Why the connection pays off
Double maintenance costs time every day and, in the worst case on a Saturday evening, a sold room that no longer exists.Many smaller properties start on Booking.com by maintaining rooms and rates directly in the extranet. That works well as long as Booking.com is the only channel. As soon as guests also book by phone, by email or on your own website, every one of those bookings has to be reflected in the extranet by hand. If someone forgets, Booking.com sells a room that is already taken.
With a connection, two inventories become one. Your hotel software knows what is free and reports it to Booking.com. A Booking.com reservation lands in the tape chart without retyping, with guest name, dates, rate and number of guests. If the guest changes their trip or cancels, the software updates that too.
The second gain is rate management. Instead of entering a seasonal rate separately in the extranet, on the website and in the front desk system, you change it once. Especially in properties with a lean front desk team, that is time that would otherwise be missing for guests.
What you need before connecting
Technology is rarely the problem. What delays a connection is unclear room types, too many rates and missing logins. If you work through the following list beforehand, you are usually done in a morning.
Particularly important is the question of which room types you actually sell on Booking.com. If there is a “Superior Double Room” listed that does not really exist in your property, you first need to clarify which real rooms sit behind it. A room type on Booking.com should always correspond to exactly one room type in your hotel software.
Preparing for Booking.com
- Access to the Booking.com extranet with administrator rights, and your Booking.com property ID.
- Room types fully set up in the hotel software, each with the correct rooms and maximum occupancy.
- The rates you want to sell on Booking.com, for example flexible with breakfast and non-refundable, are set up as separate rates.
- Each rate has a cancellation policy that matches what Booking.com shows the guest.
- Restrictions such as minimum stay, closed to arrival and closed to departure are maintained in the hotel software, not only in the extranet.
- A list of the room types and rates on Booking.com sits next to the list in your software, so you can do the mapping calmly.
- A cut-over date is set, from which rates and availability are only changed in the hotel software.
Set-up step by step
The process is the same with almost every hotel software vendor: approval in the extranet, mapping, checks, activation.Booking.com does not work directly with every hotel software but through certified connectivity partners. In the extranet, you therefore select the connectivity partner your software vendor names and confirm the approval. Only then may the software send availability and rates for your property.
Then comes the real work in the hotel: the mapping. For each room type and each rate on Booking.com, you define which room type and rate in your software sits behind it. Only when this mapping is complete should the connection be switched on.
Connecting Booking.com in six steps
- 01Finalise room types, rates and policies in the hotel software
Rooms, room types, rates, cancellation policies and restrictions must be right in the software before they go to Booking.com. What is unclear here will not become clearer on Booking.com.
- 02Approve the connectivity partner in the extranet
In the Booking.com extranet, go to the connectivity section of the account settings, select the connectivity partner your software vendor names and confirm the approval.
- 03Enter the property ID in the hotel software and test the connection
Store the property ID from the extranet in the software. The test shows whether Booking.com accepts the connection and reads the existing room types and rates.
- 04Map room types and rates
Map each room type and rate on Booking.com to exactly one room type and rate in the software. Rates you no longer want to sell are deliberately left unmapped.
- 05Import existing bookings
Load future bookings already held on Booking.com into the software once and reconcile them with the tape chart. Clean up duplicates now, not at check-in.
- 06Activate and run a test booking
After activation, send the complete picture, then create, modify and cancel a booking and check that every step arrives in the tape chart.
Expedia, Airbnb and other OTAs
On Expedia, approval runs through Expedia Partner Central: there you also select your software’s connectivity partner for availability, rates and bookings, and then enter the property ID and the requested connection details in the hotel software. Other OTAs follow the same pattern; only the menus are named differently. Airbnb is connected without an extranet: you sign in to the channel manager with your Airbnb account, approve the connection and map your units.
It is important not to connect every OTA on the same day. Connect the OTA with the most revenue first, watch for a week whether bookings, modifications and cancellations arrive cleanly, and then add the next one. That way, if there is a discrepancy, you know immediately where to look.
For every additional OTA, also ask whether it is worth it. Each OTA charges its own commission, and each additional rate has to be maintained and mapped. For many smaller properties, two well-maintained OTAs plus a strong booking engine of their own bring more than five half-maintained channels.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
Most problems after a connection have the same causes. They do not arise in the technology but in habits from the time before the connection.
| Mistake | What happens | How to avoid it |
|---|---|---|
| Wrong mapping | A guest books a “Double Room with Balcony” and ends up in a room type without a balcony, or one room type’s inventory is deducted from another. | Map each OTA room type to exactly one room type in the software and check one test booking per room type after mapping. |
| Rates maintained twice | The extranet shows a different price from the software. At the next sync it is overwritten, or the guest briefly sees a wrong price. | Change rates, mark-ups and promotional rates only in the hotel software. |
| Inventory changed by hand in the extranet | The software does not know about the closure and reports free rooms again at the next sync. | Always set closures for refurbishment, repairs or own use in the hotel software. |
| Old rates stay active | A rate on Booking.com that is no longer maintained keeps selling at an outdated price. | Close or deliberately deactivate unmapped rates in the extranet. |
| Cancellation policy does not match | Booking.com shows free cancellation while your rate has a fee, or vice versa. | Set a cancellation policy for each rate and compare it with what the extranet displays. |
What happens with cancellations, modifications and guest messages
If a guest cancels via Booking.com, the cancellation comes into the hotel software through the channel manager. The booking is cancelled, the nights become free again and the new inventory goes to all connected channels. Whether a cancellation fee applies depends on the policy the guest accepted at booking; who collects it depends on whether Booking.com or your property handles the payment.
Modifications such as different dates or a different number of guests are applied to the existing booking as long as the guest has not yet arrived. The old nights are released and the new ones occupied. If no suitable room is free for the new dates, the software must not quietly skip over that; a good channel manager flags the conflict so that someone in the hotel can decide.
Guest messages from the OTA should not land in a second inbox but with the booking they belong to. Then reception sees at check-in that the guest asked about parking or a late arrival, without looking it up in the extranet.
How STRYK handles the connection
Connect Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb and other channels to STRYK. Manage rates and availability centrally and handle OTA reservations in the calendar. Under “Channels” you see the OTAs confirmed for your property, each with a clear status: not connected, inactive, active or disconnected. One click opens the set-up: enter the property ID from the extranet, test the connection, map rooms and rates, save. A new connection is first saved as inactive. You can only activate it once STRYK finds no open issues, such as a missing rate, a missing cancellation policy or incomplete mapping. The dialog opens the way to the extranet directly.
Everything is maintained in one place: room types, photos and amenities under rooms; rates, cancellation policies, minimum stay and closed-to-arrival or closed-to-departure restrictions under “Rates”, where you can also set an optional mark-up per channel. Availability results from bookings and room closures. Every change goes to the connected OTAs, and on top of that STRYK reconciles the complete picture once a day. When connecting, you can import the OTA’s existing future bookings once.
OTA bookings, modifications and cancellations land in the tape chart and change the same inventory as a booking at reception or through your own booking engine. If STRYK finds no suitable free room for an OTA booking, it is not placed in an occupied room but shown as a reconciliation alert to be resolved. Messages from the OTA appear with the booking under “Guests → Messages”. We confirm which OTA connection your property can use after mapping and a full connection test; your contracts and commissions with the OTAs stay with you.
