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Buffer days missing after a card or PayPal booking

  • Updated

You block days before or after every booking, but a booking paid by credit card or PayPal came in through the Booking Engine on your website and the buffer days around it were never added. This is a known issue with how card and PayPal bookings arrive, and the fastest fix is to block the missing days yourself on the Calendar.

First, check

  • The affected booking came through your website's Booking Engine and was paid by credit card or PayPal. Buffer days on your other bookings are added as usual.
  • Your property actually has buffer values set: go to Configuration > Properties, click Edit on the property, and look at Block days before booking and Block days after booking.
  • You are reading the right article: this one is for buffer days that are missing. For the reverse problem, dates that are blocked and you don't know why, see booking-missing-dates-blocked.

Why the buffer days are missing

A booking paid by credit card or PayPal can arrive as a pending booking, waiting for the payment to be confirmed. Smoobu does not treat a pending booking as occupying its dates, so the automatic buffer days are never added. When the booking later changes from pending to booked, the missing buffer days are not added after the fact either.

This is a known issue that can only be fixed by our customer service team. Until then, treat the buffer setting as something to double-check: after each card or PayPal booking, look at the Calendar and add the block yourself when the buffer days are missing.

Block the missing days yourself

You cannot click and drag across the booking itself, so block each side of the booking separately:

  1. Open the Calendar.
  2. On the property's row, click the free day just before the booking's check-in. In the form that opens, choose Block dates and save.
  3. Repeat for the free day just after check-out. If more than one buffer day is missing on a side, repeat for each day.

The blocked periods are pushed to all connected channels, so the dates show as unavailable everywhere.

Re-save the buffer setting for future bookings

Re-saving the setting re-applies the rule and often gets the buffer days added again on new bookings:

  1. Go to Configuration > Properties and click Edit on the property.
  2. Clear the values in Block days before booking and Block days after booking, and save.
  3. Enter the values again, and save.

No setting on your side prevents the problem completely, so keep checking new card and PayPal bookings. If the buffer days are missing after every card or PayPal booking, or after bookings paid another way, mention that when you contact the Smoobu team; it helps them check the affected bookings on your account.

Check it's fixed

Open the Calendar: the buffer days now show as blocked periods right before or after the booking on that property's row, and the same dates show as unavailable on your connected channels.

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.

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