Important changes to HomeAway Connect calendar export featur

[MyVRZone]

If you received this notification from HomeAway and do not already have a HomeAway paid listing, then they are saying that you will not be able to use their calendar - can't link to it or use their ICAL feed to populate other calendars such as on your smartphone or PC, or any other listing sites that happen to use it (AirBnB).

If you are in that position and need a free alternative then please let me know.

Cheers,
Neil

[roxytoo]

I had the email too. I use it for all my listings on my site, is it saying they won't let me do that anymore?

[MyVRZone]

I had the email too. I use it for all my listings on my site, is it saying they won't let me do that anymore?

It depends on whether you are paying them something...

If you don't have a paid listing with them (at one of the HomeAway sites), then you'll not be able to use it any more.

If you do have a paid listing then nothing will change - you can continue to use it.

If you have more than one property, then it's not clear whether a single paid listing would allow you to use HAC for more than one property - I would assume not, they can easily check for a paid listing for each property.

Thanks,
Neil

[roxytoo]

Sorry its still not clear for me! I have a paid listing myself for my own property. I use it for 40 other properties (all set up free when it was rentors.org) who don't have paid listings with them. Are they pulling the plug on those?

[MyVRZone]

Sorry its still not clear for me! I have a paid listing myself for my own property. I use it for 40 other properties (all set up free when it was rentors.org) who don't have paid listings with them. Are they pulling the plug on those?

... yes - they are only going to provide this service for each paid listing in future.

Neil

[MyVRZone]

My apologies for misinterpreting this announcement:

It looks like only exporting the availability information via iCAL will be restricted (to gCal, phones, tablets, PC's etc).

There should be no change to linking to it online - for now, they are still providing that service for free.

If you currently link to the calendar then nothing should change for now.

Kind Regards,
Neil

[Little Villa]

I have no trouble signing into the HA Connect calendar and amending it. (It looks different now, pink and a bit like an OD calendar) However, the old style calendar still shows on my Independent Owners site and it isn't getting updated with my new bookings. Does this mean I need to get a new calendar? I've tried changing the url as they tell you, but it isn't working.

We do appear to be listed on HA, but it must be via OD.

I only use this calendar because the one provided by Independent Owners does not display on mobiles or iPads and I want one that is not from another listing site.

Very grateful for any help or suggestions. Thanks.

[wallypott]

PIMS now has an ical export feature that I have successfully exported to AirBnB, Flipkey, Outlook, google calendar, ical on macbook and iphone. Actually its worked better than ER expected I think. So far its worked everywhere I've tried!

[Sam V]

How do you get it on your iPhone?

[Sam V]

How do you get it on your iPhone?

Oh! Oh! That was easy! Sussed it myself!

I emailed the iCal URL from my iPad to my iPhone, the email arrived and when I highlighted the url to copy and paste, as I thought id have to post it into a calendar setting, a prompt popped up asking if I wanted to add it, I accepted and its instantly added to my iPhones calendars!

[wallypott]

Open ical.

Go into calendars top left

Click on edit top left

scroll down to add calendar (I've done it under ical)

paste in the link from Pims/settings/remote calendars/ical

And in theory Bobs your uncle!

Or alternatively your method sounds much better - I bet we've made quite a lot of people happy this evening!

[Sam V]

Such fun!

[e-richard]

Such fun!

Oh dear.
Someone else who found that playing with iCal at 1am in the morning - was fun ?

[Hells Bells]

. It wasn't 1am , but I was playing around with it too. Not showing up on my Iphone this morning though