Import Bookings From Email and iCal

When a booking source is not on your channel manager, Frontdesko can read partner confirmation emails forwarded to a private address and sync iCal calendars. Reservations or blocks appear on one tape chart, with a review queue for anything unclear.

By the Frontdesko team • Last updated 31 October 2026

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What if a booking source is not on your channel manager?

An illustrative Thursday at a 12-room lodge near Ubud. The lodge, partner emails and times are invented to show the screens; they are not a customer account.

Time	What happens	Where in Frontdesko
08:05	A retreat-booking partner sends the lodge a confirmation email, “New Guest - Nomadico/…”. A filter in the lodge’s mailbox forwards everything from that partner to a private forwarding address. Nobody touches it.	Booking Email Import → Sources, forward-to address
08:06	The parser reads guest name, dates, guests, the room label and the total. The label matches a room type, so a reservation appears on the tape chart with the partner’s name as its source and the email’s total locked as the price.	Tape chart, new reservation
11:20	An “Updated:” email arrives for the same booking number. The existing reservation is changed rather than a duplicate created.	Review Queue status: Modified
13:45	A “Cancellation” email arrives. Cancellations carry no booking number, so the system looks for exactly one live reservation from that partner with the same guest name and dates. It finds one and cancels it, releasing its charges.	Review Queue status: Cancelled
15:30	An email names a room the lodge has never heard of and no default room type is set. It is parked as Needs review with the reason shown. The manager opens it, picks a room type, and clicks Import.	Review Queue, Import with overrides
16:10	A “Payment Reminder” email from the partner arrives. It never creates or changes a booking; at most it adds an informational note to a booking it can match confidently.	Review Queue status: Ignored
17:00	The lodge’s two-bedroom cottage is listed whole on Airbnb. Every few hours Airbnb reads the lodge’s availability feed, and by default every 30 minutes Frontdesko reads Airbnb’s calendar link. A weekend booking made on Airbnb appears as a block on the tape chart; one made at the desk shows to Airbnb as “Reserved”.	Calendar sync (iCal) → Share your availability / Import external calendars
19:30	Someone tries to book the lodge’s website with a throwaway mailbox. The booking engine refuses it and asks for a permanent email address. A different guest books from a stale page showing an old price; the stay is charged at the correct server price and the reservation gets a note telling the desk to confirm with the guest.	Booking engine; reservation notes

Most independent properties have at least one source that never made it onto a channel manager: a retreat operator that emails confirmations, a local agency, or a villa sold on Airbnb that only offers a calendar link. Without a way in, those bookings are typed by hand or live in someone’s inbox, which is how a Thursday booking and a Friday walk-in end up in the same room.

How does booking email import work?

Each partner gets a source with its own forwarding address, shown in the hotel admin under Booking Email Import. You set a filter in the hotel mailbox to forward that partner’s mail there. Frontdesko reads each email, and creates, changes or cancels the matching reservation through the normal billing path. Anything it is not sure about waits in a review queue for a person.

Setting	What it does
Forwarding address	A private address per partner, on the inbound mail subdomain Frontdesko also uses for guest replies. Use the address exactly as the admin shows it.
Parser	Generic “key: value” emails, or the Nomadico / Bookinglayer format tuned to real confirmation emails. A field map lets an admin add label synonyms or regex rules per partner.
Allowed sender domains	Optional. Mail from a domain not on the list is parsed but held for review, never applied automatically.
Default room type	Used when the email’s room or unit label does not match one of your room types.
Pricing	Fixed total from the email (locked), balance due from the email (the partner already collected a deposit), or your own hotel rates.
Auto-create	On: clear emails become reservations by themselves. Off: every email lands in the review queue for approval first.
Test with an email	Paste a subject and body to see exactly how it would be read before you switch the source on.
Message statuses	Created, Modified, Cancelled, Needs review, Ignored, Error.

What email import does not do

It is inbound only. It does not tell the partner which rooms you still have, so unlike a channel manager it cannot stop them selling a room you already gave away.
It depends on the partner’s email being readable. A source needs a parser that fits that partner’s format; an unrecognised layout goes to review, not into the calendar.
It never guesses on a cancellation or a change. If zero or several reservations match the guest and dates, the email goes to review and nothing is cancelled. A cancellation for a guest who is already checked in is also sent to review.
A change that moves the dates may need review when the partner’s email has no booking number to match on.
Test bookings (a guest name containing the word “test”) and payment reminders never change a reservation.
The same email processed twice does not create two bookings; duplicates are recognised by their message ID.

How does iCal import and export work?

iCal is the lowest-common-denominator calendar format that Airbnb, Vrbo and Google Vacation Rentals all offer. In Calendar sync (iCal) you can publish a private availability feed and subscribe to other calendars. It exchanges busy dates only: no guest names, no prices, no messages.

	Export: share your availability	Import: read an OTA calendar
What you create	A private link per feed, scoped to one room, a room type or the whole property.	A source with the OTA’s calendar URL, applied to one room, every room of a type, or every room.
What the other side sees	Busy dates labelled “Reserved”, with no guest details. A no-show frees its dates.	Their bookings become blocks on your tape chart, not reservations.
How often	The OTA polls your link, typically every few hours, at its own pace.	Frontdesko polls each source on its own interval (30 minutes by default).
When dates clash	Whole-property scope shows a date as busy if any room is booked, for a house sold whole on one listing.	If an imported booking overlaps a reservation already in Frontdesko, no block is made and the clash is listed under Conflicts. Your own booking wins.
Safety nets	Deleting a feed kills its URL immediately.	Three failed polls in a row quarantine the source. An empty or HTML response (for example an expired link) never wipes existing blocks. Links to private network addresses are rejected.

What iCal does not do

It is not real-time. Between one poll and the next, both sides can sell the same night. Pick room-level or whole-property feeds carefully and keep an eye on the Conflicts list.
It carries no money or guest data. Revenue for an iCal-blocked night must be recorded by hand, and there is no guest profile to message.
If the OTA genuinely stops publishing events, Frontdesko does not clear the blocks on its own; a human confirms a true full cancellation.

For listings where real-time matters, such as busy Airbnb or Booking.com inventory, use a two-way API connection instead. The Airbnb guide explains why iCal and two-way sync behave differently, and the channel manager page covers the paid tiers, priced from $35 to $54 a month by property size.

Why does the booking engine refuse throwaway emails?

A hotel cannot contact, bill or chase a no-show on a mailbox that disappears in ten minutes. The public booking engine refuses a short list of well-known disposable email providers and tells the guest to use a permanent address so the hotel can reach them. The list is deliberately narrow, because a false positive turns away a real guest.

The same booking endpoint prices every stay on the server and ignores the total the page claims. When the page’s quote and the server’s price differ, which happens with a stale page or a tampered request, the guest is charged the correct price and the reservation gets a staff note, “Booking engine price check”, asking the desk to confirm with the guest before they dispute the bill. Both checks apply to the direct booking engine; neither affects bookings from email import or iCal.

How do you set up email and iCal import?

List every source you currently type in by hand and sort it: partner emails (use email import), calendar links only (use iCal), live API available (use the channel manager).
For email: open Booking Email Import, add a source, choose the parser, set a default room type and pricing mode, and leave Auto-create off at first so every email lands in the review queue.
Copy the forwarding address, create a forward or filter in the hotel mailbox for that partner’s sender, and use “Test with an email” on a real past confirmation.
Review the first week of messages. When the statuses are right, switch Auto-create on.
For iCal: open Calendar sync (iCal). Create an export feed for each listing and paste it into the OTA’s calendar settings, then paste the OTA’s calendar export link into a new import source. Use Poll now to check it.
Check the Conflicts list after the first busy weekend and decide whether the scope of each feed is right.

If you run a vacation rental business, the same tools are covered in the vacation rental channel manager guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a hotel PMS import bookings from email?

Yes. In Frontdesko each partner gets a forwarding address. Forward the partner’s confirmation emails there and the system reads the guest, dates, room and price, then creates, changes or cancels the reservation. Anything unclear waits in a review queue for a person to approve.

What happens when an imported email cannot be understood?

It is parked as Needs review with the reason shown, such as an unknown room label or a missing price. A manager can open it, correct the room type, dates or price, and click Import. Nothing is applied to the calendar until then.

Does email import update the partner with my availability?

No. Email import is inbound only. It reads the partner’s confirmations but sends nothing back, so it cannot stop the partner selling a room you already gave away. For two-way availability you need a channel manager connection.

How does a cancellation email find the right booking?

Cancellation emails usually carry no booking number, so Frontdesko looks for exactly one live reservation from that partner with the same guest name and dates. If none or several match, or the guest is already checked in, the email goes to review and nothing is cancelled.

What does iCal sync exchange with Airbnb?

Busy dates only. Frontdesko publishes a private feed that shows booked dates as Reserved without guest details, and it can read the OTA’s own calendar link and block those rooms on your tape chart. No names, prices or messages travel over iCal.

How quickly does iCal sync update?

Not instantly. The OTA reads your feed on its own schedule, typically every few hours, and Frontdesko reads each imported calendar every 30 minutes by default. In between, the same night can be sold twice, so conflicts are listed for you to resolve.

What if an iCal import overlaps a booking I already have?

Frontdesko keeps your own reservation. No block is created for the overlapping imported event, and the clash appears in the Conflicts list under the import settings so you can resolve it with the guest or the OTA.

Why does the booking engine reject some email addresses?

It refuses well-known disposable email providers, because a hotel cannot contact or bill a guest who uses a throwaway mailbox. The guest is asked for a permanent address. The list is kept short on purpose so real guests are not turned away.

Get Every Booking Source Onto One Calendar

Bring email-only partners and calendar-link-only listings onto the same tape chart as the rest of your bookings.

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Related Guides

Channel connections and direct bookings