# Can cleaning software tell a host-blocked date from a guest booking on Booking.com?

Source: https://lemon.cy/learn/host-block-vs-guest-booking-booking-com-ical/  
Publisher: Lemon.cy (Red Tribe Media Ltd, Limassol, Cyprus)  
Updated: 2026-09-10 · Verified against production: 2026-09-10

**Short answer:** Not from the iCal feed alone: Booking.com exports a date you closed yourself and a paid reservation identically, as "CLOSED - Not available". Airbnb's export does label its blocks. Lemon treats Booking.com blocks as reservations by default, applies duration rules to catch owner closures, and asks the host when a block is ambiguous instead of guessing.

## The two platforms differ

- **Airbnb** exports guest stays as `Reserved` and your own blocks as `Airbnb (Not available)`. Lemon reads the label and files blocks as `blocked` — no cleaning job, no cleaner notification.
- **Booking.com** exports everything as `CLOSED - Not available`. There is nothing to read.

So the same real-world action — you close the 1st to the 7th on both platforms for maintenance — produces a `blocked` row from the Airbnb feed and a `confirmed` reservation from the Booking.com feed. Lemon's cross-feed de-duplication catches this when the dates match exactly; a one-day difference on either side is enough to defeat it. This is documented as a fundamental ambiguity, not a bug to be "fixed" into a regression.

## What Lemon does with a Booking.com block

1. Treat it as a reservation by default. Missing a real checkout costs far more than one unnecessary visit.
2. Skip it as an owner closure if it is longer than 30 nights with no guest name.
3. Hold it for review, never auto-confirm, if it is longer than 90 nights even with a name.
4. Skip a short tail (up to 3 nights) that sits directly against an owner closure.
5. If a block looks like a merge of stays Lemon already tracks, protect those stays and surface any unexplained nights as a question.

## What a host can do

- If you block dates on Booking.com for yourself, dismiss the resulting job on the dashboard. Dismissing cancels the cleaning job and tells the cleaner; it does not touch the platform.
- Better: block the dates on Airbnb too, with the same dates, so Lemon can pair them.
- Best: connect Hospitable, Guesty or Hostaway directly. The PMS knows the difference and says so.

## Related

- [What does "CLOSED - Not available" mean in a Booking.com iCal feed?](https://lemon.cy/learn/what-does-closed-not-available-mean-booking-com-ical/)
- [Does a booking disappearing from an iCal feed mean the guest cancelled?](https://lemon.cy/learn/is-a-disappeared-ical-event-a-cancellation/)
- [iCal or a direct PMS connection — which is better for cleaning automation?](https://lemon.cy/learn/ical-vs-direct-pms-connection-for-cleaning-automation/)