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Calendar issues

Chris Ortega
Jun 30, 2020 7:48 AM
Joined Dec, 2017 1 post

My calendar for one of my houses keeps blocking and then unblocking itself. People cannot book for one particular house for next May 1-June 29, 2021. I get 40 emails per day saying "calendar blocked" or "calendar dates canceled"

It is really annoying and I cannot fix the calendar to make this go away. What can I do?

Owner Rez says the issue is the Booking.com Calendar and Booking.com says the issue is the Owner Rez calendar. Ahhhhhhh

Please help.

Ken T
Jun 30, 2020 8:12 AM
OR Team Member Joined Aug, 2019 1474 posts

When you are not using an API connection, but just iCal calendar feeds, OwnerRez creates bookings and blocks based on imported data send to us in the iCal calendar feeds you've imported. When a new event appears in the calendar feed that we haven't seen before, we create a booking; when that event disappears from the feed, we cancel it.

Unfortunately, the various listing channels tend to create events in the calendar feed that aren't really bookings. For example, when a guest starts through the booking process, the dates they've selected will be blocked off, even though they haven't completed the booking process and made a real booking. This makes a certain amount of sense, since you wouldn't want two people booking the same dates at the same time.

However, because of the way the iCal standard works, this leads to the kind of whiplash you're seeing, as "bookings" bounce in and out of existence.

To prevent this, where possible, OwnerRez tries to identify what's a real booking and what isn't. That's why we recommend using the setting to import "Bookings Only", not "All Events". This generally solves this problem.

Unfortunately, we can only do this if the channel provides some sort of status flag in the calendar feed from which we can determine which events really are bookings and which aren't. VRBO does. Airbnb also does, but it's not completely reliable. Currently, it looks like Booking.com does not.

This is one major reason why we recommend to use API connections wherever possible - they don't have this problem.

Amber D
Dec 30, 2023 2:12 PM
Joined Aug, 2023 1 post

We are currently API integrated and having this same problem with OwnerRez. It blocked off our entire calendar indefinitely while we were out of town for Christmas. All channels are blocked. VRBO, AirBNB, and our personal Website all blocked off from OwnerRez with no actual reservations. OwnerRez shows calendar is open with no bookings but will not let anyone book. Extremely frustrating 

Ken T
Dec 30, 2023 2:42 PM
OR Team Member Joined Aug, 2019 1474 posts

Please write in to the Helpdesk with some examples and screenshots of what you're seeing, so we can take a look.  Unfortunately though, due to the holidays it may be a few days before we're able to fully investigate.