Double Booking Vacation Rentals

[Christopher Kilpatrick]

My family booked a vacation rental in Branson this summer. Shortly after booking it online, we were contacted by the owner to say that the unit we booked had been booked by someone else – apparently just before us and via a different site/app. I'm helping a friend setup her website and listings for a new vacation rental and want to keep this from happening. Anyone using multiple sites (i.e. HomeAway and Airbnb, etc) at the same time? How are you preventing double bookings? I listened to ep. 57 & 114 again and read some blog posts, but haven't found anyone talking about this. I think this would seldom occur, but it would make the owner look bad if it did.