availability and instant settings - not working properly?

[David11304]

hi all -

I am a new host and wonder if anyone can advise on the following:

1) I set a 3 month availability window - which seemed pretty straight forward to me. No bookings more than 3 months out. But, AirBnB seems to have ignore this - I just got an instant booking for more than 4 months out. Am I understanding this correctly?

2) I turned on instant book, and added the feature where a guest must have stayed before without incident, etc. In this booking, I can see that the person has had 2 airbnb stays in 5 years, but no reviews for her by other hosts. Is this common? It seems like hosts leave reviews for guests for everyone's benefit, so 'no review' may actually be kind of a bad thing. Or maybe I'm over thinking this 🙂

thank you! David

[Joan2709]

Hi @David11304 

Calendar Settings

Calendar Settings can be a bit tricky....the Airbnb Calendar availabilities are "rolling" calendars. That means you may set a 3 month booking window, but as every day passes, that date 3 months out opens. Not sure why got a booking 4 months out from today if you have a 3 month window? I would check your availability settings on the listing.

3 Month Calendar Window

Today is December 15th - Calendar open until March 15th

Tomorrow is December 16th

3 Month Rolling Calendar opens up March 16th tomorrow (I believe there is a 2day delay)

The only way to prevent the rolling calendar from opening new days up progressively, is to set your calendar to unavailable by default. Then only unblock dates you want open going forward. 

 I always suggest new hosts start with unavailable by default and ensure their prices are correct before opening up dates. 

Instant Book Optional Settings

Yes, it can be a bad sign if the guest had trips but no reviews; but not always. We have seen guests who had trips prior to COVID, then none for several years. Supposedly the optional booking setting will only allow instant book for guests with no negative reviews and all others must request to book. It should also prevent someone who is brand new to the platform (no trips) from doing Instant Book. You can always send a message to the guest and note they have no reviews and could they provide a bit more information about what brings them to the area and who will be traveling with them. I always advise new Hosts to NOT use Instant Book for the first few months in order to get the hang of it, but that is up to you of course.

[David11304]

Hello - Thanks for your input. So, asking for a bit more detail from someone to make sure they are a reasonable guest makes sense  - but then the only option would be to cancel the reservation which risks superhost status, etc. correct?

I do understand that instant book has it's risks - but I decided to go for it anyways. 

As for the availability, it seems to simply not be functioning! I will take it up with support I suppose.

thank you!

[Joan2709]

Hi @David11304 

You are correct that you should never cancel a booking if at all possible. There are fines and it will factor into your Superhost status. I believe Airbnb will allow you to cancel a reservation without penalty if you have proof the guest intends to break a House Rule (difficult to get that from them in a message) or for a few other things. However DO NOT cancel yourself, but contact them to do it for you to avoid the fines and other repercussions.

Cancellation policies for Instant Book

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2022

"If a Host uses Instant Book, they may be able to cancel for additional valid reasons without consequences under certain circumstances. Some examples include:

• The guest makes it clear they’ll likely break one of the Host’s house rules, like bringing a pet or smoking
• The guest has several unfavorable reviews or a lack of profile information that concerns the Host"

Calendar Issues

Since we can't view your calendar and availability settings it would be hard to diagnose the issue. Contacting CS would would be your best bet. Be careful when blocking/unblocking dates as the "sticky" keys don't always work correctly with the new calendar. I have also heard some Hosts that dates are randomly opened when they previously had them blocked. Not a bad idea to keep an eye on your calendar daily.

[Kathryn617]

Airbnb software is being manipulated by someone.  Hosts should NOT have to check our listing hourly, 

[David11304]

Hello -

I tried setting availability to 'unavailable by default', and still it's open for a year. I asked support about this and was told:

Please do be guided that the calendar is open for next year 2024 as your current "Availability Window" settings is only valid for this year and any changes that you will make to this setting will take effect until the end of the year. Hence, you may need to wait until January 1, 2023 and change the settings again to reflect the said changes for the entire year.

So if that were true, the setting would only block time for the next 10 days?  Its hard to image that's how it works. 

[Joan2709]

Hi @David11304 

The response you received is not correct. Anytime you set your calendar to unavailable by default ALL dates will be blocked until you manually open them. It has nothing to do with a changeover beginning in Jan 2024. Not sure why CS would say that, but again, we can't see your availability settings or calendar. 

Sounds like you were manually able to block the dates past 3 months, so that solves the initial problem. However, if you set 3 month availability (and properly save it), then the calendar should not be open for 1 year.

Did you opt in to the new Winter Release software?

Try logging off your account on any device (computer, App, tablet). Then try logging back in using your email (not your phone number). Then try changing your calendar availability setting. 

If that doesn't work, delete the App on your phone and reinstall it. Log in on your phone with your email (not your phone number) and try changing your availability on your phone.

1. Can you post a screen shot of your calendar availability setting?

2 . Looks like you are a new listing, but if you were listed on another platform and your calendar was synced to Airbnb, you could block the other listing calendar that would in turn block the Airbnb calendar. 

That's all I can think of for right now. I have never heard of this type of issue with the calendar availability settings before. Maybe another Host has some ideas??

[David11304]

Thanks for your suggestions, I tried all of that but no luck. 

Interestingly, support has now told me that the availability settings only work for the current calendar year, and that all the settings have to be reset at the end of the year.

Here's a little bit of the conversation:

**

It seems to be that the support person is just trying to close the ticket 🙂  And today he appears to have closed the ticket. 

Hopefully there will be some progress soon!

**[Content removed in line with the Community Center Guidelines- Please note that it is not allowed to share Airbnb investigation and private conversations]

[Joan2709]

Hi @David11304 

Well, CS is incorrect. Sigh 

Did you opt in early to the new software release? Are you able to manually block the dates you don't want open?

[David11304]

I can manually block, yes, but I've already seen at least one instance where I blocked dates but they were still available in the system. So, it seems a bit flaky at this point.

As for the new release, I'm honestly not sure 🙂 I only started using AirBnB about 6 weeks ago!

[Joan2709]

Hi @David11304 

It does appear you're using the new software as I see the AI photo tour on your listing. There are some known bugs with the Calendar that may be related to the new release, so this may be what is causing your issues.

Until the problems are sorted, I would double check your calendar daily to ensure dates you want blocked remain blocked. 

[Kathryn617]

Wow!  Who in airbnb knows what customer service actually is and how to fix serious programming issues? 

[Kathryn617]

CS makes up frivolous answers to serious, costly questions. 

[Helen3]

If you check your calendar it's open til April 12 next year @David11304 

[David11304]

Update: I went back and forth with support and they kept sending instructions about how to find/use the settings. Finally I started sending screenshots showing that the settings were set to allow bookings 3 months out, but availability was open for a year.

They responded by telling me to manually block/unblock dates and they would send the issue to engineering to see what's going on. So far no info.