Managing OTA Rates & Restrictions
Setup
Any existing plans can be linked but it is also possible to create new derived plan(s) with a difference in pricing and link these. You can see more on setting up derived plans here.
OTA Common Connection Notes
- If a vendor do not have "Record Children and Infants" enabled in Product setup → Product details → Policy tab, RB wil not count the children counts that OTA feeds into RB.
(e.g. OTA feeds 3 adults, 2 child (5 guest), RB will only show 3 adult (3 guest) in the booking.)
Each OTA have their own way to record children. We recommend enabling the record children setting to avoid guest number discrepancy for OTA bookings.
OTA Specific Connection Notes
Booking.com
- Supports multiple plans per room type.
- Properties must be set to use Occupancy Based Pricing. RoomBoss can update this setting in Booking.com on your behalf.
- RoomBoss will push rates for all occupancy levels from base to max.
- Booking.com pricing is based on the maximum number of adults, while RoomBoss pricing is based on the maximum number of guests. Therefore, these values must be the same to ensure correct rate synchronization.
- Supported restrictions at the night level (values set for each night will feed through to the OTA):
- Closed
- Closed to Arrival
- Min Length of Stay
- Max Length of Stay
- Min Advance
- Max Advance
- Special note on MinLOS:
- MinLOS restrictions are capped by Booking.com (default maximum is 30 days unless long stays are enabled).
- If a MinLOS value exceeding the allowed limit is pushed, Booking.com will silently adjust it to what is allowed without returning any warning or error.
- More info: Booking.com long-stay policies.
Expedia
- Supports multiple plans per room type.
- Properties must be set to use Occupancy Based Pricing. Please ask Expedia support to set this.
- RoomBoss will push rates for all occupancy levels from base to max.
- Supported restrictions at the night level:
- Closed
- Closed to Arrival
- Min Length of Stay
- Max Length of Stay
- Supported restrictions at the rate plan level:
- Min Advance
- Max Advance
Airbnb
- Supports multiple plans per room type.
- RoomBoss will push rates for all occupancy levels from base to max.
- Supported restrictions at the night level:
- Closed
- Closed to Arrival
- Min Length of Stay
- Max Length of Stay
- Supported restrictions at the rate plan level:
- Min Advance
- Max Advance
Please note: the new Rate Plan API has certain limitations. Please contact Airbnb for more information.
Airbnb allows selecting Strict 30, Strict 60, and non-refunable cancellation policies. However, please note:
- These plans can be booked from outside Japan, Korea, Hungary, and Singapore, and bookings will reflect these policies.
- However, inside these countries, the plans may not display in some browsers and will not be bookable.
For this reason, we do not recommend selecting Strict 30 or Strict 60 policies for properties in Japan, Korea, Hungary, or Singapore.
Airbnb also has a legacy API which allows only a single rate plan and supports only the rate for base occupancy. Please contact us if you would like to upgrade to the newer API or continue using the legacy API.
Trip.com & Jalan
Trip.com and Jalan do not currently support rate or restriction connections via RoomBoss Channel Manager.
These OTAs can receive availability updates, but rates and restrictions must be managed directly on the OTA.
Comparison: OTA Restrictions Support
Restriction Type | Booking.com | Expedia | Airbnb |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multiple plans/room type | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Occupancy-based pricing | Required (RoomBoss can set) | Required (Expedia must set) | N/A |
| Rates pushed (base → max occupancy) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Night-level: Closed | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Night-level: Closed to Arrival | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Night-level: Min LOS | ✅ (capped by Booking.com rules) | ✅ | ✅ |
| Night-level: Max LOS | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Rate plan-level: Min Advance | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Rate plan-level: Max Advance | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Special notes | Silent adjustment of MinLOS above limits | None | Cancellation policy restrictions, legacy vs new API differences |
Expedia
- Supports multiple plans per room type.
- Properties must be set to use Occupancy Based Pricing, please ask Expedia support to set this.
- RoomBoss will push rates for all occupancy levels from base to max.
- Supported Restrictions at the night level (values set for each night will feed through to the OTA): Closed, Closed to Arrival, Closed to Arrival, Min Length of Stay and Max Length of Stay.
- Supported Restrictions at the rate plan level (values set on the rate plan will feed through to the OTA): Max advance and Min Advance.
Once Plans Have Been Linked
Inside each OTA which has linked plans:
- Check the linked plans are showing as expected.
- Check and/or set cancellation policies on the linked plans.
- Delete any rate plans that are not managed in RoomBoss.
Please note that Guests will be able to book using valid rate plans that are not linked to RoomBoss. If this happens, the booking will appear inside your RoomBoss account using an unlinked rate plan that's marked as "Manual". To prevent this, please remove any unlinked rate plans on the OTA.
Rate Management Going Forward
Once setup is complete, any rate/restriction changes affecting OTA-linked plans will automatically be pushed to the OTAs.
For example, with a derived OTA rate plan:
- Changing the rate for the Base Rate Plan updates the derived rate values and pushes them to linked OTA(s).
- Changing restrictions (Min/Max stay, Open/Closed) on the OTA Rate Plan allows different values for OTAs. These values will be pushed accordingly.
More Complex Setup Cases
Managing Variable Cancellation Policies
For OTAs like Booking.com, Expedia, and Airbnb, cancellation policies are set at the rate plan level. To have separate policies, you must create separate rate plans.
Example setup with four rate plans (Summer vs Winter):
This way, OTA summer and winter plans can have different cancellation policies.