How do I control how far ahead and how close to arrival guests can book?

Smoobu gives you two separate controls over your booking window: how far in the future guests can book, and how close to the arrival date they can still book. The first is your booking horizon, set in Pricing. The second is your lead time, or minimum advance notice, set per channel.

Before you start

You need these before you set your limits:

• Your properties created in Smoobu.
• Your channels connected, if you want the limits to reach them too. See .

Set how far ahead guests can book

This is your booking horizon. You set it in Smoobu, and it applies to your own website and to your connected channels.

1. Open Pricing, then Settings, then Availability Settings.
2. Choose Relative days for a rolling window that is always a set number of days ahead (for example, 365 days), or Fixed date to stay open until one chosen date.
3. Set the value. You can set a Default for everything and then override it for a single property and channel.
4. Click Overwrite Availabilities to push the change to your channels.

Don't leave Availability Settings blank. A blank setting is not the same as "open with no limit". It means Smoobu has no instruction for that property and channel, and dates you free up (after a cancellation, or by removing a block) can stay closed on the channel. Set a value for every property and channel, even if you don't want to limit how far ahead guests book. 365 days is a sensible default.

Each channel also has its own upper limit on how far ahead guests can book. These are the channels' limits, not Smoobu's, and they can change.

Set how close to arrival guests can book

This is your lead time. It's set per channel, and Airbnb measures it in hours rather than days.

• Your own website and booking engine: open Configuration > Booking Engine and set Min. days between Booking and Arrival. The value is in days.
• Airbnb: set the lead time in your Airbnb settings in Smoobu (Channels, then the Airbnb card's Additional Settings, the gear icon). On Airbnb the value is in hours, not days. If you use Airbnb's Request to Book, last-minute requests can still come in below your lead time.
• Booking.com: set Minimum Advanced Reservation in your Booking.com Extranet, under Rates & Availability. If you don't see this setting, contact Booking.com to switch it on. It isn't managed from Smoobu.
• Other channels: set the minimum notice in that channel's settings, in days. For some channels this sits in Smoobu, under the channel's Additional Settings (HomeToGo: Availability tab > Min days between booking and arrival); for others, such as Expedia and Vrbo, it sits on the channel's own site.

Check it worked

In your booking engine, try to book a date beyond your horizon or closer than your lead time. The date isn't offered. On a channel, the same dates stop being bookable once the change has synced.

Common problems

A guest said they couldn't book a date far in the future

That date is outside your booking horizon. Open Pricing > Settings > Availability Settings, extend the Relative days window (or move the Fixed date) so it covers that date, then click Overwrite Availabilities. The channel's own upper limit still applies on top of your setting.

A date I freed up is still closed on a channel

If your Availability Settings for that property and channel are blank, dates you free up can stay closed. Set a Relative-days value, then click Overwrite Availabilities to push it out.

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Still stuck?

If these steps didn't fix it, contact the Smoobu team: open the Help menu to open a ticket or book a call slot, or use the chat bubble in the bottom-right corner. To get the fastest answer, please include:

• Your Smoobu User ID (in the profile-icon menu, top right).
• The property name or ID, if it's about one property.
• The Booking ID, if it's about one booking (Bookings, then View more).
• The channel name, if it's about channel sync (Booking.com, Airbnb, Vrbo, and so on).
• A short step-by-step: what you did, what you expected, and what happened.
• Screenshots or a short screen recording of the problem.
• Your browser and operating system, if something looks wrong on screen.