...
Booking.com is basically a global online platform/website where Hotels can list their properties and guests can book them to book accommodation all over the globe. The general principle of Booking.com regarding private listings is that you create an account at their side, fill it with the necessary information/configuration and start posting your listings. As soon as your listing becomes publicly available, the guests may book your property.
The client can link with Booking.com can be linked Manually as well as through Content API. In the Manual linking process client’s need in two ways, the 1st one is ‘Physical linking’ and another one is through “Booking.com Content API”. In ‘Physical linking’ the client needs to first create the location and its properties at Booking.com and make extranet by making sure that all the configuration is in place on the reseller side and then do the linking of those properties in MXTS . However, in by using the Booking.com Hotel, Room & Rate codes.
In ‘Booking.com Content API’ the client has to directly link properties in MXTS without entering Booking.com Hotel, Room & Rate codes, and then the system will auto-create the properties on Booking.com side . Users and also auto-generate the Booking.com Hotel, Room & Rate codes. However, the user will have to make sure that all the necessary/mandatory configuration that is required for a property/acco-type to get created on Booking.com is correctly configured in MXTS, so that system can fetch those details and send it them to Booking.com to create the property on their side.
...
Export Availabilities and LOS (Length of stay)
For Booking.com connection, we link the Accommodation types on the type level. Units never come in picture to link, so the reservability which we send is always picked from type level. But we have 2 options to send the reservability to Booking.com:
(a) Type Level Reservability
In this option, we send the reservability from type level along with the number of nights of longest duration unit available as max stay. The drawback of this is that we send the reservability without considering partial availability. To explain with example (refer below screenshot), dates from 22-04-2022 to 25-04-2022, the type-level reservability is 7, so we send 7 reservability to Booking.com, but due to partial availability of units, reservation request for 7 units will fail while importing the reservation in Maxxton. However, that booking can be possible when the shuffling of booking on Unit 3 & 4 is done to make one unit fully available for whole duration.
(b) Unit Level Reservability
In this option, for each arrival day, we first get the longest duration unit available, and then we count the number of units available for that duration, and then that count is sent to Booking.com as reservability along with unit duration as max stay.
For example: Take example shared in below screenshot, for arrival on 20-04-2022, longest unit available is Unit 1 for 14 nights, and then for same duration Unit 2 is also available, so the total count for 20-04-2022 will be 2. Another, for arrival on 22-04-2022, longest unit available is Unit 1 for 12 nights, and then for same duration Unit 2 & 10 are also available, so the total count for 22-04-2022 will be 3. The drawback of this is that for 20-04-2022 the count will be 2, but if you see that if someone wants to book for 3 nights in Maxxton, it is possible to book 6 units, but as we will be sending 2 as availability, so only 2 can be booked. But yes, if Unit 1 & 2 get booked, then in next upload the count will be 3 for 20-04-2022 as the longest unit available will be Unit 5, 7 & 9.
However, please note that there are other factors that can even hamper the availability at Booking.com like:
LOCK: User can add LOCK to the Acco-type/unit which will block the availability of that property for certain period for time for all the DC’s. That is no once could book that Acco-type/unit for the date on which LOCK is added. For such dates on which Lock is added, we send ‘Zero’ availability to the reseller.
Stop-Sale: Another thing that can impact availability of the property is “Stop-Sale”. In ‘Stop-sale’ user can define blocking of Acco-type/Unit for a specific Reseller (i.e. for a specific DC used for the reseller). This will make sure that the property is blocked for booking for a specific DC (and not for all the DC’s). More information on the Stop-sale like how it is added and what are the different types of Stop-sale is defined at Reseller ConfigurationExport Prices(Multiple rate types)
We have two types of Pricing
a) Per day pricing:
Per Night prices are sent directly as they are configured in ‘Rates’. Special Prices cannot be sent to Booking.com for ‘Per day’ prices as the price cache is not used for the same
- Close room restrictions
- Minimum Length of stay restrictions
- Close to arrival restrictions
- Close to Departure restrictions
b) Length of stay pricing
In length of stay pricing (LOS), for every Arrival Date Maximum stay Prices are sent. Firstly, the LOS Prices get uploaded on Price Cache where the final price is calculated by considering special and other factors and then from there the final Prices are sent to Booking.com.
Example:
For 1st October,2022: 3 Nights Prices are configured as 350. So for 1st Oct Prices will be sent as:
1 Night prices: 0
2 Night Prices: 0
3 Night prices: 350
LOS prices take time to get reflected at Booking.com website as the prices will first get reflected on ‘Price cache’ and then those Prices are Exported to Booking.comImport Reservations (Multiple rate types)
a) Confirmation(Reservation status to Provisional)
b) Modification: The task that we support in modification request of reservation are
- Arrival/departure dates change
- Guest name change
- Credit card details change
- Room change
- Guest number(Subjects) change
- Add-ons change
c) Cancellation (Reservation status to Cancelled OR Declined, as per client choice)
Steps to
...
connect with
...
Booking.com - Physical Linking
Client gets in touch with Booking.com to create hotels and rooms at their side and do necessary configuration.
Simultaneously client is requested to create the Booking.com reseller in MXTS. The steps to create/activate a new connection are shown on Reseller Configuration
Above step will create the Booking.com reseller in MXTS and the system will auto add mandatory settings, however, the remaining configuration related to linking of properties needs to be taken care of by the user
Client is requested to create a JIRA ticket with a heading like “Connection with Booking.com” and add all important information in the same and assign the ticket to support-connection@maxxton.com so the connection team is aware of your interest in connecting with the reseller and they can assist you with all the queries you post in this ticket
Create a new DC for the reseller Booking.com and make sure that all the identified resources should have that DC selected/added in their representation
Create an employee if not present and make sure that the AO (Admin Organization) & all the Resorts are linked to the newly created employee
Create the linking for Booking.com hotel/room with MXTS properties in Linked Accommodation Types card. Please click on Reseller Configuration to see steps on how it is done.
Once the above process is done, please contact Booking.com to open/add that specific property/location for Maxxton and then inform support connection team about the same through the JIRA ticket
support connection team will complete a few final steps and make price & availability uploads for the linked properties to Booking.com
You can then monitor the reseller Booking.com from the /wiki/spaces/TP/pages/13699583
Steps to connect with Booking.com through ‘Content API’
If no property of client has been listed on Booking.com yet then Client has to register on Booking.com first as an agency by contacting Booking.com. Once its done Booking.com will assign a Legal entity id(Unique id for the client) to the Client which will be used to configure property on Booking.com using content API.
Simultaneously client is requested to create the Booking.com reseller in MXTS by following Reseller Configuration and also requested to create Jira ticket through which they can communicate with support-connection@maxxton.com
In “Booking.com Content API” client does not have to manually create any location/properties at Booking.com side as same is created by MXTS. There is a list of mandatory configuration that needs to be in place at Location & Acco-type level so that system can fetch all those configuration and create the property at Booking.com side. The list of all the prerequisite mandatory configuration defined by Booking.com is listed in the following attached document
User needs to make sure all these configuration is in place before making linking ‘Active’ for the Acco-type.Once the user is sure that all the mandatory configuration, please use following steps to do the linking of the Acco-type
Supported settings/features
...