Availability Settings allow you to control when a listing is open for reservations. They are comprised of:
- Available: Setting the listing's calendar as available or blocked by default.
- Booking window: Setting how far into the future guests can book the listing.
- Advance notice: Setting how many days before a reservation the listing must be kept vacant.
- Preparation time: Setting how many nights to block before and/or after a reservation, to prepare the listing for the guest's arrival.
Below are our best practices that can help optimize the setup of your Availability Settings and provide valuable information about scenarios relevant to your business.
Define your listing's availability
Maximize control over your listing's availability
Even when a listing is being used exclusively for hosting purposes or year-round, we recommend setting a Booking Window, to control how far into the future the listing can be booked. This should align with how far into the future you are comfortable accepting reservations.
You can also manually block certain days through the listing's calendar or the Multi-Calendar.
If the listing is someone's private home or being used only seasonally for hosting purposes, we recommend setting Rental Periods, to make sure the listing can only be booked when it is not in private use and during the correct season.
You can also set an Annual Night Limit for the listing. This is recommended for locations that have specific regulations, such as London and Amsterdam.
Define your operational availability
Even if you are operationally prepared to accept last-minute reservations, Advance Notice can still aid in fraud prevention. Since dishonest bookers tend to book last-minute reservations, use Advance Notice to make sure the current date is always blocked, providing at least one day's notice before check-in.
For Airbnb reservations, you can set Advance Notice as same day (customize cutoff hours). For all other channels, this will be a one day notice, but Airbnb will allow guests to book reservations within that time frame, up until the specified hour. This gives you more control over last-minute reservations, specifically from Airbnb.
In addition, even if you set Advance Notice to prevent last-minute reservations, if your Guesty account is connected to Airbnb, you can allow inquiries for last-minute reservations as if no Advance Notice was set, by checking Allow Airbnb guests to send reservation requests without Advance Notice under Advance Notice. This also gives you more control over last-minute reservations, specifically from Airbnb.
Tip:
We are here to help you make the most out of Guesty. See more in our Best Practices catalogue.