Availability & Stay Rules

Stay rules — minimum and maximum nights, how far ahead guests can book, preparation time between stays, advance notice, day-of-week restrictions — control which dates guests can book and how long they can stay. Vanio gives you three levels of control: property defaults, per-date overrides on the calendar, and per-channel fine-tuning for Airbnb.

Looking for a specific setting? Different platforms use different names for the same concept. Here's the translation:

• Minimum nights / minimum stay / min nights → property-level "Minimum Nights" (Listings → Content → Availability), or per-channel override under Airbnb Calendar Settings
• Maximum nights / maximum stay / max nights → "Maximum Nights" in the same place
• Advance notice / how far ahead guests can book / booking horizon / max days notice → "Advance Booking" (property level) or "Maximum Days Notice" (Airbnb)
• Preparation time / prep time / turnover time / gap nights / buffer between bookings → "Turnover Days" (property level and Airbnb)
• Booking lead time / cutoff time / minimum notice / how late can guests book → "Booking Lead Time" (Airbnb only)
• Check-in days / check-in restrictions / Saturday-only stays → "Allowed Check-in Days" (Airbnb only)

Quick start: set property defaults

Where: Listings → [your property] → Content → Availability

This is the master setting. Whatever you put here applies to every channel unless you override it later. Two cards, four fields, auto-saves as you type.

Stay Length

• Minimum Nights — the shortest stay you'll accept (e.g. 2)
• Maximum Nights — the longest stay you'll accept (e.g. 30)

Booking Window

• Advance Booking — how far in the future guests can book, in days (e.g. 365 means a full year out)
• Turnover Days — buffer nights between two reservations, so a guest can't check in the same day another guest checks out

That's it for the property level. Save is automatic.

Override a specific date

Where: Calendar → click any date

For peak weekends, holidays, or anything you want to charge differently for, the date-settings popover lets you override values for that single date — or for a whole range.

You can change:

• Base price and per-channel markups (Airbnb / Booking.com / VRBO)
• Availability — open the date, block it, or set a specific number of available units
• Minimum nights for stays starting on that date (e.g. force a 4-night minimum on Christmas week)
• Notes — anything you want to remember about this date
• Restrictions

To apply changes to a range, shift-click the start and end date in the calendar. When you have multiple dates selected, every field gets a small "Skip" toggle next to it — that way you can update just one thing (say, minimum nights) without touching the rest.

The calendar shows a small badge on each date with the active minimum-nights value, so you can see at a glance which dates have an override.

Airbnb advanced rules

Where: Listings → [your property] → Platforms → expand the Airbnb card → Calendar Settings

Airbnb supports more granular rules than the property defaults. These overrides only apply to your Airbnb listing, and Vanio pushes them to Airbnb when you save.

Basic

• Minimum Nights and Maximum Nights — override the property defaults for Airbnb specifically
• Allow Request to Book above max nights — if a guest wants a longer stay than your max, they can send you a request you can approve manually

Booking Window

• Booking Lead Time — how many hours before check-in guests can still book (0–24). Set this to 24 if you don't want last-minute bookings.
• Allow Request to Book for shorter notice bookings — accept last-minute requests as RTB even when they're inside your lead-time window
• Maximum Days Notice — the furthest out guests can book (Airbnb's term for advance booking). Vanio now enforces this rule more effectively by filtering out conflicting updates from Airbnb that would override your setting.
• Turnover Days — nights between bookings (the same idea as the property-level Turnover Days, but Airbnb-specific)

How Maximum Days Notice works: When you set a limit on how far ahead guests can book, Vanio prevents Airbnb from syncing availability changes beyond that window. This ensures your booking horizon stays consistent — even when Airbnb tries to push updates for dates outside your allowed range.

Day of Week Restrictions

• Allowed Check-in Days — pick which days of the week guests can check in. Common pattern: Saturday-only check-in for week-long rentals.
• Allowed Check-out Days — same idea for checkout

Day-specific Minimum Nights

A different minimum-night requirement per day of the week. The most common setup: 2-night minimum Monday through Thursday, 3-night minimum Friday through Sunday. Expand the section and set the value for each day.

When you click Save Calendar Settings, Vanio writes the changes to Airbnb. The card shows the last sync time so you know it went through.

Booking.com, VRBO and other channels

Property-level stay rules from Vanio (Listings → Content → Availability) apply to all your channels through calendar sync — so your minimum nights, maximum nights, advance booking window, and turnover days are honored everywhere.

Channel-specific rules beyond that — Booking.com restrictions, VRBO booking policies, channel-specific prep time — are managed today on each channel's own admin (Booking.com extranet, VRBO dashboard). Vanio shows you the connection but doesn't yet expose those channel-native fine-tuning controls inline. Native editing inside Vanio for Booking.com and VRBO is on the roadmap.

How stay rules are enforced on your direct booking website

When guests book through your Vanio-powered direct booking website, your stay rules are now enforced at every step of the booking process — not just in the search results and date picker.

What this means for you: If a guest arrives at your booking page with dates already filled in (for example, from a link or a forwarded URL), they cannot complete payment for a stay that violates your availability settings. Your minimum stay, maximum stay, and any nights you've marked as not for sale are checked again at checkout — before any charge is made and before the reservation is confirmed.

Example: You have a 3-night minimum set for a holiday weekend. A guest shares a link pre-filled with a 2-night stay from Friday to Sunday. Even if they reach the payment screen, the booking will be declined and they'll see a clear message explaining why — no charge is made.

Stay extensions are handled separately. When a guest extends an existing reservation through the trip management page, Vanio applies your availability rules but does not re-check arrival restrictions for that extension. The extension still respects your calendar availability and nightly rate rules.

[Screenshot: Guest-facing error message on the booking page when a stay violates minimum-night rules]

Common scenarios

"I want a 2-night minimum normally, but 3 nights on weekends." Listings → Content → Availability → Minimum Nights = 2. Then Listings → Platforms → Airbnb → Calendar Settings → Day-specific Minimum Nights → set Friday, Saturday, Sunday to 3.

"I need at least one full day to clean between guests." Listings → Content → Availability → Turnover Days = 1.

"Guests are booking too close to check-in and we can't turn the unit around in time." Listings → Platforms → Airbnb → Calendar Settings → Booking Lead Time → 24 (or whatever buffer you need). Optionally toggle "Allow Request to Book for shorter notice" if you still want last-minute requests as a manual approval.

"I only want week-long stays, Saturday to Saturday." Listings → Content → Availability → Minimum Nights = 7, Maximum Nights = 7. Listings → Platforms → Airbnb → Calendar Settings → Allowed Check-in Days = Saturday only, Allowed Check-out Days = Saturday only.

"I want to block Christmas week to use the place myself." Calendar → shift-click December 22 through December 28 → toggle Available off in the popover. The dates will be blocked across every channel within minutes.

"I want to charge a 4-night minimum on Christmas week and double my normal rate." Calendar → shift-click December 22 through December 28 → in the popover, set Minimum Nights = 4 and Base Price = your peak rate. Save once for the whole range.

"I set a 60-day booking window but guests are still booking further out." Check your Airbnb Calendar Settings → Maximum Days Notice. Once set, Vanio automatically blocks any calendar updates from Airbnb that would allow bookings beyond your chosen window.

"I have a 3-night minimum but a guest is trying to pay for 1 night on my direct website." Vanio will decline the payment before any charge is made and show the guest a message explaining the minimum stay requirement. You don't need to do anything — this is enforced automatically for every booking attempt on your direct site.

Tips & best practices

• Set your property defaults first. They act as a safety net for every channel. Per-channel and per-date overrides layer on top.
• Use date-range overrides for predictable peaks. Shift-click a range in the calendar once and set your holiday minimums and rates in one go.
• Your direct website rules match your calendar. There's no separate configuration for your direct booking site — whatever you set in Vanio is what guests will be held to at payment time.
• Extensions follow different rules. If you allow guests to extend their stay through the trip page, the extension is checked against your availability but is not subject to the same arrival-day restrictions as a fresh booking.
• Test before high season. Book a short test stay on your own direct site to confirm your minimum-night rules are working as expected before peak demand arrives.

Common questions

If I update my minimum nights today, does it take effect immediately on my direct booking website? Yes. Your stay rules on the direct booking website always reflect your current Vanio settings. There's no separate publish step — the next guest who tries to book will see and be held to your latest rules.

What happens if a guest somehow reaches the payment screen with dates that break my rules? The payment will not go through. Vanio checks your availability settings — minimum stay, maximum stay, and whether the nights are on sale — at the point of payment, so no charge is made and no reservation is created for a stay you don't sell. The guest sees a message describing the issue (for example, "This property requires a minimum stay of 3 nights").

Do my stay rules apply when a guest extends an existing reservation? Partly. Extensions are checked against your calendar availability and your nightly pricing, so a guest can't extend into a blocked or sold-out night. However, arrival-day restrictions (like allowed check-in days) are not re-applied to an extension — only to brand-new bookings.