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@Wilburforce had an issue likes this earlier in the year, but this is a bit different.
I had a booking come in while I was very distracted - I wrote back quickly, yadda yadda yadda and didn’t stop and put the date on my personal calendar. A few days ago the guest wrote to ask “does the MARC train run on the 23rd?”. 23rd??!! That’s Christmas, I had those dates blocked off! But sure enough she had booked. I could only imagine it was some midnight sleepy-headed error I’d made and made a slight change to our holiday plans to accommodate the guest.
At a later time I decided to peruse the summer dates and see how the pricing was. I was shocked to see that my vacation in June and my daughter’s graduation weekend in May were unblocked. Again, I assumed I’d done something goofy but was quite puzzled.
This morning, though, I thought “hey maybe I should double check” and now the middle dates of my vacation to Norway were open. Now, I know I didn’t do THAT.
If you’ve blocked dates in the future, take a look and make sure they are still blocked - and please let me know if you have a problem.
Thanks for the advice - it really was fine. I just enrolled my son in a new school (from home schooling) and this will give him another day in the classroom - also my soon-to-be-graduate put her a** in a sling this fall and has some catch-up work. Well, A LOT of it. So it gives us one more day at home, which is fine.
I’ll call air if I see it happen again - it’s just so odd it’s hard to explain. Especially the dates in the middle of our trip in June. I’ll keep track of it and then let them know after 3 documented times.
At first I thought it might have been because that pricing service changed my prices without me realizing it. It didn’t make sense that that would open up dates, but that was the only thing I could think of. Now I can watch carefully.
No - but thanks for asking - it’s been so long since I’ve heard a peep from Wimdu I forgot about them.
The dates are still open. I’ve lowered the price, then lowered it some more - nothing. Absolutely nothing. Today we raised it again - without any logical reason why. We are still in the lower 17% of the prices of listings with 2 bedrooms inside the beltway. Hotels are holding steady - but I’m using booking.com and travelocity to keep an eye on prices though that’s not really the best way - I think the airbnbs flooding the market is throwing everything off.
Of the hotels I looked at on booking.com, 50% are sold out, 20% are under $1,000 a night and 30% are over $1,000 a night. Of 489 listings (two bedrooms, 4 people) inside the beltway, 16% are under $600, and my price is $590 for 4. I should be less as I’m out a ways and it’s a basement apartment. Yet I have 95 reviews 5* and serve a killer breakfast, so I shouldn’t be the cheapest. Meanwhile, my neighbor that has a place 1/2 my size, with only 1 bedroom and not totally private, just listed at $1,500.
See? It’s just insanity.
Meanwhile I came home from the store ready to make a cheesecake for a little party tonight, and saw that someone had plastered my stop signs with handbills with a violent image and foul language on it, organizing a protest on the 20th.
I’m all for protest, I’d love someone-not-Trump to be our next president, but that is horrible. Don’t people realize that there are kids around? I peeled them off best I could. At least the bad words and the violent image.
Hi. This is a glitch which has happened to me a few times and I know of other hosts it’s happened to as well.
As a safety precaution against it, I now add $1000 to the price of a night and make a note on the Airbnb calendar before I block it. Then, if it happens to mysteriously become unblocked, no-one will book it anyway, and when perusing your calendar you will see the note and be able to re-block it.
I wish Air would fix this glitch.
I got a booking during blocked out days when I was renovating. We worked like crazy to try and get the place finished as the guest really wanted to stay but I ended up with a 2 star review
I had my calendar open for six months out but put it to 12 months and put in all the correct prices. Then I put it back to six months. However, I got an inquiry this week for a reservation in June and I noticed that the total amount was very low. Sure enough, as the calendar has been opening up, it is automatically putting in my winter prices. So, I informed the potential guest that the prices were inaccurate and that June would be 66% more (and apologized profusely). She didn’t book. I re-opened my calendar for a year out and put in high prices for the months that are further out because I don’t want to book them, yet. Glad I found out before someone IB the July 4th week!
DC my understanding was that guests can request even dates that you’ve booked. But it has to be by way of inquiry. They can put in a reservation request or instant book!
Wondering if my understanding is correct?
This really threw me in a personal way. I was looking at my airbnb calendar and saw that booking, but just knew (ha ha ha) that it was the week before Christmas. It took my kids about 10 minutes last week to convince me how close we are to Christmas. It put me into a tailspin. I couldn’t figure out why I was so far off until I thought about that calendar.
Yep. Sorry I meant blocked dates.
For example my dates from 3 months onwards are blocked. But I think guests can still inquire, and if I preapprove, then the booking will be made.
I hadn’t really thought much of it, but with this thread I will now be more carefully to scrutinize dates, and not just presume that since there’s an inquiry, they’re available!
It’s weird but I was constantly getting open and available dates blocked in my calendar. I don’t know what was causing it, in the end those date didn’t get booked.
Also I had my settings set on to not allow bookings more than 3 months in advance but often when I opened the settings to view it, it would change to 6 months.
Once in the past I accidently took a booking for blocked dates… I don’t know if it was me or the system that unblocked them. Anyway I had to cancel a booking, which looks really bad at my end and also prevents me from getting to superstar status for a long time.
These days if I purposely block the date I just put on a very high room rate (as previously mentioned in this thread) so I know it won’t get booked and it’s also a visual reminder of the blocked date.
i have to keep an eye on my calendar, the price changes all the time (no smart pricing) and block dates become unblocked. Someone here recommended putting a crazy price on the block dates just to be sure , I had to do this.
