How to update your calendar availability

Understand the importance of keeping your calendar up-to-date, and read all about the manual and automatic solutions of the availability settings.

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• Automatic availability updates
• Calendar import
• Calendar export
• Manual updates

There is nothing worse from a potential tenant’s point of view than when they make a reservation request for a property that appears as available – but then the landlord declines it because it’s actually unavailable. This is the reason for rejection that we do not tolerate at Flatio, as it affects the credibility of both landlords and the Flatio service itself. Therefore, it falls into the so-called unauthorized rejections, which we count into the 3 Rejections Rule. That's why we offer several ways to keep your availability up-to-date so you can avoid unnecessary rejections.

Automatic availability updates

If you also advertise your property on Airbnb, Booking, or other platforms that use iCal calendar format, this solution will be useful for you. Simply export a Flatio calendar for each of your listings and insert it into those platforms, and then import their calendar into Flatio. The import ensures that any bookings from the other platforms will be automatically entered into our system and your property will be shown as "unavailable" during those dates. On the other hand, exporting a Flatio calendar and importing it into other services ensures that when you approve a reservation request in our system, it will be automatically shared with the other platforms you use and your property will show as unavailable there.

Below you can find out how to handle the automatic availability updates of your properties via the My Rentals web application.

Calendar import

For us to be able to get the availability of your listing shared on another platform, it is necessary to import the listing's availability calendar from the platform into Flatio.

1. Go to the Properties section, select the property for which you wish to edit the availability, and enter the Availability section.
2. Scroll down to find the Calendar synchronization part.
3. In the Calendar name field under "Import", fill in a name that makes it easy for you to find out which calendar it is (so, for example, "Airbnb", "Airbnb calendar", etc.)
4. Paste the calendar URL address copied from the extern platform into the Calendar address (URL) field. Please do not confuse the calendar URL with the property URL on the extern service!
5. If the calendar link belongs to Airbnb, Booking, Vrbo, or LovelyStay, you will also have the option to choose whether you wish to import all unavailable dates (i.e., even manually entered unavailability) or only unavailability based on bookings (i.e., only dates of confirmed bookings).
6. Press the Import calendar button to download the availability from the service. We will then be able to show the most up-to-date information on the property availability to your potential tenants.

NOTE: The calendar of each platform you use to rent out the listing must be imported separately.

Calendar export

To pass on the information about your listing's availability on Flatio to other platforms, make sure you export your Flatio calendar and import it into the used platforms.

1. Go to the Properties section, select the property for which you wish to edit the availability, and enter the Availability section.
2. Scroll down to find the Calendar synchronization part.
3. Under the "Export" part, copy the shown calendar URL address of the listing, and paste it into the used platform's import option.
4. Choose whether you wish to export all unavailable dates (i.e., even manually entered unavailability) or only unavailability caused by reservations (i.e., only dates of approved reservation requests).

NOTE: The Flatio calendar needs to be exported (and inserted) into all platforms that you use to rent out the listing and for which a calendar import has already been done.

To make it easier to perform these tasks, we also enclose instructions for synchronizing calendars in the most frequently used rental services:

• Airbnb (here),
• Booking (here),
• VRBO (here),
• TripAdvisor (here),
• Supercontrol (export, import),
• Beds24 (here).

Manual updates

Don't have an iCal calendar and so can’t use the system above? No problem! You can also make manual updates to your calendar. This option is also suitable if you like to experiment with booking dates.

1. Go to the Properties section, select the property for which you wish to edit the availability, and enter the Availability section.
2. On the right side of the shown calendar, fill in the newly available/unavailable date range.
3. Save the changes.

Note: The red-tinted field in the calendar means it's unavailable, while green means it's available. When you create a new property listing, it's always shown on our system as completely available until you change it.