The Booking.com application provides a direct connection to the Booking.com channel which includes real time availability and rate updates, together with fully fledged reservation handling.
Important notes:
- Currently the connector does not support correct pricing, when services are included in rate plans and their pricing is configured to be Additional. Please configure the pricing for "packaged" services within the rate plan as Included.
- If your business concept does not allow for short-notice arrivals after midnight - for the currently ongoing night - please configure this either accordingly in Booking.com or set restrictions (Late booking until) in Apaleo.
Setting up the direct connection to Booking.com
Connect
The very first step is to connect Apaleo with Booking.com:
- Go to the apaleo Store, Booking.com Channel Connect App and Connect to PMS.
- Log on to your Booking.com extranet.
- Click on the 'Account' icon in the top-right corner.
- Select 'Channel manager' from the drop-down list.
- Search for 'Apaleo' provider
- Select Full connection aka two-way type (Reservations, Rates & Availability)
- Accept XML Service Agreement. Apaleo will receive an email with your details and connection request.
- After Apaleo confirms the connection, you’ll receive a new notification in your 'Inbox' tab
- Confirm the connection by clicking on 'Activate connection with Apaleo' button. (Since February 2020 this step might be optional)
You can also do those steps by following the Booking.com sign up guide attached.
Configure
Access
Only users who have the following roles have access to the configuration:
- Account Admin
- Property Admin
- Revenue Manager
Rate plans
Navigate to Apps > Booking.com in order to start configuring rate plan and service mappings.
The right mapping is imperative for reservation processing.
Simply go through all rate plans and select the corresponding Booking.com rate plan from the drop-down on the right side. You can always remove mapping by selecting 'No mapping' value.
In case you sell some extra services on Booking.com, you can configure mappings for them as well.
When mapping between Apaleo and Booking.com get's broken (e.g. rate plan doesn't have 'Booking.com' channel anymore), you will see the warning that will tell you about it. To fix it, either remove or update the mapping.
Activate
When you are done with the mapping and ready to start selling on Booking.com, you can finally activate the connection.
By activating Synchronization, Apaleo will start sending real time availability and rate updates, process new bookings as well as modifications and cancellations.
Validate
Validate and pay attention for following property settings in Booking.com extranet:
- For the property settings in the menu 'VAT/Tax/Charges' you need to configure the VAT to be included and taxes and charges to be excluded
- In the property settings you should disable the Auto-replenishment of closed rooms as this might lead to overbooking (by sending an email to the partner manager at booking.com). For more information, check the following How do I prevent Over-Bookings?.
- Please pay attention to the transfer of credit cards to Apaleo. To do this, you must have carried out the so-called location verification with Booking.com (otherwise CC data will not yet be transmitted). CC data can be viewed in Booking.com up to 10 days after the guests' departure and can be manually loaded in Apaleo. Contact your Booking.com Account Manager for further questions please!
Import
CAUTION: Before you can import reservations successfully, you need to set the status of your hotel property to LIVE. Please navigate to Settings > Hotel:
Once that is done, you can proceed with the import of reservations.
It is possible to import all reservations with check-out dates in the future directly from Booking.com.
Select either all or some specific reservations and click on 'Import reservations'.
Depending on number of reservations, importing them might take some time. You can track which reservations were imported by looking at their status.
Attention: in the BDC extranet you can activate "auto-replenishment of closed rooms".
If this function is active, then BDC will automatically increase the availability for this data by one after a cancellation and even the closed restriction will be opened. This is great when you manage availabilities manually, but not in a setup where the availabilities should come from the PMS.
FAQs
My prices and availability are incorrect on Booking.com
To trigger a one-time synchronization, go to the SETTINGS tab of the Booking.com Connector App and Trigger full sync. If there was a temporary sync issue, this might fix it.
Also check in your Booking.com account, that the rate plan is linked to Apaleo. If it is not (if you have created a rate separately in Booking.com and not linked it to an Apaleo rate plan) you may will see "Not XML" in your Booking.com account calendar. In this case you either need to manage the availability directly in your Booking.com account or map it to Apaleo.
Why is my price for double occupancy lower than my single occupancy price on booking.com?
Apaleo rates are always based on single occupancy. This logic is reflected in the booking.com connector app, where our lead occupancy is single occupancy. Booking.com only displays prices on their website when Apaleo submit prices for occupancy 2,3 and so on with the command to round down. Any other commands will not display any rates on Booking.com.
If the property is setup in Apaleo with city tax in %, Booking.com calendar will display prices with decimal points (as sent by Apaleo) for single occupancy, and then for additional occupancy the price will be rounded down. Booking.com is rounding up the prices when displaying on their channel.
Why does Apaleo add additional numbers to the Booking.com code?
The additional numbers in the field External code are for back-end purposes to maintain a smooth communication with Booking.com. For example to undertake reservation amendments.
What does Trigger full sync mean?
This functionality triggers the synchronisation of rates and restrictions, it does not import reservations. The import of reservations is managed on the IMPORT tab of the app.
There are Unprocessed reservations, what do I do now?
The status Unprocessed means, that those reservations were not "manually" imported, by triggering the import functionality on the IMPORT tab in the connector app.
This functionality is only used when initially connecting the app.
What Unprocessed in general does not mean is that those reservations were not imported. They were simply not processed by the import functionality. This will be the case for all reservations that are treated by the synchronisation, that you enable on the SETTINGS tab.
Do I have to update any reservation changes in Apaleo as well in Booking.com?
Yes, there is no communication about the reservation status from Apaleo to Booking.com. That means that any changes in Apaleo, e.g. you cancelled the reservation in Apaleo, the reservation run no-show. etc. have to be updated as well manually in the Booking.com extranet. This is crucial for you, otherwise Booking.com will keep the reservation as it is and expects the guest to arrive with the original dates, which means the commission to be paid is based on that. Best is for example to run a no-show list in the morning and update the status in Booking.com.
Why can I find a cancelled reservation in Booking.com but not in Apaleo?
This can happen if a reservation was created in Booking.com and cancelled right away. In that case, the reservation didn't reach Apaleo but was processed only in Booking.com instead.
In other words, before Booking.com could have notified Apaleo of the new reservation it was already cancelled.