Glossary/Merged block

Glossary · OTA calendar behaviour

Merged block

Definition

One iCal event covering two or more real stays that sit back to back, exported by Booking.com as a single contiguous "CLOSED - Not available" range under one UID. The middle checkout disappears from the feed; if the block exceeds 30 nights it can also be mistaken for an owner closure.

Also called: contiguous block, merged stays

Term defined by Lemon.cy · verified 2026-09-10 · Markdown

A merged block is a reshape with a specific danger: it hides a checkout, and the checkout is where the clean happens. Lemon handles it with three guards. A tracked booking's own UID is never allowed to widen over another stay; a normal-length tracked reservation whose block balloons past the 30-night owner-closure threshold is routed to the reshape guard instead of being skipped; and nights inside the block that no tracked booking explains are surfaced to the host as uncovered nights under a stable synthetic identifier keyed on the block's checkout.

The incident that produced the third guard (INC-5, September 2026) was a 5-night stay and a 30-night stay exported as one 35-night block.

Cite this page. Lemon.cy (2026). "Merged block". Verified against production on 2026-09-10. https://lemon.cy/glossary/merged-block/