4+ night minimum stay Fail

So I increased my minimum night stay for Aug/Sept from 2 nights to 4 nights last month. I was already booked as much as I could handle for May, June, July with many 2-3 night bookings. I have only received 1 booking since setting my minimum and I have two weekend blocks in Aug that are still available (which is pretty unusual). I should hold out for the sake of science, right? Otherwise, the experiment doesn’t provide me with any reliable data?

I suppose the answer there depends on whether you need the bookings or not.

How long was your average August booking in the prior year?

I can afford to let the apt go vacant although I will probably drop all requirements a week prior to just fill the weekends. Last August, I had only 1 short booking for 2 nights – the rest were 3-10 nights.

It’s strange that most of your booking last August included 4 night stays, but now that you have set it as a minimum requirement you are not getting more requests! Makes one think that many guests do not set the number of days into the search field perhaps and it defaults to 1 day?

If a guest searches for your listing and puts in a date range for less than 4 nights your listing simply won’t show up. I recommend 3 nights as a minimum and you’ll still get those 4 nighters.

I think these settings affect the algorithms. Would it be better to set no minimum and just take or decline each booking as they come in?

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Can you set just the weekends (Fri/Sat) for 4 night stay under “Availability settings” and then keep your base rate as 2 nights?

I do that during peak season, and then if someone books 4 nights for that week, depending on surrounding reservations I may lift that restriction for the remaining days.

I suspect this might be the case. I have a one night minimum but have only had two guests who have stayed for one night only. Of course, another factor for this is the $50 cleaning fee!

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I do wonder about the algorithm issue. Up until a few months ago, I had no minimum stay at all and it was rare that anyone booked a single night. May and June were booked solid with lots of 2 night and 3 night stays and I was doing too much laundry, etc. July was booked but with only 5 sets of guests (instead of 10 in May) so I though I’d try setting the minimum to 4 nights to see what happened.

Complete drop off in bookings but I feel I ought to stick it out just so I know for sure to never try this again, lol.

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There are so many factors that come into play here! You need to consider your usual demographic, or perhaps just the demographics of guest that stayed last August. What is your usual traffic (or that of last August)–Americans, international travelers, families, age range, median income, usual vacationing habits of those demographics. Factor in current political situations, stock market considerations, prices of airline tickets, price of gas. So many things can affect the traveling tends of people is my point.

I am relatively new. - just started last September, but August seems to have fallen through the floor…I was well booked in April, fully booked in May and have a long term in for most of June through July. However, In August I just have one ten day booking and no requests so far.
I am in a very good location in Nashville…great for tourists and university people. So now I am wondering if August is just a casualty of the back to school, post vacation mind set. It is really hard to figure.

That being said, I am not sure about a previous comment. I do not see why anyone serious about booking would look at rentals without putting in dates…why look at things that are unavailable?

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August is till far ahead. You can be booked anyday from now

WHen i had no minimum days, majority of my bookings were 1 days, i have no cleaning charge. Once i even received a note form Air, believe it or not to give myself a rest as they dont want me to burn out, because i had both rooms for a week in and out with one night stays back to back

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