What are your issues when syncing calendars?

Tools
1

Hi there,

what are your issues when syncing your calendars/listings with different platforms? Which syncing tools do you use? Why/advantage?

2

I am using ical between my google calendar and my different platforms, advantage it’s free. Important to avoid double booking but it’s only synch every two hours

I am considering in the future hostaway or Lodgify if they improve the synch offer they have

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3

I’ve had the issue of when I open the calendar on one site, it stays blocked on the other site, which then blocks what I opened! (if that makes sense). So make sure you check every calendar regularly whenever you make changes so that it truly opens up your calendar or blocks it.

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4

For me, syncing only works well if you have blank calendars to start. For example - brand new listing that I want to put on VRBo and Airbnb. I export the Airbnb Calendar into Home Away. So any new airbnb bookings automatically block the vrbo calendar. I can now export the vrbo calendar into the airbnb system, so now i have a super messy calendar but it’s effectively blocking. I say super messy because I’ve already imported the airbnb into vrbo, not in reversing that process, the Airbnb bookings are going back into airbnb as extra lines as part of the vrbo export. That’s workable but not ideal.

What I want is a program that takes an excel spreadsheet that I use as a calendar, and everytime I get a booking, on whatever platform, it automatically populates the specific fields and then blocks the calendar for those dates on ALL other platforms. I’m looking for a third party option where I’m only buying the calendar technology - I’m not buying a booking/marketing service.

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5

I am still having a problem trying to sync my Tripadvisor and Airbnb calendars.

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6

Hi sylvainbg,

thanks for your reply! We are working on a calendar software with a completely new approach. Hopefully it will help solving many issues. We are looking for beta-version testers. May I ask you to become a tester? Probably We´ll have the beta version ready for testing end October.

7

Hi Sarah_Warren

thanks for your reply! We are working on a calendar software with a completely new approach. Hopefully it will help solving many issues. We are looking for beta-version testers. May I ask you to become a tester? Probably We´ll have the beta version ready for testing end October.

9

Hi hypertokyo

thanks for your reply! We are working on a calendar software with a completely new approach. Hopefully it will help solving many issues. We are looking for beta-version testers. May I ask you to become a tester? Probably We´ll have the beta version ready for testing end October.

10

Hi,

Please provide more information by private message. What platforms, what will you do etc…

11

Hi,

I´ll come back to you with further information by end of September.

Cheers!

12

Hello KiteBnB,

I am here (and all over creation) looking for solutions to the ABB calendar export that is not relaying correctly synced availabilities.

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13

I have an issue with this also. I can sync from Air to TripAdvisor, but not the other way around. I know there is a way using iCalc but it seems waaay to complicated and as I have a really full calendar I think it will be a nightmare. I do also go into TA and manually sync at least once a week, just to be sure.

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14

Thanks for your feedback. It´s priceless for us to know which problems occur.

15

Thanks for your feedback. The more we know about problems the better we can build our software.

16

I have the same problem with the exported Airbnb Ical. The Airbnb bookings show up fine, but the ones I have added manually sometimes show, but mostly don’t…

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18

Hi!

I have 10 rental properties.
I book primarily with Airbnb, secondary sites are VRBO and Streamline VRS (which provides a booking link on my company website).

I use iCal links to sync all the calenders

The issues I encounter are:

  1. Reservations arriving through iCal links, arrive as ‘blocks’ not as real reservations - this is problematic because: A) blocks do not trigger notifications so I must manually switch the block to a reservation to receive notifications
    B) Most importantly, a reservation arriving as a block, blocks the whole day, that is an issue for days of check in and check out. i.e. if a guest is checking out at 11AM there’s no reason why a whole day should be blocked off.

  2. Often the dates will be misaligned. Often times -yes its inconsistent - an ical block shows up and the check in date is one day early and the the check out date is one day early.

  3. On some occasions the ical blocks arrive as 2 separate reservations i.e. Jon Johny 1/20/17-1/22/17 Jon Johny 1/23/17-1/24/17.

At the moment my system is working at %65 capacity but I’m scared of double booking so I spend a lot of time double checking my calendars not to forget about the extra stress that causes.

Any suggestions?

What I want is a proper booking calendar which takes reservations from multiple sources and does so smoothly so I don’t have to worry about double booking. As a bonus, notifications would also be nice.

1 Like
19

Hi

I am using Host Away. Works perfect for the synch and avoiding double booking.

2 Likes
20

I’m trying to find out why I’m not getting proper information over to my google calendar. Is this the place to get answers?

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21

Hi guys! Thanks to all of you for your feedback. Your comments are priceless! As you might know we are developing a calendar syncing tool. Our goal is to make syncing as easy and reliable as possible and to take away your pain. Therefore we developed a completely new approach: NO iCal hassle, NO additional/external calendar! We will be launching a beta version in February and I would love to have you guys as beta testers. I´ll be coming back with more information shortly.

22

Hi, please see my comment on this thread :slight_smile: