Reservation processing

Quote requests

Quoting is the stage before reservation creation when Rentals United double-checks availability and prices in the PMS. During the booking insertion, Rentals United always quotes Escapia to obtain the expected PMS price. However, depending on the reservation insertion mode, Rentals United uses the prices provided by Escapia in the response to insert bookings or modifies this received data slightly. For more information, please seeInserting a reservation.

Inserting a reservation

Bookings are inserted into Escapia instantly after Rentals United retrieves them from a Sales Channel. The reservation details are displayed in Rentals United and transferred to Escapia.

Reservations can be looked up in Rentals United as described in Bookings or Guest Planner.

Additionally, prices of reservations are broken down in the reservation comments. This breakdown is performed according to the rules of the channel the reservation came from. If you want to see how reservation price is broken down according to what is set in Rentals United, see Reservation price breakdown.

Currently, there are a few modes available for Escapia to insert a reservation:

  1. Rent override feature is turned on and the fee/tax set-up is hardcoded.

    Currently this is the default way of inserting reservations to Escapia. Rentals United performs two requests to Escapia. First, Rentals United quotes Escapia for the prices as well as fees and taxes available in the PMS (except security deposit), using the UnitStay request.

    • UnitStay - the response contains the final price from Escapia, and

    • getUnitRates - the response contains information on the base prices (LOS and FSP) as well as fees and taxes.

    Rentals United calculates the rent based on the Price to you and fees and taxes returned in the getUnitRates response from the PMS. The final rent price is calculated and inserted into Escapia. Then, Escapia adds all fees and taxes automatically on top of the rent.

    Note: In the case of connection to the Booking.com channel, Rentals United calculates the rent price based on the Guest price, not Price to you. This has been introduced to decrease the discrepancy in pricing between Escapia and Booking.com.

  2. Rent override feature is turned on.

    Rentals United performs two requests to the PMS. First, Rentals United quotes Escapia for the prices as well as fees and taxes available in the PMS, using the UnitStay request.

    • UnitStay - the response contains the final price from Escapia, and

    • getUnitRates - the response contains information on the base prices (LOS and FSP) as well as fees and taxes.

    On the basis of values received in the getUnitRates response from the PMS and channel mark-up available in Rentals United, the final rent price is calculated by Rentals United and inserted in Escapia. Then, Escapia adds all fees and taxes automatically on top of the rent.

    Note: If Escapia throws errors when this mode is used by the client at the getUnitRates request, Rentals United will insert the reservation with prices retrieved by the UnitStay request despite the Rent override feature being turned on. If this happens, the comments section should contain the following text: “Reservation price may be different from what the guest paid in the channel. Please check the channel."

  3. Rent override feature is turned off, but HSAPI is turned on.

    Rentals United always quotes Escapia for the prices as well as fees and taxes available in the PMS, using the UnitStay request. To get information on the channel mark-up, Rentals United uses the listExtras request to HSAPI. If Escapia has the Channel mark-up fee value defined, Rentals United calculates the difference between this value and the value available in the Rentals United system. See more at Escapia HSAPI.

  4. Rent override feature and HSAPI are both turned off.

    Rentals United uses the data received from the UnitStay response to insert reservations into the PMS. No additional calculations are performed. See more at Escapia HSAPI.

Each mode uses UnitRes as a final step to insert a reservation in Escapia.

Note: Once the reservation is inserted, Rentals United will pass the source channel of the reservation, for example Booking.com.
Note: CC details will be passed to Escapia.
Note: If the guest email address is not shared with Rentals United by the sales channel, we will put the email address registered in the @rentalsunited.com domain. It works this way because Escapia requires the guest's email address to accept the reservation, while some sales channels do not disclose it.
Note: If the guest surname is not shared with Rentals United by the sales channel, we will replace this information with the "NA" text. It works this way because Escapia requires the guest's email address to accept the reservation, while some sales channels do not disclose it until the payment is taken (for example, TripAdvisor).

Overriding rent

Escapia supports the Rent override process. For clients joining Rentals United from 24/06/2020, the Rent override feature is by default used when bookings are inserted into Escapia. Clients who joined Rentals United before should check what their settings are in Escapia.

The Rent override feature, if turned on, allows Rentals United to insert price with the channel mark-up to Escapia in a way that Rentals United provides Escapia with the rent price (without fees and taxes) the guest paid in the channel and only then Escapia calculates the fees and taxes based on the received rent value.

Note: This is especially important for taxes and fees that are calculated as a percentage of another line item - when channel mark-up is applied to the rent and sent to Escapia, the values of fees and taxes change, too.
Note: The overridden rent value is rent only, without in-rent fees. For more information, please see Tax and Fee.
Tip: In the process of onboarding, the Escapia representative, preparing your account for the connection to Rentals United, allows Rentals United to perform Rent override for that PM’s account. This is included in Escapia standard onboarding procedure.

In case the price in your PMS does not match with the price in the channel or Rentals United, see this article: Why is there a difference between the reservation price in my PMS and in the channel?

Modifying a reservation

Booking modifications retrieved from Sales Channels or made directly in Rentals United do not trigger booking updates in Escapia.

If the reservation has been modified in the channel, only the clients will have the original reservation cancelled and the new one created in Escapia.

In case the reservation is modified directly in the Escapia system, then Rentals United will receive no notification about it. You should adjust it accordingly in Rentals United system, so that up-to-date information is shared with the channels.

Cancelling a reservation

If the reservation has been cancelled in the channel, the clients will have the original reservation cancelled in Escapia, too.

In case the reservation is cancelled directly in the Escapia system, then Rentals United will receive no notification about it. You should adjust it accordingly in Rentals United system, so that up-to-date information is shared with the channels.

Email notifications

The host/property manager will always get an email notifications about new reservations and any updates made to reservations. The address that the email is sent to is the email address (available at My profile). The notifications will be sent regardless of the source of the change as well as the integration type.

The email notifications are sent when:

  • request is created

  • existing request is confirmed

  • reservation is created

  • reservation is modified

  • reservation is cancelled