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I got a booking request last night and I went to my desktop to respond. While looking at my calendar I saw something I don’t recall seeing before: Two nights labeled “unavailable for requests.”
Days I block have a slash and my blocked days before and after are called preparation days by the system.
I might not have noticed except I actually wanted to block those days. I have quite a few dogs booked for that weekend. In addition, Saturday is full moon and Halloween followed by All Saints, All Souls/Dia de los Muertos which is big in this part of the country and Election Day is the 3rd. So I was going to take the weekend off. On the app the days appear to be available. So I raised the price to triple my normal rates in case the designation disappears and I blocked the dates via the app.
I believe it’s unrelated but I’ve also gotten another rash of the fake booking requests whereby a new user with poor English asks to book several days and asks me to contact them via What’s App. I just report, I don’t decline and the requests don’t include the 30th and 31st so it couldn’t be related to that.
Has anyone see this “unavailable for requests” before?
Just came up on the Airbnb forum yesterday. Airbnb has apparently blocked all US and Canadian hosts’ calendars for Halloween and New Year’s for one night bookings in some misguided attempt to prevent parties. Nice, huh? Now they are deciding when you are allowed to host and when you’re not.
I’d be willing to bet this is all about them being terrified of more party scene shootings before their IPO.
This is total BS. Why is any one day any more of a concern than any other.
That aside, does anyone have a honest opinion on a platform I should be exploring, post AirBnB?
Think VRBO is the next best competitor? OR is there somebody else?
Interesting. As I said, that works for me. What I don’t want is a booking that weekend. And I’m worried about them turning off their arbitrary setting and now I’m stuck.
But for other hosts it’s ridiculous. If I did want to host I’d be annoyed. Time to turn off “entire place” again?
I can understand large entire homes with a possibility of a party after the dreadful murders at the hallowe’en party last year, but a hosted property with a single bedroom is just taking it far to far!
I heard on the news that Airbnb was not allowing rentals over Halloween because of last year’s Halloween party at an Airbnb in which there was a shooting and five were injured. It’s part of Airbnb’s ban on parties.
I had a booking on the 30th and they canceled it and then blocked my days. Since my calendars sync, I’m effectively prevented from making money across all platforms that weekend. To be fair though, they’ve said that I will be paid as scheduled for the cancellation. We shall see.
I know for many in home hosts it’s Airbnb or nothing as the BDC “Homestays” category hasn’t really been promoted and VRBO simply don’t do it. But, every time I see them make arbitrary decisions that seriously impact hosts, it just makes me glad that they are now such a small part of our business.
This the BDC Homestay page, if anyone is interested:
Here’s another one that may be of interest to in home hosts, I haven’t seen it mentioned on here so may be of use. I’ve no idea how they operate, but might be worth a look if you’re pissed off with Airbnb.
We don’t use any other online services at all. But I do feel that we are self-sufficient so that if Airbnb suddenly disappeared, it wouldn’t make a huge difference.
I’ve been in this business for many years (pre-internet) so I can get guests without using a service such as Airbnb (as I’ve done for years) but decided to use Airbnb when it became very obvious that they were the industry leader. It seemed daft not to.
And I think it’s a great service.
But I’m concerned about hosts who have all their eggs in the Airbnb basket. We’ve been doing it for so long that we have many repeat and referral guests plus companies and organisations that use us regularly but I appreciate that this isn’t usual for many of the hosts here.
I do feel though that all hosts should have a back-up plan. This time last year not many of us thought that we’d have the weirdness of the pandemic to deal with but it just shows that anything can happen. Preferably a back-up plan should be something that doesn’t rely on any outside service, if possible.
I think for the vast majority of hosts it probably is.
We’re fortunate, our guests are spread across three platforms plus direct bookings and that lets us make comparisons of the level of service received from each.
BDC & VRBO simply let you get on with it, no interference as to who/when you can host, and if you have an issue, their CS are good. We’ve had a few problems with Airbnb recently, and it is infuriating when their CS can’t sort out simple glitches regarding calendars and availability.
I suppose my main issue with Airbnb is the increasingly guest centric attitude they’ve been adopting for the past eighteen months or so and touch wood , it hasn’t overly affected us, yet. But I’m sure it will, at some point.
Yes, if your style of hosting allows it, then it is an extremely naïve decision not to spread your business over alternative OTAs.
, it hasn’t overly affected us, yet. But I’m sure it will, at some point.