Reserve preparation time after every check-out and stop a new arrival, a time change or an Early/Late request from eating into it.

What it is

Between one guest leaving and the next one arriving, the property has to be prepared. The cleaning window is that time, in minutes. It already existed as information on the cleaning task; now it can also become a protection: once it is on, the platform refuses any arrival or time change that would not leave that time free.

There is a single formula:

check-out time + cleaning time = when the property is ready

Check-out at 11:00 with 120 minutes of cleaning: ready at 13:00. An arrival at exactly 13:00 is allowed — the window is over. At 12:59, it is not.

How to turn it on

1. Go to Settings → Properties and edit the property.

2. In Cleaning time, enter how many minutes the preparation takes (the default is 120).

3. Tick Protect this interval between bookings.

4. Click Save.

The protection is per property. Every property starts with it off, and a property with it off keeps working exactly as before — no new refusals, no new messages. Without the protection, the cleaning time only feeds the team's task.

When you turn it on, if there are already upcoming bookings packed too tightly, the screen warns in amber:

"Cleaning protection enabled. Heads-up: 1 pair of upcoming bookings already breaks the window — nothing was changed, but new time changes on those bookings will be refused."

Nothing is cancelled or altered: existing bookings stay as they are. What you can no longer do is make a conflict worse — squeeze one of those times even further.

What gets refused

With the protection on, changes that eat into the cleaning window of a confirmed booking are refused:

Approving an Early Check-in that would arrive during the previous booking's cleaning, or a Late Checkout that would leave no cleaning time before the next arrival. See Why can't I approve an Early Check-in or Late Checkout?.

Editing the check-in or check-out time of a booking, confirming a pending booking or creating a booking that is already confirmed at a time inside the cleaning. See Error when saving or confirming a booking.

Moving a booking to another room that is still being cleaned.

On your booking website, when the default times do not fit the previous booking's cleaning, the guest gets the unavailable-dates notice when completing the booking. They never read another guest's name or time.

In every case the message names the booking in the way and the time until which the property is protected. The messages are written in Portuguese; for example:

"O check-in desta reserva (às 12:00) cai na janela de limpeza: a hospedagem de Ana termina às 11:00 e a limpeza (120 min) protege o imóvel até as 13:00. Ajuste o check-in desta reserva ou a saída da outra." — "This booking's check-in (at 12:00) falls inside the cleaning window: Ana's stay ends at 11:00 and the cleaning (120 min) protects the property until 13:00. Adjust this booking's check-in or the other one's check-out."

In properties that sell rooms, the protection is per room: cleaning Studio 1 does not block an arrival in Studio 2, and the message says "protege o quarto Studio 1" (protects room Studio 1). A whole-property booking respects the cleaning of every room, and the other way round.

What does NOT change

Price. The protection does not touch nightly rates, fees or the total of any booking. When it refuses a paid Early or Late request, no fee is charged.

Contract dates and nights. The booking's dates and the number of nights stay the same; the protection only looks at times.

iCal and channels (Airbnb, Booking). Nothing changes in calendar export or import. Imported bookings keep coming in as always.

Existing bookings. Turning the protection on cancels or moves nothing.

Pending bookings and blocks. A pending booking reserves no cleaning window and is not protected either — the rule is only applied on confirmation. Manual blocks generate no cleaning.

Shared rooms (beds). The protection does not apply per bed: dorm capacity keeps being decided as it is today.

Properties with the protection off. They keep working exactly as before.

What the team sees

The cleaning task still starts at the booking's check-out time — if a Late Checkout is approved, the task follows. On the Cleaning screen and in the team portal, each task shows the start, the expected end and the duration, for example "Cleaning: 11:00–13:00 (120 min)". If you change the cleaning time, the expected end of every open task follows.

In the booking detail, on the Calendar, the same line appears with "Ready from 13:00" — only in properties with the protection on.

In cleaning automations you can use the variables {{cleaningStartTime}}, {{cleaningEndTime}} and {{cleaningWindowMinutes}}. See Check-in, checkout, review and cleaning automations.

When the time changes after the team was told

If the team has already received the automatic cleaning message and the check-out time changes afterwards — an approved Late Checkout, for example — the same message is sent again with the header "⚠️ Atualização de horário" (time update), once per change, on the next automation run. Nobody has to warn anyone by hand, and nobody receives the same update twice.

Practical tip

Before turning the protection on, check that your default times fit the cleaning time: default check-out + cleaning time must be less than or equal to the default check-in. With check-out at 11:00, check-in at 15:00 and 120 minutes, there is room to spare. If it does not fit, the screen warns in red when you save — see I turned the protection on and now everything fails.

Cleaning window between bookings