Fill gaps in your Smoobu calendar: the 1–3 nights nobody books
Family A leaves on Saturday, family B arrives on Tuesday — leaving three empty nights in between. Multiply gaps like these across the season and several apartments, and you quietly lose a whole month's revenue. The tricky part: these nights don't sell themselves, because usually one single setting prevents the booking.
Why is my gap not getting booked? The minimum stay blocks it
If the minimum stay is set to 4 or 5 nights (perfectly sensible in high season), a 3-night gap is simply unbookable — no matter how cheap it would be. Portals won't even show it as an option. So the first lever costs nothing:
How much discount is worth it for short gaps?
Short stays compete with hotels — and there, price per night counts. A discount of 10–15 % only on the gap days makes the leftover gap attractive without damaging your price structure. Two rules have proven themselves:
- Set a floor: "Never below €X per night" — otherwise the cleaning fee no longer adds up.
- Treat weekend gaps differently: Free Fri/Sat nights are more valuable and often sell with a smaller discount (or none at all).
When should a last-minute discount start?
What is still free in 7 days will very likely not be booked at all — every euro from it is an extra euro. A moderate last-minute discount on unsold nights of the coming week captures spontaneous travellers without annoying early bookers (they booked long ago).
Why does this get left undone in practice?
All three levers are well known — and still rarely pulled. The reason is mundane: you'd have to search the calendar of every apartment for gaps every day, adjust the individual day rates in Smoobu, and then remember to reset everything once the gap is booked or has passed. That's endless busywork — a classic case for automation: detect gaps, apply rules with your numbers, log every change, and clean up again automatically.
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