An Airbnb booking is not blocked on my site: what should I check?

iCal re-read delay, wrong feed URL, stopped scheduled task or wrong time zone: what to do when an Airbnb booking does not show up on your site.

If a booking taken on Airbnb does not yet appear on your site, the cause is usually one of these four: the normal iCal re-read delay, an incorrect or outdated feed URL, the WordPress scheduled task no longer running, or a wrongly set time zone that shifts the dates. GDA Kraft Booking re-reads each imported feed every 15 minutes when the scheduled task is working: beyond that, a check is needed. The same method applies to Booking.com and Vrbo.

Step 1: is it simply the normal delay?

iCal sync is never instant (see What is iCal?). Note the time of the booking on Airbnb, then open Kraft Booking › Planning & rates, Syncs tab, and read the "Last status" column of the Airbnb feed: last sync date and any message.

What you see	Likely diagnosis
Booking made less than 15 minutes ago	Normal delay: wait for the next re-read or click Sync
Recent last sync, booking missing	URL or listing problem, or event skipped ("conflicts skipped"): step 2
Old last sync (more than an hour ago)	Scheduled task stopped: step 3
Error message on the feed	Invalid or unreachable URL: step 2
Booking present but shifted by a day	Time zone: step 4

Step 2: is the feed URL correct?

On Airbnb, open the calendar of the listing concerned and copy its export URL (in the listing's availability settings, under calendar sync, export calendar).
Compare it with the one saved in your Kraft Booking feed. A common mistake: pasting the URL of another listing, or your own export URL instead of Airbnb's.
If it differs, replace it in the feed ("Remote URL"), save, then click Sync in Planning & rates › Syncs.
Check that an external block appears on the expected dates. If "Last status" reports "conflicts skipped", the event overlaps an existing booking or days closed by the listing's rules (05 Booking tab: days blocked before or after each stay, nights closed, minimum notice before arrival): it is then not imported.

If you have several units, make sure each feed is attached to the right unit. The full procedure is in iCal sync with Airbnb and Booking.com.

Step 3: is the scheduled task running?

If Sync works but the last sync date then stops moving, automatic re-reading is blocked. It relies on WP-Cron, which only runs when a visitor loads a page: on a low-traffic site, particularly at night, re-reading falls behind.

There is no dedicated scheduled-tasks screen: the History & alerts table in Planning & rates › Syncs lists every run with its date. When no re-read has succeeded for more than 3 hours, a warning appears in the admin and an email is sent (Settings › "iCal sync alerts"). Setting up a real cron job with your host is described in the “Cron is not running” section of Troubleshooting.

Step 4: are the dates shifted?

If the booking appears but starts or ends a day too early or too late:

Check the WordPress time zone in Settings › General: choose a city (for example London or Dublin) rather than a fixed UTC offset, so that daylight saving time is handled.
Remember that in iCal, the end date is the departure day, which stays free for a new arrival: that is not a shift.
After correcting it, run a sync again and compare the two calendars visually.

What should you do in the meantime?

If a date risks being sold twice while you investigate, block it temporarily by hand on your site, then remove the block once sync is working again. If two bookings already overlap, follow Booking conflict: what should you do?. To reduce the risk in future, see Preventing double bookings.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my Airbnb booking take time to appear?

GDA Kraft Booking re-reads the Airbnb feed every 15 minutes, provided the WordPress scheduled task runs. On a site with few visitors and no real cron job, this delay can grow longer.

Bookings from my site do not appear on Airbnb: is it the same problem?

It is the opposite direction: Airbnb re-reads your export URL at its own pace, often every one to several hours. Check that the URL pasted into Airbnb is the unit's current "Outgoing feed" link.

I replaced my export address: what should I do?

There is no regenerate button: replacing the address means archiving the old feed, whose link stops working, and creating a new one. Paste the new link on every platform that used the old one. Until you do, the platforms no longer see bookings taken on your site.

The imported block does not show the guest's name: is that normal?

Yes. The iCal format only carries dates and a brief label; the guest's contact details stay on Airbnb.