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Cancel external bookings and how that affects importing iCals

This guide will help to stop external bookings from reinserting back into your account after a cancellation has taken place.

Cancelling an external OTA booking:

The best way to cancel an external OTA booking when you have iCals sharing in place, is to cancel the booking at its originating source i.e Airbnb, Pitchup, VRBO so you can follow the cancellation policies they set. 

Then, allow 30 minutes for the iCal to drop off their iCal feed.

It's worth logging into your Anytime booking account and then click on the cancel booking button.  

Just remember that although we update our exporting iCal feeds every few minutes, the external OTA will read iCals at varying times. Do allow up to 30 minutes or more for the availability to be updated in the external calendar. 

Please note: If you cancel the booking in Anytime first and not in the OTA,  this can make the booking re-insert back into your Anytime account.


Cancelling a Direct booking whilst sharing availability through iCals.

If you have a direct booking which needs to be cancelled, the best practice is to cancel the booking the normal way (read more here on how to cancel a direct booking).

Just remember that although we update our exporting iCal feeds every few minutes, the external OTA will read iCals at varying times. Do allow up to 30 minutes or more for the availability to be updated in the external calendar. 

 

1st April 2022 Update:
A tick box is now available on the iCal page to opt in to cancellations and amendments through iCal. Once ticked only OTA bookings from that time on will have the coding to auto cancel or amend. For amended bookings, the original booking reference and all existing booking data with it will be cancelled, and a new booking will be inserted with the new dates.