How to Sync Your Airbnb and Vrbo Calendars

Double bookings are one of the biggest headaches hosts face, and usually, the booking calendar is the culprit, especially if you list on both Airbnb and Vrbo. But can you link Airbnb and Vrbo calendars and remove (or at least significantly reduce) your chance of double bookings? Short answer — Yes.

Airbnb and Vrbo (HomeAway) use the same iCal calendar format and can easily be synced with each other and with other calendars like your Google calendar.

Follow this quick two-step process to learn how to sync your Airbnb and Vrbo calendars.

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Pro Tip: Your Airbnb and Vrbo calendar sync usually takes 2+ hours to update. For a real-time sync that prevents double bookings, use a channel manager.

Step 1: Import Your Airbnb iCal Calendar into Vrbo

The first step to linking your Airbnb and Vrbo calendars is getting the Airbnb iCal URL for the calendar you want to sync.

1. Go to your Airbnb dashboard > Listings and select a listing
2. Go to Pricing and availability > Calendar sync
3. Click Export Calendar
4. Copy the Airbnb calendar link/URL

Now you have the Airbnb iCal calendar URL copied, it’s time to import it into Vrbo.

5. In your Vrbo.com (or HomeAway) account, select the property you want to edit
6. Click Calendar in the left navigation menu, then click Reservations
7. Click the Import/Export arrows icon in the top right, and click Import Calendar
8. Name your calendar (e.g., ‘Airbnb’), and choose a color
9. Paste your Airbnb calendar link/URL
10. Make sure the calendar is set to ‘block’ your calendar availability (this should be selected by default)
11. Click Import Calendar

Your Vrbo calendar will now pull in bookings from Airbnb.

Step 2: Import Your Vrbo iCal Calendar into Airbnb

We need to do the same thing, but in reverse—sync your Vrbo calendar with Airbnb.

1. In your Vrbo.com (or HomeAway) account, select the property you want to edit
2. Click Calendars in the left navigation menu, then click Reservations
3. Click the Import/Export arrows icon in the top right, and click Export Calendar
4. Copy the Vrbo calendar link/URL
5. On Airbnb.com, go to Host and select Listing
6. Click Availability and scroll down until you see Sync calendars
7. Under Sync calendars, select Import Calendar
8. Paste the URL for your Vrbo calendar into the Calendar address (URL) field
9. Name your calendar (e.g. ‘Vrbo’)
10. Click Import calendar

And that’s it!

Your Airbnb and Vrbo calendars are now synced and should automatically re-sync about every 2 hours.

Here’s a YouTube video explaining how to sync Airbnb and Vrbo calendars.

How to Avoid Double Bookings with a Channel Manager

It’s important to be aware that your calendars won’t update immediately. After you sync Airbnb and Vrbo calendars, it might take a couple of hours to update. This means there’s a chance that a guest could book on one platform, and another guest could book the same dates on another platform in the time it takes for your calendar to update.

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However, depending on how often you’re getting bookings, the chances that two guests book the same dates within a few hours of each other should be low.

If you’re still concerned about the possibility of double bookings, you do have some options.

1. Manually Refresh Your Calendars

You can manually sync Airbnb and Vrbo calendars by clicking the Update/Refresh buttons in your Airbnb or Vrbo account dashboard whenever you get a new booking. If you’re syncing your calendars to avoid manually updating them, then this isn’t the best solution. But if you’re available as booking notifications come in, or you aren’t using Instant Book, this is something you could consider doing.

2. Use a Vacation Rental Channel Manager

The easiest and most effective way to avoid double bookings is to use a channel manager. There are lots of vacation rental management software platforms (such as Lodgify) that offer channel management to keep your Airbnb, Vrbo, website, and other booking calendars synced. Check out our post on the best vacation rental channel managers for recommendations.

To avoid the time delay, ensure the channel manager you choose uses an API integration rather than relying on iCal calendar sync (which is the process we covered in this post).

This post covers how to link Airbnb and Vrbo calendars. For more information on how to sync other vacation rental calendars (like Booking.com and others), check out our Vacation Rental Calendar Sync Guide.

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Written by The Floorspace Team

This article was written as a collaborative effort by multiple members of the Floorspace team. We're a group of internet marketers and designers, with a wide range of experience marketing and managing short-term rentals.