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Parent-child properties

Read this article to learn how to configure parent-child relationships between properties and learn about the expected behavior.

Emily Tunggala avatar
Written by Emily Tunggala
Updated over 5 months ago

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What is a parent-child relationship?

A parent-child relationship between properties means that a booking on one property blocks the calendar of a related property. This is useful for hosts who have properties that can be booked as an entire unit, or individually as separate units, like a duplex or triplex.

Supported parent-child scenarios

Hospitable supports two different parent-child scenarios, each with their own behavior.

  • A parent property with children properties that can be occupied and at the same time. Example: Duplex or triplex, where each unit might have a guest at the same time. In this scenario, a booking on the child property blocks the parent, but leaves the other children available.

  • A parent property with children properties that can not be occupied at the same time. Example: A large 10 bedroom home, that's listed separately with less bedrooms available. In this scenario, a booking on a child property blocks the parent and all other children, because you do not actually want different groups of guests staying in the property at once.

Configure a parent-child relationship between properties.

The parent-child feature ensures that related property calendar's are blocked accordingly. If you are using iCals on your platform calendars as a workaround for parent-child, it is advised you remove those iCals before configuring parent-child in Hospitable. Removing an iCal after parent-child is configured can cause a delay in blocking behavior up to 4 hours, so it's recommended to remove iCals before you begin.

  1. Select the checkbox next to all properties that you'd like in this relationship

  2. Click Parent-child

  3. Choose the Parent property and select Continue

  4. Tell us how you'd like the child properties to interact with one another and select Continue

  5. Review the new relationship, paying special attention to the Behavior of each property in the relationship. If everything looks right, click Confirm.

  6. Congratulations! You've configured a parent-child relationship between properties!

Viewing parent-child properties and blocks

Parent-child properties look a little different than a property that's not in a relationship.

Viewing the multi-calendar - properties and blocks due to a related property booking

  • Properties - The multi-calendar will always display the related properties in a group, with the parent at the top.

  • Blocks - Blocks caused by a related property's booking are represented by a transparent bar. If your parent property has been booked, you'll see transparent blocks below which represent the block put in place by the parent's booking. If a child has been booked, you'll see the parent blocked accordingly. If you've configured to have child bookings block other children as well, you'll see that reflected accordingly.

Viewing a block due to a related property's booking

Clicking a block due to a related property's booking brings up a new side panel, that indicates where the block has come from. From here, you can jump to the relevant booking or open the conversation with the guest who made the booking.

Properties page

If a property is in a parent-child relationship, that will be displayed in the new 'Related properties' section on the Property page.

Removing a relationship between properties

We do not support editing relationships, like changing the parent or adding children. If you have made a mistake in the way you've configured a relationship or need to involve additional properties in an existing relationship, you must remove the relationship and start the configuration process over again.

If you'd like to remove the parent-child relationship that you've set up, you can do that from the Properties page.

  • Click on the property name of a property in the relationship you want to remove

  • While on the Merge & Match page, click Remove relationship

  • Read the disclaimer carefully, and select Remove relationship if you'd like to move forward

FAQs

How does parent-child pricing work?

Each Hospitable property configured in a parent-child relationship is billed separately.

If a host manually blocks a calendar for a property that's in a parent-child relationship, will that manual block sync with the related property's calendar?

No. Availability changes made on the calendar are not synced across related property calendars. For example, if a parent is manually blocked Hospitable will not block the children - that must be done by the host. We chose not to sync availability because Hospitable simply can not infer what a host intends when blocking a date, and want to ensure hosts have control to manage their own availability according to their individual strategies.

Does a parent-child relationship impact the pricing or min stay set on the Hospitable calendar?

No. Pricing and min stay are not defined nor impacted by a parent-child relationship, and are managed on the individual property level. Changing the price or min stay on a parent has no impact on the children, and vice versa.

How many levels of hierarchy does parent-child support?

We support two levels. A parent-child relationship is defined as one parent with one or more children. Children can not also be parents (no grandchildren here!).

Should hosts remove linked calendar functionality in Airbnb?

Airbnb's linked calendar functionality is no longer necessary if hosts are using Hospitable's parent-child feature. This can serve as a backup if hosts prefer to keep it intact, but it's recommended to unlink calendars if you have child properties that can not be booked at the same time, as Airbnb-linked calendars don't support that scenario.

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