Urgent Need for Comprehensive Date Formatting in Hospitable's Automated Messages

Hospitable Team,

Your short codes for dates are incomplete, resulting in what I suspect are thousands of automated messages going out incorrectly every day. You do many things well, but date formatting is something you get very wrong.

Despite numerous town hall meetings showcasing new developments, it is disheartening to see no progress on the date formatting issue, which I have raised multiple times. This issue is exacerbated by the recent notification that my basic subscription rate will increase by 40 Euros, plus 5 Euros for each device for self check-in, totaling an additional 50 Euros per month. It is frustrating to face a price hike when such a fundamental feature remains unaddressed.

While the current date format (December 31, 2050) may not be a problem in the United States, you are positioning yourself as a global leader. Accurate date formatting is crucial on a global scale. Here is a complete list of countries that use the same date format as the United States (December 31, 2050):

• Belize

• Micronesia

• Palau

• Philippines

• Canada (partially, especially in English-speaking regions and for some official documents)

In the United States, the date format is correctly written as December 31, 2050. Other countries use different formats, such as 31 December 2050, or 2050 December 31.

If I cannot select a date format in my user preferences, which is common across most platforms, then you must include more short codes to allow writing dates in any format. Currently, you have only four short codes related to dates, making it impossible to write a correct date format:

• check_in

• check_in_day_of_month

• check_out

• check_out_day_of_month

These are the short codes you should have:

• check_in

• check_in_day

• check_in_day_of_month

• check_in_month

• check_in_year

• check_out

• check_out_day

• check_out_day_of_month

• check_out_month

• check_out_year

My point is, you really don't have to worry about the different date formats if you give us enough short codes. It may even make sense to give us a short code for the numerical value for the month so I could write 2050.12.31 if I wanted to. The problem is, right now...I can't.

For example, messages in German go out correctly:

"Wir möchten Deine Reservierung für 2 Personen ab Mittwoch, 1. Mai für 28 Nächte bestätigen."

using the short codes:

"Wir möchten Deine Reservierung für %guests% ab %check_in% für %nights% bestätigen."

But if I write:

"We want to confirm your reservation for %guests% for %nights% starting on %check_in%."

in English, I get:

"We want to confirm your reservation for 2 people for 28 nights starting on Wednesday, May 1."

This is incorrect except for the occasional guest from the United States. Your system does not allow me to write this correctly in English:

"We want to confirm your reservation for 2 people for 28 nights starting on Wednesday, 1 May."

If I wanted to write a combination of English but in German formatting with a dot after the date, it is impossible to write this as:

"We want to confirm your reservation for 2 people for 28 nights starting on Wednesday, 1. May."

However, if I had the basic function consisting of all the short codes for writing dates correctly, I could write the following and get a correctly formatted, grammatically correct sentence:

"We want to confirm your reservation for %guests% for %nights% starting on %check_in_day%, %check_in_day_of_month%. %check_in_month%."

This issue reflects poorly on Hospitable as a company striving to be a global leader. Accurate date formatting is not just a minor detail; it affects the clarity and professionalism of our communications with guests worldwide. It is essential to get this right to maintain your credibility and support your customers effectively.

Please prioritize addressing this issue and fix this basic core function relating to dates.

Sincerely,
Patrick Brent