To sync Airbnb and Booking.com calendars, you exchange iCal links in both directions: each portal reads your calendar, and your calendar reads each portal. Once both links are in place, a night booked on one side is blocked on the others within minutes. Without that, one distracted afternoon is enough for two guests to pay for the same dates.
This post covers what iCal carries, why a double booking can still happen with sync on, how to set it up, and what to check afterwards.
See how huttoro keeps one calendar for direct bookings and portals
iCal carries occupied dates and nothing else
iCal is a link to a calendar file. Anyone who has the link can read the booked periods from it. Each period has a start and an end, which are the arrival and the departure date.
The guest's name, phone, price and notes are not in it. The other side learns only that those nights are taken.
| What a booking holds | Does iCal carry it |
|---|---|
| Occupied dates, arrival and departure | ✓ |
| Guest name, phone and e-mail | ✗ |
| Price and payment status | ✗ |
| Notes and number of guests | ✗ |
| Nightly rates and minimum stay | ✗ |
Rates are not synced either, so you keep setting them in each portal. huttoro has no direct connection to either portal, sync runs through iCal only.
Why a double booking can still happen with sync on
iCal is not instant. huttoro pulls the calendar of each portal every 15 minutes, and each portal pulls yours on its own schedule, which you do not control. Between two pulls, one side does not yet know about a new booking on the other.
That window is short, but it is not zero. If two guests book the same night inside it, you have a double booking. Sync makes this rare, not impossible.
When it does happen, huttoro shows it. The calendar gets a red strip with a warning, and an e-mail can follow. Nothing is cancelled or overwritten for you, the decision stays with you.
How to sync Airbnb and Booking.com calendars in both directions
Each portal needs two links: yours, which you give to the portal, and the portal's, which you give to huttoro. Start with yours.
- Open the property and go to the Calendar tab. At the bottom is the card "Calendar sync (iCal)". There is one row for the whole property and, on a property with several units, one row per unit, each with a Copy button.
- Paste the link into the portal, in the place where it imports a calendar through iCal. Menu names differ, so look for calendar import or sync. From then on the portal reads your confirmed reservations and blocks. Give each listing the link of its own unit.
- Go the other way. In each portal, find its calendar export link and copy it.
- Back in huttoro, on the same card, find "Calendars from portals". Fill in a name, paste the link and, if the property has units, pick the unit. Press Add. The link must start with https. If it starts with webcal, change webcal to https.
Keep one calendar as the main one
Make huttoro the main calendar. Direct bookings, manual blocks and your own stays go in there, and the portals read from it. Do not enter the same dates by hand in two places.
A block that came from a portal is released at the portal. The next pull would bring it back, so huttoro does not let you free a block whose link is still connected.
A booking made on your own website appears in your outgoing link once it is confirmed. In huttoro that happens when the first payment arrives or when you confirm it yourself. A portal blocks those dates only at its next pull, and until then the night is still open there. That is the same window as above.
What to check after you connect
Verify that it works before the first guest arrives, and check each unit, because each has its own link.
- Within a quarter of an hour, the days booked on the portals appear in the huttoro calendar, marked with their source. If nothing shows up, check the link and make sure it starts with https.
- Block one night far ahead in huttoro, find it unavailable in the portal after a while, then remove the block.
- In the reservation list, imported blocks are rows of their own, without a guest name or a price.
- Look for a red strip in the calendar. It means two sources claim the same date.
If you later remove a portal link, the days already imported stay on the calendar and simply stop updating. You can then free them one by one.
Summary
- iCal carries occupied dates, not guests and not rates.
- huttoro pulls portal calendars every 15 minutes, and each portal pulls yours on its own schedule.
- In the gap between two pulls a double booking can still happen, and huttoro shows it.
- You connect two directions: your link into the portal, the portal's link into huttoro.
- huttoro is the main calendar and the portals read from it.
What to do now
- Copy the link from "Calendar sync (iCal)" and paste it into both portals, one listing per unit.
- Copy each portal's export link and add it under "Calendars from portals".
- Block a test night far ahead and confirm it shows as unavailable on both portals.
