All Forum Posts by: Josh Smith

Im trying this out with Rule Sets. Curious your thoughts? 

Since it gives you an error if you check all the boxes of the week for "guests can't check in on"... I've made a rule set for no check-in Mon through Sat and applied it to every Mon through Sat starting a week after my last booking and going for a few months out from the last booking. Then I made a rule set that doesnt allow check-in on Sundays and applied it to every Sunday starting a week after my last booking and going for a few months out from the last booking. 

Hoping this allows guests to only check-in the week after my last booking but book any length of stay from 30days (my city's minimum) to a few months. From testing it by trying to book my own place it seems it works.

*Because of my city's minimum night book - airbnb knows this and auto applies a rule to not allow shorter than 30 nights and sometimes this messes up rule sets, so will see if this actually works out.

@Andrew Street - when you say "but block any start dates more than a week after the previous checkout." how do you do this? 

I've posted about preventing gaps on my mid term airbnb but am wondering with changing Airbnb host functionality, if anyone has good suggestions. 

I only open my availability for about 35 days from the last day of my last checkout. This means guests can just book these days and I avoid gaps, but obviously it only makes my listing show up to guests looking for these specific dates and for only a 30 to 35 days booking  (due to local law I can only book 30 night or more stays).

I'd like to offer my place to guests looking to book my place for up to 4 months instead, but I'd only like them to book if they are checking in with the week after my last stay (again to minimize gaps).

Any suggestions with custom rule sets, etc?

my listing  https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/16054644?viralityEntryPoint=1&s=76

@Allen Duan thanks for these ideas! I used to do your option 1 but like you said, it hurt my search results on airbnb.  
I thought about option 3, but while that encourages bookings right up against your last booking, doesn't it only encourage discourage longer bookings because the daily price increases as you get further out from your previous booking? 

Here's what I'm trying currently, but please poke holes in it because I'm not totally sure this is a sound plan and wondering if this will also kill my search result placement.   :)

My listing is set to a minimum stay of 30 days and max of 90 day (minimum is due to local laws, maximum is just my preference of how long I want people at my house).

I open/make available 3 months from the day my previous booking ends. That first 7 days after my previous booking I don't touch. But for the 8th day through the 90th I create a rule set that the minimum stay is 89 days (which is impossible because there's only 90 days available from the 1st day after my previous booking). Therefore, someone can only book/check-in within the first 7 days after my previous booking and book a stay from 30 to 90 days. If it doesn't book, I will go in and remove that rule set from day 7 to 14 thereby allowing people to book/check-in that week through the end of my available calendar.

Its a little risky because it basically only makes your calendar available if someone wants to check-in the first week after your last booking but it should stop big unbookable gaps. If I was okay with up to a 2 week gap I could leave the rule set off day 1 to 14 after my last booking.