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March 28, 2016, by KathyandJim

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I have my Bookerville calendar linked to my VRBO calendar and it works great, however. The last name of the guest who is booked shows up on my VRBO calendar and I do NOT want that. VRBO does not need to know who I booked, they only need to know that the week is not available. Is there a way to change the ical link so that it does NOT carry over the name of the booking from Bookerville?

13 Responses:

John Amato, March 28, 2016:

No, unfortunately at this time we cannot provide that.

May we ask: why are you so adamant that the last name of the guest not appear on the VRBO calendar?

KathyandJim, March 28, 2016:

Absolutely, John! VRBO/HA has recently begun charging travelers a 5-10% service fee if they book my property through their dashboard. They are pushing for us to take all payments through their dashboard so that they can collect that fee from the traveler. If we book people who found us on VRBO but do not use their payment system, we are penalized and our listing moves further down on a search. I rarely process payments through them. I either collect a check or process credit card payments through Authorize Net on Bookerville. With the guest name being on the reservation, it will be easy for VRBO to track that these people found us on VRBO and then opted to pay off their site rather than pay the service fee. Does that make sense?

John Amato, March 29, 2016:

I follow what you're saying, but are you 100% certain they are doing this, and also 100% certain they are able to connect the dots on a mere first initial - last name basis?

(I mean, that kind of flimsy evidence sure wouldn't hold up in court...)

GoToMoab, March 29, 2016:

A bit off topic for names on VRBO calendar but I do have a question on VRBO Calendar Sync and can't seem to find elsewhere... I have successfully added my Bookerville import url to update my VRBO calendar but it does not seem to be real time. I deleted a cancelled booking and reimported my calendar but the reservation remains in VRBO. Also, I have added a few dates for maintenance in Bookerville but this is not populating VRBO calendar. I need help understanding this.

KathyandJim, March 29, 2016:

John,
I sent you a screen shot of my calendar by email. This only happens on VRBO. I have the Bookerville calendar linked to Flipkey and all that shows is "Other Booking" for the same dates. Gotomoab, did you try telling your VRBO calendar to sync now and see if it corrects?

GoToMoab, March 29, 2016:

@KathyandJim,

Thanks for the reply...

I did try that. I have tried it repeatedly. I am not sure if it is a VRBO or Bookerville sync issue. Hoping John can shed some light or point me in the right direction.

GoToMoab, March 29, 2016:

To Update and help understand the problem... I deleted the url link to sync Bookerville with VRBO, re-added and synced again and it worked. Seems it works with an initial sync but ongoing syncing does not work or has a lag. Hoping to understand this better for future use.

John Amato, March 29, 2016:

Thanks for answering GoToMoab's question.

I think that FlipKey is simply ignoring the guest name info. that appears in Bookerville's iCal feeds.

I'm not saying we are refusing to address this Kathy, but I need you to be 100% certain that they are using this info. in some nefarious way, because it's a pretty big deal for us to change it. We would have to make it configurable, because I know there are many managers who are using the Bookerville iCal feeds for a variety of uses, and if we simply remove the guest names, they are going to scream...

KathyandJim, March 29, 2016:

I totally understand, John. I am not trying to say VRBO is using the information in a nefarious way. I can't prove something like that nor would I even try. I just know they are cracking down pretty tightly. I will leave it alone for now since I really like having Bookerville as my primary calendar and linking the others to it. If it becomes an issue, I'll remove the link to Bookerville and block dates manually on VRBO. I just didn't know if there was a setting someplace that I was missing.

John Amato, March 29, 2016:

Fair enough Kathy, and please update us when you have some more data. If it really does become obvious that it's hurting sales or inquiries, we will address this.

Thanks,

John

GoToMoab, March 29, 2016:

Don't mean to hijack this thread and if there is a better way to learn more about syncing my Bookerville and VRBO calendars, I'd be happy for some links or direction to the information but my question was not answered.

I have the Bookerville export iCal URL in as a subscribed calendar in VRBO. I expected that every time I hit sync now, any changes I had in Bookerville would populate VRBO. This does not happen. I have to delete the subscription and re-add it to VRBO and re-run it. Is this how this is supposed to work or am I doing something wrong? It seems clunky to have to go between both apps and copy and paste the URL each time I want to sync my calendars.

John Amato, March 30, 2016:

Honestly GoToMoab, I'm not sure. What I have heard from many managers is that VRBO reads the external iCal feeds "several times a day". So if you wait a few hours (?) you should see it update. Have you tried that?

As for pushing the button in the VRBO dashboard to re-load it instantly, I don't know why that's not working, but sure sounds like something that you'd need to take up with VRBO. Bookerville can't fix it...

Let us know what you learn.

Also - for more information (I obtained this by simply entering "Bookerville iCal sync" into Google):

http://www.bookerville.com/SynchronizingGoogleAndVrboCalendars

Let me know if you need further help, Ok?

John

rkmaui.com, February 11, 2017:

Good day. My question is similar but not....
I import nightly from VRBO to Bookerville and I receive only the dates of the bookings. I would also like the names (first, last or just last) brought over. I also import from VRBO to Google calendar and the names are included. Can this be done with Bookerville. Again this is FROM VRBO to BOOKERVILLE. Thanks!!

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