Imagine that happening to four flats in a month. The cause is one setting: the minimum number of nights. Below: how to work out whether your minimum is earning you money, how to change it by date, and why the rules for the December holidays should be set now, in November.
The calendar that looks full
A gap is a stretch of free nights between two bookings that is shorter than your minimum stay. It is not a cancellation and it does not show up in any report. It simply sits there, unsold, with your cleaner's schedule built around it.
What this costs is easy to work out. If a midweek night in the flat sells for €90, every two unsold nights are €180 you never see. And it is hard to notice: the calendar looks full, and at the end of the month there is less money than you expected, and no obvious reason why.
Where do gaps come from? Mostly from a minimum stay set once, at the start of the year, and never looked at again. A three-night minimum is sensible for a Friday in July. On a Tuesday in November it forbids half your demand.
Price the minimum, don't guess it
Take a flat with three prices: €90 from Monday to Thursday, €130 on Friday and Saturday, €100 on Sunday. A cleaning turnover costs you €40. These numbers are an example; use yours.
A guest asks for Friday and Saturday, two nights:
- Revenue: €130 + €130 = €260.
- After cleaning: €220.
A three-night minimum would turn that guest away and wait for someone who stays Friday to Monday:
- Revenue: €130 + €130 + €100 = €360.
- After cleaning: €320.
The three-night booking is worth €100 more, so the minimum looks smart. But only if it arrives. Divide €220 by €320 and you get about 0.69: if you think there is less than roughly a 70% chance of landing the three-night booking for that weekend, the two-night guest in front of you is the better deal. (This ignores the Sunday night, which you could sell separately. It makes the two-night case a little stronger, not weaker.)
That is the whole method. For any date, write down what a short booking earns after cleaning, what a long one earns, and how likely you think the long one is. If you can't say how likely, look at how long that date sat empty last year.
Empty nights aren't the problem. Empty nights nobody is allowed to book are.
How many nights should the minimum be?
There is no universal number, and anyone who gives you one hasn't seen your calendar. There is a common pattern, though:
- Far out, ask for more. Sixty days before arrival you can afford to wait for the longer booking.
- Closer in, ask for less. At two weeks, a gap is starting to look permanent; a two-night booking is worth taking.
- If fewer nights are left between two bookings than your minimum, lower the minimum for exactly those dates. One booked night beats none, especially if a cleaning is already planned that day. See where the three hours between bookings go for what a turnover really costs.
- On peak dates, raise it. Bridge weekends and holidays are the dates when guests accept a longer stay without argument.
None of this needs to be clever. What it needs is for you to review these settings more than once a year.
Set the holiday rules in November
The December dates sell early. In 2026 the 6th of December falls on a Sunday and the 8th on a Tuesday, which makes Monday the 7th the obvious day for a long weekend. Christmas Eve is a Thursday and 1 January is a Friday. Each of those weeks has its own demand, and a minimum copied from last year is probably wrong for it.
Four weeks before the first holiday date (for December, before the 6th), sit down with the calendar and decide three things for each holiday period: what minimum you set, whether it applies to every arrival day, and from which date you lower it. Write it down once. Then check that it matches on every platform you sell on, because a minimum of three on one and two on another doesn't average out; it makes gaps.
If you sell on several platforms, the weak point is not the number. It is the number being different in two places. You change it on one site, forget the second, and find out when the month closes with holes in it.
In CortoCasa the minimum-night restriction is set in one place, next to prices and availability, and goes to every connected platform together with them. You change it once, and the calendar you read is the calendar your guests see.
Two objections from the operator with five flats
"Short stays mean more cleaning." They do, which is why the €40 for cleaning is already in the sum above. But the real cost of a cleaning varies. If the cleaner is already working in the flat next door that day, the extra turnover costs you less than usual. If they have to drive across town for one night, it costs more. So decide on the exception by looking at the cleanings already planned for that day, not by a blanket rule of "no short stays".
"If I lower it, I attract the wrong guests." A one-night stay can mean more wear, and that is a reason to keep a higher minimum on the flats that suffer for it. It is not a reason to forbid a Tuesday night in November in all of them. Treat it flat by flat: the minimum that fits a studio next to a bar is not the one that fits a family apartment on the fifth floor.
Ten minutes: audit last year's gaps
Open your calendar for the last ninety days. List every stretch of free nights between bookings that was shorter than the minimum in force on those dates. For each, note the weekday, the length and what you could have earned. You will probably find a couple of patterns: Sunday-to-Wednesday holes in autumn, one-night gaps after a long stay, and a Friday that was never sold because of a three-night rule that was meant for August.
Those patterns are your new rules. For wider context on how the day-to-day fits together, see short-term rental management.
The one-line summary
A minimum stay affects your earnings just like the price does. Set it by what a booking leaves you after cleaning. Lower it as the arrival date gets close. Let a single free night between two bookings be booked on its own. And set the holiday minimums in November, with the same number on every platform.
