', and by not being able to book the same dates with Airbnb.  

Airbnb views cancellations (and rightly so) as the antichrist of their business model and penalises those who commit the crime. If you were at 'fault' you'll just need to suck it up and try filling your listing via another route.

PS. Airbnb are never the losers, except maybe a little of their reputation.

[Clair10]

Wow! Thanks Gordon. I hope you also checked how often and painful it was to actually resolve the poor host interface that created one of the bookings to be allowed to start with. Good service for hosts...2 antichrists in immediate succession in years of advertising And with over 9months notice to those impacted, a penalty fine and a log against the issue but I have to suck it up...loving the kindness and support of the hosts that also are at the core of your business mode. 

[Lisa723]

@Clair10 nobody responding here works for Airbnb.

You can block dates before they are open for booking.

You can also automatically synchronize your calendar if you are booking from another platform:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/99/how-do-i-sync-my-airbnb-calendar-with-another-calendar

Double-booking is entirely avoidable.

[Sarah977]

@Clair10  As others have said, if you cancel a reservation for anything outside of what Airbnb considers extenuating circumstances, the dates will remin blocked.

But I don't understand what you are saying- it seems that guests booked through another platform, or directly, and now can't come? If you manually blocked the dates that they were supposed to come, you should be able to simply open them up yourself.

[Lisa723]

@Sarah977 she didn't block the dates, got double-booked, and canceled the Airbnb booking. Then the other-platform guests canceled.Now she wants to reopen the dates on Airbnb, but Airbnb blocked them when she canceled.