Applying iCals to an already-connected Pitchup.com listing This guide is for anyone who is already accepting bookings from Pitchup.com
The benefit of adding in iCals to your already-connected Pitchup.com account is to avoid the Tetris effect (you can read more on that affect here).
Traditionally, when a booking comes through from Pitchup.com it is assigned to the next available pitch (sub-unit) in order. We call this the 'web hook'. They simply send over the booking details, which are then inserted to create a booking in your Anytime account.
Pitchup.com will always see the full allocation, or the total number of pitches to sell on any given day for each parent unit. This is absolutely fine until you start to run out of availability. The danger, or the Tetris effect as we've called it since 2013, is Pitchup can see there is availability for 5 nights, but that could be over 2 different pitches. so the booking can't be inserted. We'll send you a message the moment this happens. The quick remedy is to move some bookings around to free up the space to accept the booking in.
If you are a self-allocator, then you are overriding the number of available pitches with your own level.
If you want to avoid the Tetris affect, then we advise that full allocation is switched on and iCals are also placed onto your account. This is a two-part process.
Step 1: Your Pitchup.com listing must be switched off whilst iCals are being applied to each pitch.
Please contact Pitchup.com to switch off your listing whilst the task of applying the iCals are taking place. This can be a little labour intensive, and if Anytime's team has been actioned to copy and paste the iCal URLs there may be an account administration charge.
Step 2: Remapping to ensure bookings are mirrored on both sides.
This next stage is important. When you were using the connection originally, all the new incoming bookings from Pitchup.com would have been already placed in to your Anytime account in pitch (sub-unit) order. The exercise now is to ensure that all the booking are on the same pitch number on both Pitchup.com and Anytime.
Only when this mirroring effort has been completed will your Pitchup.com listing be made active again. Please contact Pitchup.com for reactivation.
At this point you are now in sync. The difference now is when the booking is coming through from Pitchup.com, we are making sure the booking heads straight into the corresponding pitch in which the iCal URL has been assigned.
Please note: Online travel agents (OTAs) only read bookings and block-offs. Therefore, if you want to stop availability for certain periods, make sure you have a rate band in place and then block off the period in your Anytime Account. If you have any further questions, please contact the support team.