How do I block dates on a WordPress booking calendar?
You can block dates in WP Booking System by assigning them a calendar legend item that represents unavailable or booked dates.
You can block a single date manually, update an entire date range with the Bulk Editor, or automatically block dates when customers submit bookings.
If you also receive reservations through Airbnb, Booking.com, Google Calendar or another platform, you can import those dates through iCalendar so they also appear unavailable on your WordPress calendar.
Block a single date
Go to:
WP Booking System → Calendars
and open the calendar you want to edit.
Find the date you want to block and change its Availability to the appropriate unavailable legend item.
For example:
Booked
or another legend item you have created for unavailable dates.
Then click:
Save Calendar
The date will use that legend item on the front-end calendar and will no longer be available for booking.
Use different legend items for different reasons
You are not limited to a single unavailable status.
Calendar availability is based on Legend Items, so you can create different items for different situations.
For example:
- Available
- Booked
- Owner Stay
- Maintenance
- Closed
- Unavailable
This can make the calendar easier to manage internally and can also help visitors understand why certain dates are unavailable if you display those legend items publicly.
Block several dates at once
For longer periods, use the Bulk Editor instead of changing each date individually.
Open the calendar and use the Bulk Editor to select:
- Start Date;
- End Date;
- Availability.
Choose the unavailable legend item you want to apply and run the Bulk Edit.
For example:
August 10 – August 20 → Booked
You can use this for:
- maintenance periods;
- owner stays;
- holidays;
- temporary closures;
- manually received reservations.
After reviewing the changes, click Save Calendar.
Block specific weekdays
The Bulk Editor can also be used when only certain weekdays should be changed.
For example, you could block:
- every Sunday during a season;
- Monday and Tuesday during the winter;
- specific weekend days during a maintenance period.
Choose the date range and apply the availability change only to the weekdays you want to affect.
This is much faster than editing each date separately.
Keep other date information unchanged
When using the Bulk Editor, be careful not to unintentionally overwrite other information stored on the dates.
A calendar date can contain more than availability, including:
- price;
- inventory;
- description;
- tooltip.
If you are changing only availability, keep Ignore empty fields enabled so fields you leave empty are not overwritten.
Automatically block dates after a booking
If you accept bookings directly through WP Booking System, you normally do not need to block every customer booking manually.
When embedding the calendar, enable:
Automatically Block Dates → Yes
When a customer submits a booking, WP Booking System changes the selected dates to an unavailable legend item.
If you use the shortcode directly, the equivalent setting is:
auto_pending="yes"
For example:
This is the recommended setup when you want dates to become unavailable immediately after a booking is submitted.
Does the booking need to be Accepted before the dates are blocked?
No.
Booking status and calendar availability are separate.
By default, a new booking appears in the Pending tab.
If Automatically Block Dates is enabled, its dates can already be unavailable while the booking remains Pending.
For example:
Booking status → Pending
Calendar dates → Booked
You can then review the booking and Accept it afterwards.
This helps prevent another customer from booking the same dates while you review the request.
Can I automatically accept the booking as well?
Yes, but this is a separate setting.
Go to the booking form’s General Options and change:
Default Booking Status
if you want new bookings to appear directly in the Accepted tab.
Automatically accepting a booking and automatically blocking its dates are two independent actions.
What happens when I delete a booking?
Deleting a booking does not automatically make its dates available again.
This is intentional because bookings and calendar availability are managed separately.
For example, you may delete a booking but want to keep the dates unavailable because:
- another reservation exists;
- the property is undergoing maintenance;
- the owner is using the property;
- you do not want to accept another booking for those dates.
If the dates should become available again, manually change their Availability back to your available legend item.
Can I block dates without creating a booking?
Yes.
You do not need to create a booking simply to make a date unavailable.
Open the calendar and change the date’s Availability directly.
This is the recommended approach for things such as:
- owner stays;
- maintenance;
- temporary closures;
- unavailable rental periods;
- private use.
If you need the reservation itself to appear in your bookings list, you can instead use Add Booking to create a manual booking.
Manually create a booking and block its dates
If you receive a booking by phone, email or another offline channel, you can create it manually.
Open the appropriate calendar and click:
Add Booking
When configuring the manual booking, enable:
Automatically Block Dates
if the selected dates should also become unavailable.
This lets you keep offline reservations in the same booking workflow as bookings received through your website.
What happens if I use Inventory?
The behaviour is different when the Inventory add-on is active.
Suppose a date has:
Inventory → 5
and Automatically Block Dates is enabled.
The first booking does not immediately mark that date as completely unavailable.
Instead, the inventory is reduced:
5 → 4 → 3 → 2 → 1 → 0
Only when the inventory reaches 0 is the date marked as unavailable.
If you want to manually close a date regardless of its remaining capacity, set its availability to an unavailable legend item and, where appropriate for your setup, review its inventory as well.
Block dates from Airbnb, Booking.com or another platform
If you accept bookings through external platforms, you can use WP Booking System’s iCalendar Import/Export functionality.
Open:
WP Booking System → Calendars → your calendar → iCal Import/Export
Add the iCalendar URL supplied by the external platform.
When adding the feed, choose which WP Booking System legend item should be assigned to imported events.
Usually this will be:
Booked
or another unavailable legend item.
Reservations from that feed will then appear as an additional availability layer over your WP Booking System calendar.
Can imported iCalendar dates be edited manually?
Not when they are synchronized from an iCalendar URL.
Events imported from an external feed are displayed as an additional layer over your calendar and are not stored as normal editable WP Booking System calendar events.
To change one of those reservations, change it on the source platform.
WP Booking System will reflect the updated feed after the synchronization refreshes.
How quickly do external blocked dates appear?
iCalendar synchronization is not instant.
By default, WP Booking System caches imported feeds and refreshes them hourly.
You can manually update the imported data from the calendar’s iCal Import/Export page by clicking:
Refresh iCal Data
You can also change the iCalendar refresh interval in the plugin settings.
Remember that external platforms control how often they retrieve your WP Booking System export feed, so synchronization in the opposite direction may follow a different schedule.
Use Split Days for accommodation
For accommodation bookings, you may want the first and last dates of a reservation to behave as changeover days.
When importing an iCalendar feed, WP Booking System can use Split Days.
You can configure separate legend items for:
- the start of the booking;
- the end of the booking.
This is useful for accommodation where one guest checks out and another checks in on the same date.
Make sure your start and end changeover legend items match the booking behaviour you want.
Add a tooltip to a blocked date
Calendar dates can also contain a Tooltip.
For example, you could block a date and add:
“Unavailable due to maintenance”
If tooltips are enabled in the calendar embed settings, visitors can see this information when interacting with the date.
You can also use the date’s Description field for private internal information.
Descriptions are visible only in the WordPress admin and are not shown to visitors.
How do I unblock dates?
Open:
WP Booking System → Calendars
and edit the calendar.
Change the dates from the unavailable legend item back to your normal available legend item.
For a large range, use the Bulk Editor.
For example:
September 1 – September 15 → Available
Then click Save Calendar.
Why are blocked dates still showing as available?
First open the calendar in WordPress and confirm the dates have the expected unavailable legend item.
Then check the following.
Make sure you edited the correct calendar
If you have several properties or resources, each may have its own calendar.
Confirm that the calendar you changed is the one embedded on the page.
Save the calendar
After editing individual dates or using the Bulk Editor, click:
Save Calendar
before leaving the page.
Check your caching
If availability is correct in the WordPress admin but the website still displays old information, a page caching plugin may be serving an outdated version of the calendar.
Exclude your booking page from caching where necessary and test again.
Refresh imported iCalendar data
If the date comes from Airbnb, Booking.com or another external platform, open the iCal Import/Export page and click:
Refresh iCal Data
Also make sure the external feed is configured to import reservations using your Booked or equivalent unavailable legend item.
Why are imported reservations showing as Available?
Check the iCalendar feed configuration.
The:
Import iCal Events As
setting determines which legend item WP Booking System displays for imported events.
Set this to:
Booked
or your equivalent unavailable legend item.
If you use Split Days, also check that the correct start and end changeover legend items are configured.
Why can customers still select a date I thought was blocked?
Check the actual legend item assigned to the date.
A legend item may visually look different without necessarily representing the availability configuration you expected.
Also check whether:
- you are using Inventory;
- the date is a Split/changeover date;
- the correct calendar is embedded;
- the front-end page is cached;
- an external iCalendar feed has refreshed.
Testing the complete date-selection process from the front end is the easiest way to verify the final behaviour.
A recommended availability workflow
For most rental businesses:
Website bookings
Enable:
Automatically Block Dates → Yes
so new booking requests reserve their dates immediately.
Owner stays and maintenance
Block these manually using an appropriate calendar legend item.
Phone or email bookings
Use Add Booking and enable Automatically Block Dates.
Airbnb, Booking.com and other booking channels
Import their iCalendar feeds and assign imported reservations to the Booked legend item.
This keeps your availability in one place while still allowing you to distinguish between bookings and manually blocked periods.
Summary
To block dates in WP Booking System, assign them an unavailable calendar Legend Item.
You can:
- block individual dates manually;
- block date ranges with the Bulk Editor;
- block selected weekdays;
- automatically block dates when bookings are submitted;
- create manual bookings that block dates;
- import unavailable dates from external iCalendar feeds.
Remember that booking records and calendar availability are separate. Deleting, accepting or editing a booking does not necessarily change availability automatically, so always check the calendar when manually changing an existing reservation.
