Integration overview

Introduction

As one of the world’s largest travel marketplaces for both established brands and entrepreneurs of all sizes, Booking.comenables properties all over the world to reach a global audience and grow their businesses. Booking.com is available in 43 languages and offers more than 28 million total reported accommodation listings, including over 6.2 million listings alone of homes, apartments and other unique places to stay. No matter where you want to go or what you want to do, Booking.com makes it easy and backs it all up with 24/7 customer support.

Integration model

Booking.com is the next Sales Channel (SC) that has been successfully integrated with Rentals United. Property Managers (PMs) can now connect to Booking.com and start advertising their properties through this channel.

In this integration, there are two options you can synchronize your properties with Booking.com:

  • either by connecting new properties to Booking.com (creates a listing with a single room type and rate in Booking.com)

  • or by mapping existing listings from Booking.com to Rentals United (creates a connection between your property in Rentals United and your listing in Booking.com; you can view and manage multiple room types and multiple rates directly in Rentals United)

In this integration type, the data flow is the following:

  • at the time of property connection to Booking.com, the property descriptive content as well as availability and pricing are sent to Booking.com by Rentals United;

  • ARI data is sent to Booking.com automatically upon change registered in the Rentals United system

  • since 2023-02-22, you can turn automatic updates on and have the property descriptive content sent to Booking.com automatically - see details at Automatic listing content update

  • property descriptive content is sent to Booking.com on-demand only - see Updating listings

  • reservations are retrieved from Booking.com every 60 seconds;

  • modifications and cancellations are retrieved from Booking.com for bookings that were made after the connection was already established;

  • extra reservations existing in Booking.com can be copied to Rentals United - Importing bookings.

Categorization

Booking.com specialises in selling inventory en masse. In this system, guests can choose a specific room type from the available inventory , for example a double room in a hotel.

  • Rentals United cluster (see Hotel ID) indicates a hotel in the sales channel.

  • Rentals United room type (see e.g. Two-Bedroom Apartment) indicates a room type in the sales channel

  • Rentals United property (see e.g. Property 1) indicates a room of a certain type. There can be multiple properties added under the same room type , e.g. Property 1 and Property 3 are categorised as Two-Bedroom Apartment. This set-up is called a multi-unit group.

  • Rentals United rate refers to a particular pricing plan, which is created based on particular settings in your property. You can see your rates after selecting the Property Settings > Manage.

Contract details

In case the PM intends to advertise the properties on Booking.com, they need to agree on a contract. With Booking.com, the below agreements come into life:

New clients: If you do not have an account in Booking.com and manage up to 5 properties, you can use the Quick Connect procedure. If you manage more than 5 properties, it is necessary for you to sign a contract with Booking.com to start advertising on this channel. Read more at Establishing connection.

Existing clients: If you have already signed a contract with Booking.com and you have some listings available in the channel, you can immediately map them to the properties in your Rentals United account on your own. If you have no listings available, fill in the connection form and select the properties to connect to the channel. You need to provide your Legal Entity ID obtained from Booking.com at signing the contract. Read more at Establishing connection.

Onboarding time: It depends whether you already are a Booking.com client. If you are an existing client and you already have the properties in Booking.com, it is up to 24 hours. If you are a new client, it is about 5 business days. Note, however, that it can take up to 2 weeks to receive your Legal Entity ID from Booking.com, which is mandatory to set up the connection. Rentals United cannot influence this.

Commission: The channel commission is 12-21%, but it may vary.

Payment process: The details of the payment process should be agreed directly with Booking.com. Booking.com offers the Payment by Booking.com solutions - read ore about it here. Note that not all payment solutions are available in all countries or for all property types. For the full list of countries where the solutions are available, reach out to Booking.com.

Below you can see if the Booking.com payment solutions are available in selected countries:

  • Australia: VCC and Bank Transfer

  • India: Not offered

  • Indonesia: VCC and Bank Transfer

  • Malaysia: VCC and Bank Transfer

  • Saudi Arabia: Only VCC

  • Thailand: VCC and Bank Transfer

  • UAE: VCC and Bank Transfer

Length of stay: Booking.com allows to book stays for up to 90 nights. To enable long stays, check in Booking.com Help.

Hotel ID: You can find the Hotel ID information next to your property in the Group homepage tab in the Booking.com dashboard or in the top bar after selecting a specific property.