Beds24 and Booking.com: connection, mapping and the errors to avoid

How the Beds24 Booking.com connection works

Beds24 describes itself as “a longstanding Booking.com Premier Partner”. You request the connection from the Booking.com side, then manage it in Beds24 under (SETTINGS) CHANNEL MANAGER > BOOKING.COM > MAPPING (Beds24 wiki). Once it is active, Beds24 is where you change prices and availability, as with every channel of the Beds24 channel manager.

There are two ways in. If the property already exists in Beds24, you connect it, as described below. If it exists only on Booking.com, you can import it under (SETTINGS) CHANNEL MANAGER > BOOKING.COM > IMPORT, but not everything comes across: up to 10 prices arrive as daily prices, minimum stays, bookings and closed dates do not, and you correct room quantities yourself (import guide). Never import a property you have already set up in Beds24 or imported from Airbnb.

Before you connect: prices, rooms and one property per hotel ID

Beds24 wants “all of your prices, rooms, and bookings from other sources” set up before you connect. In practice:

• Prices come from Beds24, for good. To export availability, Booking.com demands prices sent from Beds24, so you can no longer set prices in the Booking.com extranet once the connection is enabled. Activate Booking.com under “Channels” in each Beds24 price you want to send.
• A price for every date you sell. The channel manager closes the room on all dates without a valid price, the same root cause as “No price found” on the Beds24 booking page.
• One Beds24 property per hotel ID. Each Booking.com hotel ID needs its own property in Beds24. One Beds24 account can hold several, even from different Booking.com accounts.
• Rooms that match. Beds24 rooms and room types must match your Booking.com setup. If you sell rooms one by one elsewhere but as a room type on Booking.com, Beds24 suggests virtual rooms.
• Upcoming bookings first. Bookings from every source must be in Beds24 before activation. Past bookings from before the connection are not imported.
• A pricing model that fits. Beds24 recommends occupancy-based pricing (OBP), which sends a price per occupancy. With derived pricing (RLO), Booking.com calculates the other occupancies from one price, and only Booking.com can change those rate plans. Linked (child) rates, such as a non-refundable rate derived from the standard one, cannot be updated from Beds24: deactivate them or set them up as rate plans of their own. Dorms need Beds24 support before activation.
• Maximum stay. Booking.com’s default is 30 nights. If you raise it, the value in Beds24 must match, or updates may be rejected.

Map rooms and rate plans

Beds24 calls the activation process “very specific”. The steps, condensed from its wiki:

1. Start in the extranet. In Booking.com, go to ACCOUNT > CONNECTIVITY PROVIDER, search for Beds24 and tick every box. A two-way connection needs both “Reservations” and “Rates and Availability”; ticking only one makes it one-way.
2. Enter the hotel ID in the “Hotel Id” field in Beds24, without spaces, and save.
3. Map each room. Click “Get Codes” next to the room ID and pick the matching Booking.com room. Each Booking.com room ID may be mapped to one Beds24 room only.
4. Map the rate plans. Map your standard rate plan on the mapping page, and any other Booking.com rate plan directly in the Beds24 price that should feed it (PRICES > Daily Prices or Fixed Prices, “Get Codes”). Only map codes that “Get Codes” returns.
5. Enable the rooms, and add a multiplier if you like: *1.23 sends all prices 23% higher.
6. Import existing bookings. The button brings in 10 upcoming bookings at a time: repeat until all are in.
7. Check “Price Data” to see exactly which prices and availability will be sent, room by room.
8. Activate the connection. Booking.com then removes its own prices and availability and replaces them with those from Beds24. Import bookings once more to update their details, then click “Update”.
9. Check the status. “XML Active” and “Open / bookable” mean you are selling; “View at Booking.com” opens your listing.

Activation replaces everything Booking.com had with what Beds24 sends. Check Price Data and import every upcoming booking before you click.

One optional step prevents a classic overbooking. With Booking.com’s Auto-Replenishment on, Booking.com reopens a room as soon as a guest cancels, without waiting for Beds24, even if the room has meanwhile been sold elsewhere. The Beds24 wiki explains how to switch it off in the calendar settings of the extranet.

What syncs, and what stays in the extranet

Two habits avoid most surprises. First, change a Booking.com booking through Booking.com: setting it to “Cancelled” in Beds24 does not cancel it there and can cause a double booking. The booking’s Details tab in Beds24 has buttons to request a cancellation or report new dates, a no-show or an invalid card. Second, watch promotions and linked prices set in the extranet: they lower the price guests pay below the one Beds24 sent.

Common Booking.com errors and fixes

Beds24 emails you every error Booking.com returns, usually naming the date, rate or room concerned. These are the ones hosts meet most, from the Beds24 troubleshooting section:

A missing price is easy to overlook, because nothing looks broken from inside Beds24. In the eight Swiss hotels where Bookpage24 was born, the first test found 10 of 35 room types without a bookable rate, and nobody had noticed.

Taxes and fees on Booking.com

Extras, taxes and fees are the part Beds24 does not sync by default. Set and change them in the Booking.com extranet, unless you manage your whole Booking.com content from Beds24; fees and taxes are then entered under (SETTINGS) CHANNEL MANAGER > BOOKING.COM > SPECIFIC PROPERTY CONTENT, in “Custom” (Beds24 content guide).

City tax deserves care. Booking.com says it does not charge commission on local taxes such as city tax, while “in most countries” it charges commission on VAT or GST (Booking.com Partner Help). Declare city tax as a tax in the extranet: built into the room price, it would carry commission like the rest of the rate.

Your own website needs the same care. Beds24 offer prices exclude the tourist tax. Bookpage24 adds the city tax per person per night, shows the total due before the guest books, and writes the tax line into the Beds24 booking. Details in our tourist tax guide.

Booking.com commission and your direct bookings

Booking.com’s commission is “a set percentage of the total booking amount” for each reservation, covering the room rate and any fees you charge, such as cleaning or service fees, and it applies once the guest checks out. The exact percentage “depends on your country, property type and the accommodation agreement”; you find it in your agreement or in the Finance tab under Reservation statements. A higher rate on your statements usually means you take part in a programme such as Preferred Partner or Visibility Booster. Commission is also due on non-refundable bookings, whether or not the guest stays (Booking.com Partner Help).

Booking.com brings guests who would never have found you otherwise, and that is worth paying for. Commission hurts most on guests who already know you: repeat guests, and travellers who look up your property on Google, then book on Booking.com because it is easier. Beds24 lets you add a multiplier to channel prices, for instance to “add the commission onto your prices” (Beds24 wiki), but the lasting answer is a website that is as easy to book as Booking.com.

That is what Bookpage24 does: a branded Beds24 booking engine with live Beds24 prices and availability, for a flat monthly fee and no commission (why commission-free). Each booking is written into Beds24 like any other, so the channel manager closes the room on Booking.com and your other channels; the same goes for Airbnb. Don’t try to move Booking.com guests through Booking.com’s messages, which do not allow links anyway: make your own website and Google Business Profile the easy place to book. See the live demo.

Frequently asked questions