What happened?
If you use Hospitable to manage your calendar pricing and availability, Hospitable now exclusively claims your listings on Airbnb as your property management software provider.
Background
For years, Hospitable had the unique ability in the industry to manage Airbnb listings with a special, non-exclusive connection. It was a good fit for Hospitable when we were smaller and didn't need to perform all of the functions of full-solution property management software.
Airbnb recently notified us that Hospitable would need to exclusively claim listings in order to manage pricing and availability on Airbnb, just like every other property management software. Airbnb wants a single source of truth for a listing's availability. We have updated our connection to meet Airbnb's new requirements and we are now expanding our property management capabilities.
What does this mean for me?
We have been able to migrate most of our customers to the upgraded connection with little impact. If you're Airbnb accounts are on the upgraded connection, you should see a green "PMS" badge on your Connected Accounts page.
Some hosts could not be migrated and from around December 18th, we will lose the ability to manage their Airbnb calendar unless the account upgrades. For example, if you are using other property management software in addition to Hospitable, you will be unable to upgrade as the new connection requires exclusivity. Hosts outside of North America may have their service fee configuration changed by Airbnb in the new configuration. Other customers who are only using Airbnb and no other channels, we did not migrate, but instead let you decide whether or not to upgrade. We discuss these exceptions in detail below and we also emailed hosts personalized instructions according to the nature of their Airbnb accounts.
Benefits of an upgraded connection
Greater authority on your calendar: Ensure we effectively sync with other channels
Enhanced features: Enjoy new capabilities such as accepting/sending alterations and consolidating availability rule management across your channels when setting turnover time, adjusting maximum stay length, and more
Improved Airbnb support: We are standardizing our Airbnb connection, meaning you will benefit from better support directly from Airbnb and indirectly with our developers also receiving better support from Airbnb
What changes after upgrading?
Manage prices on Hospitable
While Airbnb still allows you to edit prices and rule sets on your Airbnb account, Hospitable will overwrite those prices.
Any third-party dynamic pricing software that you have connected to Hospitable will continue to work normally.
If you are using Airbnb's smart pricing it will be disabled. If you are using smart pricing and haven't looked at your base nightly rate in awhile, it would be a good idea to do that now.
You can continue to manage your fees, discounts and promotions from Airbnb for now.
Manage availability on Hospitable
You will only be able to block your calendar from Hospitable; it will be locked in Airbnb.
If you have any third-party calendars connected to your Airbnb listing to import reservations from other booking sites (ie. iCal links), these will be removed when the connection is upgraded, as your Hospitable calendar will become your single source of truth.
If you are using Airbnb connected calendars to manage listings that are in a parent-child relationship, you should set up parent-child properties in Hospitable.
We will import your existing availability rules, such as maximum length of stay, advanced notice, and preparation time, from Airbnb when you connect.
Any changes after you upgrade can only be done from Hospitable's Availability page. See Availability Rules.
Your Airbnb service-fee may change to a host-only fee
When Airbnb accounts are connected to any third-party property management software, Airbnb requires a host-only fee configuration of 15% fee, unless most of the listings are in the USA, Canada, the Bahamas, Mexico, Argentina, Taiwan, or Uruguay. If this applies to you, you should expect your service fee configuration to be affected.
You can check your service fee configuration in your Airbnb Account settings > Payments and Payouts > Service fee tab, though hosts in some regions may not have visibility on their service fee configuration.
If your service fee changes, consider adjusting your markup rates. See Split fees versus Host-only fee.
Upgrading your account
If your accounts have not upgraded, you should see yellow Calendar restricted badges on the Hospitable Connected Accounts page. You can upgrade at any time from this page. Click Upgrade and follow the instructions to update your connection.
Co-hosted accounts will need to invite their listing owners to upgrade.
What if I can't upgrade?
If you're using Hospitable alongside another property management software provider, you won't be able to upgrade. Airbnb only lets one software provider manage calendar availability. In order to upgrade you would need to disconnect from your other software provider first and then upgrade your Hospitable connection.
If you are unable to upgrade or decide to downgrade, Hospitable will continue to work in a limited capacity. We can still manage features like messaging and smart devices, but your Hospitable calendar will no longer sync pricing and availability to Airbnb. If you are using Hospitable's Direct or manual bookings, you will need to use your property iCal feed to sync those bookings with Airbnb and/or your property management software.
Downgrading your Airbnb connection
Airbnb now requires an upgraded connection in order for Hospitable to make changes to your pricing and availability.
If your Airbnb listings belong to a Hospitable property with listings on another channel (eg. Booking.com) you are not able to downgrade. Hospitable must have the upgraded, full connection to protect you from double bookings.
If you prefer not to upgrade your account at this time, you may choose to opt-out by opening your Connected Accounts page, selecting Edit on the applicable Airbnb account, and selecting the Downgrade option. If you downgrade, Hospitable will immediately lose the ability to sync your pricing and availability.