Calendar Sync Not Working - Ongoing Problems
Yet again, Booking.com calendar sync has lost the exports to other OTAs and I've had another double booking.
This happens with all of our properties on Booking.com. The problem is only with Booking.com. Other OTAs sync properly with each other, but none of them can sync properly with Booking.com. Other owners tell us they are having the same problems.
I have reported the calendar sync problems to Booking.com. The i**** support staff tell us all sorts of nonsense about how it's our job to manually refresh every few hours and things like that. The whole point of calendar sync is to automate a manual process and prevent double bookings.
Does anyone know how to get in touch with someone at Booking.com who has more than one brain cell and can get the Booking.com tech team to fix it?
Indeed, as someone who works in IT 20+ years and specfically deals in automation in recent years, I totally agree this is an embarassment for BDC.
Because of it I had to disable it and not use other sites, just BDC for now.
Manual sync is totally unacceptible.
Update: July 2020
I now use the smart phone apps to block on other OTA once a booking is received asap.
I have had this problem twice. Last one was yesterday. I'm thinking about no using booking anymore. Most of my reservations came from airbnb. I can lose a lot of money because of this sync problem with booking....
I have had same problem twice and now I have to disable BDC. also same problem with staff, no problem solved.
Same problem here. I have disabled Booking.com until this is resolved
sign up for a 3rd party channel manager service such as cloudbeds or nobeds, and it is not an issue any more
Got/had the same problems BdC need to fix it so sync activates each time a booking is changed/added. Not difficult.
I have experienced the exact same problem not once not twice but numerous times. Within the last few days I had to contact the guests myself to ask them kindly to cancel their booking as the rooms they booked were not available. Calendars were not synced resulting double bookings. Same happened last night with another booking. I spent hours on the phone with a booking agent (or 2 or 3...) reassuring me that they'd contact the guest, they'd resolve the issue and blah blah blah...next thing I know is the messages I received advising: "we tried to contact the guest, they don't reply to our calls or emails. If they come to your property advise them to call Booking..." Nice one, right? You have a guest turning up at your doorstep, after god knows how many hours journey and you tell them..."sorry love, booking's calendar not syncing but give them a call.."
9 months later and it's still happening!
2.4.22 - Just had to call a guest to ask her to cancel as she'd managed to book a date that's been blocked out in our availability calendar for months. Bookings from booking.com don't show up in my gmail calendar, and I'm having to manually sync 3 - 4 times a day. It's such a massive pain in the a&& and I don't know why they can't just fix it. I never have this issue with Airnbnb
For everyone finding this old discussion ....... Booking.com deliberately designed their calendar sync to allow double bookings ..... read what Didem, community manager, says in this more recent thread ...
https://partner.booking.com/en-gb/community/booking-advice-and-updates/…