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Double booking (overbooking)

A double booking, or overbooking, happens when the same night at the same property is sold twice, usually on two platforms whose calendars do not sync in time.

In short-term rentals, a double booking is almost always a sync accident. The classic scenario: a guest books your Saturday on Booking.com at 10 a.m.; Airbnb only reads the iCal feed in the early afternoon; in the meantime, a second guest books the same Saturday on Airbnb. You are left with a cancellation to make and, often, an unhappy guest to rehouse.

How to avoid it

  • one calendar as the source of truth: a channel manager connected by API closes the night on the other channels within seconds;
  • direct bookings, by phone or WhatsApp, entered in the same calendar;
  • for a riad, room-by-room sync, and a “whole riad” offer that closes every room;
  • no more price changes or blocks made directly on the platforms.

In hotels, the term also describes a deliberate practice: selling more rooms than exist, betting on cancellations. For a single home, that bet makes no sense. Our channel manager guide for Morocco explains why an API connection changes everything.

More terms from the glossary

The whole glossary

  • iCal

    iCal is a calendar format (.ics) that booking platforms publish and read from each other to share busy dates, without prices or guest data.

  • Individual accommodation form

    The individual accommodation form (“bulletin individuel d'hébergement”) is the form every guest of a tourist accommodation fills in and signs on arrival under article 37 of law 80-14; it is the official name of the police form.

  • Law 80-14

    Law 80-14 governs tourist establishments and other forms of tourist accommodation in Morocco: categories, operating authorization, classification, insurance and guest declaration.