So I received a double booking this morning for July 2021, I immediately contacted the guest (with VRBO) offering them other dates. I then called VRBO to see why my calendars are not in sinc after June 2021 ( our summers book out about 12 months out) . I tried dropping the import/export On both platforms prior to calling and reading the import exports, I logged off both platforms on all of my devices and logged back in and the calendars still aren’t matching. Airbnb is showing my VRBO bookings but VRBO is not showing my bookings after July 4 2021. I figured it must is an issue with VRBO, so I started there. Nope they are saying it is an issue with Airbnb’s export… so I call Airbnb, they say they have no known issue with this and since their calendars are showing the correct info it is a VRBO issue. Soooo I call VRBO, and tell them Airbnb is telling me that since they are receiving the calendars from VRBO and everything is correct with the calendars there that it is an issue with VRBO not allowing calendars to stay current longer than a year. Well I got nowhere with spending a whopping 3.5 hours on the phone. Anyone else that books out over a year in advance seeing issue of these two platforms communicating? My only option right now until I figure it out is to cut out auto book on VRBO (they only account for 10% of our total bookings) and update calendars by hand, which isn’t practical as VRBO SUCKS when you have to conduct business via smart phone, ya gotta change your password every time to access your account. Suggestions if you have them. I will have another topic coming tonight regarding amenities and crazy guests (I think covid has messed with people)
Uh oh, here comes John with an offer to sell paragraphs. Watch out for him, he’s a scammer.
We’ve been out celebrating today, so I’m out of paragraphs to sell, for now 
Bottom line is that if you rely on the iCal synch between Airbnb and VRBO you’ll get this issue, and there isn’t a workaround unless you list 5+ properties on VRBO.
Only way to avoid double bookings is to be IB on Airbnb, and by request on VRBO. That’s it, make your choice.
JF
There are definitely issues with the sync. I was experiencing dates that had been prefiously properly synced falling off. I started manually blocking dates on each calendar when I got them on the other platform to prevent this from happening (in addition to having the iCal sync set up).
It’s not a perfect solution but it helps mitigate the problem.
And some platforms only update every 6 hours…
Any synch that relies on iCal will inherently have issues, it’s simply how it is.
JF
Yep, sometimes the sync has already happened by the time I complete the post-booking process for a new reservation. Sometimes it takes hours and sometimes the Gremlins get in.
Even if you only accept IB on one platform, it won’t stop the Gremlins so I recommend manually blocking the calendars on both platforms as soon as practicable after each new reservation is confirmed.
There are no “Gremlins”, it’s a free synch, so if your business matters to you then spend the money on an XML, or API, synch.
JF
it’s a figure of speech. the gremlins definitely get in lol. i only have one listing to deal with so going in and manually blocking is not a problem for me. i only have 1 unit on 2 platforms. if i had 2 or more listings on 3 or more sites i would definitely invest in a 3rd party application.
sorry i missed this part …
why are you having to change your password every time you access your account? i don’t. what’s the deal there?
I don’t know… it is only on my iPhone that I have the issue, my laptop and my iPad are fine, I have uninstalled and reinstalled VRBO many times to try and remedy the issue, but no luck. VRBO sayss that their platform works much better on anything except a mobile. That stinks, because I have now resorted to carrying my iPad around with me and hot spotting off my phone to review a VRBO inquiry when I am on the go.
i do use a tablet but its an android. i see they finally fully updated my owner app and it has the graphic V instead of the little Homeaway house avatar now. I wonder if this will fix any bugs or just let more in lol.
We had the same problem and had to take care of three double-bookings. It was a nightmare. VRBO technical team reported that it’s a problem with iCal software on t he Airbnb side. Research indicates that is the right track. However, I had the problem in reverse. I will keep you posted with more details later. We took VRBO off instant book for now, as our percentage of VRBO to AIRBNB guests is around 10% too.