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Hi guys.
I have a previous guest wanting to rent our place for 2 months. We genreally only have 2 week at most bookings.
I’m reasonably comfortable organising this outside of AirBnb (to avoid guest and host fees), but my concern is that blocking out 2 months in my calendar might affect my superhost or plus listing status.
Does anyone have any experience with this or know how this could work?
yes, avoid Airbnb to save money
It never used to, but now there are new terms for the next review period.
Two months is too long… I would skip it.
RR
i am not an attorney, so this isn’t legal advice. but i would not do more than 28 days on airbnb. if you want to do a longer term, do it under a proper landlord tenant contract to help protect yourself legally in case you need to evict.
and realize that you are in fact creating a landlord-tenant situation by doing long term rentals.
Maybe do a search on this forum on snoozing listings rather than just blocking the dates…I don’t have any experience in this but others have. As LoneStar mentioned if you are in the US most states have tenant rights provisions for stays over 28 days. Something to be aware of and plan for accordingly with lease agreements.
I don’t know about Plus, but it shouldn’t affect your SH status. We don’t usually rent out from October - May and we block the dates rather than snooze our listings. If we’ve already acquired the requisite ratings we still get SH even if we haven’t hosted at all during that period! I haven’t studied the new terms that @Debthecat mentioned though so it may have changed.
This year we got a surprise booking for March and April from a friend of a friend (cameraman for Netflix - watch out for The Warrior Nun!) and it worked out fine with no problems.
I personally would not do it if I planned on using Airbnb for the rest of the year. If they find out, you will be kicked off the platform, thus losing superhost. In addition, if you have issues with this guest, you’re on your own. I know that Airbnb has not been always helpful, but something is better than nothing. Long terms tenants may not pay their rent and the eviction process is costly and can take up to a year.
Why do you believe this?
Not true. You get kicked off the platform for taking AirBnB bookings off the platform - when someone inquires, you figure out how to have them book you directly. You are most certainly allowed to accept bookings from other platforms or directly.
Edited to add - that includes previous AirBnB guests. They already got their “matchmaking” fee, they don’t require you to pay again.
I don’t think it will affect your status but you may find things have slowed when you finish the longer booking and you’ll have to get up to speed again. On Airbnb, the busier you are the busier you will be so when you are not available you drop in search rank. That said I would definitely do it as long as you legally protect yourself.
Hi @lockmc , instead of using the “block” function for those 2 months, you may consider just making them “un-bookable”. I haven’t tried it for as long as 2 months but definitely use it for a week or something when I want my house empty. The easiest way you can make them un-bookable is by giving them a minimum stay requirement that is impossible to meet. (You can also use the “can only check in on…” requirement as well if it is a week or less.) If you are using the airbnb professional tools, you have even more options. You don’t get the drop in search listings as you would for blocking but still no one can book them.
This is awesome and not a tip that anyone else has thought of.
Thanks! I use it extensively 
I put a note in the private notes section for myself that says “Blocked” with the quotation marks so I know that I have artificially blocked it. So if I get a cancellation or something changes and I want to open it up I will remember that I’ve put extra settings on it that would need to be removed. It’s good to know that if you just put a minimum, no one can book it but if you also put a day they must check in on then it will “disappear” on the calendar on the website and won’t even appear to guests looking at your page. Not sure if I’m explaining it correctly, but basically it will look booked. Sometimes that’s useful too ,)
I have a direct booking and personal vacation upcoming for almost a month and I had blocked the dates. I’m going to experiment with this right now. Thanks!
Where are you headed?
RR
My pleasure! Usually I like to double-check that it’s working by having a different browser open looking as a guest so I can check how it looks on my calendar on my page (to feel secure about it).
Boston (staying in an Airbnb home in Newton) for one week with my crew and Portland ME (Airbnb) one night solo.
It requires some faith in Airbnb’s absurdly buggy/glitchy software, though. 
@Brian_R170 It’s easy enough to confirm that it’s working, just open your page up in another browser to see what the guest sees. You can also do a search as a guest to make sure.