For Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo hosts
Stop double-booking your rental — without paying for a channel manager
If you list the same place on Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo, none of them tell the others when a guest books. You block the dates by hand, and the one time you forget costs you a refunded payout and a penalty. Channel managers fix this for $30–60 a month, which is hard to justify for one or two units. iCal Merge does just this part for free, and adds the host tools for $5 a month.
How it works
- Paste each channel's calendar link. Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo each export an iCal link for a listing. Add them to one iCal Merge calendar.
- You get one merged calendar. Every booking from every channel, with the channel's name in front of it, on a single link that updates itself.
- Import that link back into each channel. Each channel reads the merged calendar and blocks the nights the others have booked. No more blocking dates by hand.
Worth being straight about the limit: channels read imported calendars on their own schedule, usually every few hours. Any iCal-based tool, this one included, narrows the double-booking window rather than closing it completely. Anyone promising real-time is overselling.
Step-by-step guide with the export and import screens for each channel
What Pro adds for hosts
- Double-booking alerts. When two channels claim the same night, you get an email, one per clash, before it turns into a cancelled stay and a penalty.
- Turnover buffer days. Block one or more days after each checkout so a back-to-back booking can't strand your cleaner.
- A schedule for your cleaner. A separate link that turns each checkout into a "Clean" task. No guest names, nothing private.
Pricing
$5/month or $4.17/month billed annually
Merging is free for one calendar with up to three feeds. Pro covers up to 10 calendars, one per property, and adds the host tools above. For comparison: one prevented double-booking usually covers a year or more of it, and a channel manager runs $360–720 a year.