Airbnb iCal ICS sync issue

[Logan Wise]

We have Airbnb set to “Booking window 12 months into the future.” So, January 22, 2020 and beyond are unavailable on Airbnb.

The problem is Airbnb lists 1/22/2020 – 1/23/2020 in the ICS feed as “not available.” So, Hotel Booking syncs/creates a 1 day reservation every day. Tomorrow, Airbnb will list 1/23/2020 – 1/24/2020 as unavailable so Hotel Booking will create another reservation.

I manually downloaded the ICS feed and here’s the excerpt:
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200123
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200122
UID:[email protected]
SUMMARY:Not available
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

What can we do about this problem?

I’d prefer not to set Airbnb’s booking window to “All future dates,” but I will if that’s the only solution.

[Logan Wise]

Here is the current entry:
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200124
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200123
UID:[email protected]
SUMMARY:Not available
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

This creates a reservation on our MPHB calendar which syncs back to Airbnb (and marks the dates as unavailable). So, 1/22/2020 and 1/23/2020 would both be unavailable and eventually, every day thereafter.

I don’t understand why Airbnb puts that “Booking window” date in the feed.

[Logan Wise]

In case it helps others, I changed the “Booking window” to
“All future dates” and the problem has been resolved.

Feature suggestion for MotoPress Hotel Booking: I found that a competitor has this feature:

Some calendars like Airbnb will include events that are not reservations. Turning off the Include Non-Reservation Events toggle will not import events that are deemed to be non-reservation events. If availability preferences on Airbnb have a Booking Window that is set to 6 months into the future, then a non-reservation event will be included in the iCal feed to block 6 months in the future forward. In this case, ignore the non-reservation Booking Window event by turning off the Include Non-Reservation Events setting. Note: It will be necessary to manually remove any non-reservation events that were previously synced to your calendar.

Thank you!

[J. Davis]

Hello Logan,

Thank you for your question and solution described. Yes, it is recommended to disable restriction of further possibility to book on airbnb is those dates are added as booking in iCal file.

best regards,
J.Davis

[Sebahattin Enes Arslan]

Sadly this issue occurred to me now and I can’t solve it…One of my 3 apartments is entirely marked as not available on my website. The blocked dates originate from the sync with airbnb (“not available”), but at airbnb those dates are not and never were blocked nor are they booked or something. I also have the setting “for all future dates”, so this might not be the real issue here.

I tested to import the calendar into Apple Calendar and cross checked other platforms’ calendars I regularly sync with: these dates are somehow only blocked on my website.

[Logan Wise]

You may want to check the start and end dates on MPHB under Accommodation -> Seasons.

[Sebahattin Enes Arslan]

No, that wasn’t the issue either :-/ I can‘t find any differences in my airbnb and mphb settings… What could be the reason for this blockage?

Is there maybe a way to delete all airbnb calendar entries (to test a reimport)? I deleted the ical url of that airbnb listing in mphb, but the airbnb entries are still visible in the mpbh calendar.

[Logan Wise]

Maybe download a copy of the Airbnb .ics file and inspect its contents with a text editor. I like Notepad++. The Airbnb ics URL can be found under:

Availability->Sync Calendars->Export Calendar

The URL is in the format:
https://www.airbnb.com/calendar/ical/XXXXXXXX.ics?
s=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Just download to the desktop and examine in Notepad++. Might give more insight into the availability issue.

[Amos Kater]

I do have a similar challenge. in Airbnb I have a 3 days notice for bookings. This makes that I receive every night a reservation in my booking calendar from Airbnb for the coming 3 nights. Any ideas how to solve this?

[Andre Flores]

Hi there!

Sebahattin and Amos, please make sure you are using updated Hotel Booking plugin (3.7.1+). Also, contact Airbnb and find out if there is an option to disable blocking or not include booking window blocked days in ical file.
Check the following article, which may be useful for you to resolve the issue: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/447/how-do-i-make-dates-available-or-blocked-on-my-calendar.

If there is still no luck, kindly submit a ticket at: https://support.motopress.com/hc/en-us/requests/new, we will take a closer look at the issue.

Best regards,
Andre

[Amos Kater]

The problem seems to be stopped, however my plugin is version 3.3.1 how do I update? In my plugin overview it doesn’t show an avauilable update for your plugin….
Cheers

Amos

[Thomas Kolnowski]

+1 to this issue.

Hello, MotoPress team. With our hotelier client (they are on MotoPress Hotel Booking 3.80), they are still getting these “Airbnb (Not available)” bookings at 12:00 pm every day from Airbnb.

We know precisely why they are coming from Airbnb – this is due to the fact the hotelier has Airbnb Reservation Preferences set for “Advance notice > Same Day > Until 12:00pm) on certain accommodations. This is set to ensure a room does not get booked on too short of notice, so that they can allow for proper prep, cleaning and disinfection.

So what happens with these accommodations is that Airbnb blocks its own calendar for these accommodations beginning at 12:00pm each day, then that transaction is passed on to MotoPress with its next synch.

Out hotelier’s admin staff are “shocked” (using their words) when they see these bogus bookings appear on the MotoPress admin calendar. Then they have to check the native Airbnb calendar and also Glamping Hub (another OTA) to make sure they are indeed not legitimate bookings they need to prepare for.

All of these “Airbnb (Not available)” bookings have the same format as they come from Airbnb, as shown in the iCal excerpt below:

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200416
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200415
UID:[email protected]
SUMMARY:Airbnb (Not available)

What we need is one of these 3 proposed solutions:

1) Exclude all “Airbnb (Not available)” transactions from generating imported bookings on the MotoPress calendar. In other words, ignore these when the iCalendar file is parsed.

2) Import the “Airbnb (Not available)” transactions, but code them with a different color or special text on the MotoPress admin calendar so they are immediately recognizable by the hotelier staff.

3) Another option would be to provide a check box setting from MotoPress > Accommodation > Settings “Exclude Imported Non-Reservation Events”

Thank you again for your consideration on this issue.

Best,

Thomas Kolnowski
Digitized House Media, LLC

[Sebahattin Enes Arslan]

The latest updates didn’t solve this issue for me neither. Hope you guys find a solution soon!

[J. Davis]

Hi Thomas and Sebahattin,

Most likely Airbnb intentionally adds such availability settings to ical file to notify other platforms that certain dates should be blocked across all the platforms. You should not worry about it since our plugin removes such bookings automatically if they are not present in the ical file during the next import session.

As for your case Sebahattin – so you may try to delete all the imported Bookings and import them again. If the issue is not resolved I’d kindly ask you to submit a request to our support team providing examples and screenshots of the issue you have experienced.

best regards,
J. Davis

[Sebahattin Enes Arslan]

Hi J!
But how can I delete all bookings in bulk? Is there a sql table or can I remove the entries of a specific accommodation somehow within WP (all at once)? Deleting the ical-import URL of airbnb etc. in the calendar settings of mphb didn’t help.

Regards

[Author]

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