Connecting to Kayak / Hotels Combined

Minimum requirements to connect (N/A)

Kayak / Hotels Combined does not share with Rentals United any information on the minimum requirements for a property to be connected. Kayak / Hotels Combined retrieves all your properties from Rentals United and only then decides which are eligible to go live. In order to get details, you need to contact Kayak / Hotels Combined.

Establishing connection

1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab on the main menu.

   

2. Click the Find Services tab.

   

3. Type the Kayak / Hotels Combined name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

4. Unfold the Kayak / Hotels Combined section by clicking the Down arrow button.

5. Click the button.

6. Follow the steps displayed in the Rentals United platform.

7. At this point your account is connected to Kayak / Hotels Combined.

   

Add new properties

After you connect to Kayak / Hotels Combined, the Property page in Rentals United will be empty. Kayak / Hotels Combined automatically retrieves your properties from Rentals United to their system and creates listings on their website. You will be informed once the process is finished. At this point you can verify if they are displayed correctly in the Kayak / Hotels Combined dashboard and introduce changes to Rentals United, if needed.

Once your listings are properly created in Kayak / Hotels Combined, you can start the process of mapping the listings on the Kayak / Hotels Combined website to Rentals United properties, following Mapping properties to existing listings.

Mapping properties to existing listings

Once the listings are published on the Kayak / Hotels Combined website, it is possible to map them to the properties in Rentals United, which creates a direct link between the two systems.

1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

   

2. Select the proper list to search for Kayak / Hotels Combined.

   

   • Find Services lists the channels you are not yet connected to,

   • My Services lists the channels which you have already established connection with and channels that are in the process of being connected.

3. Type the Kayak / Hotels Combined name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

4. Unfold the Kayak / Hotels Combined section by clicking the Down arrow button.

5. Click the Property Settings button.

   

6. Enter the External ID of the Kayak / Hotels Combined hotel and provide the mark-up that should be added on top of the prices.

   

7. Click the Import properties button.

8. Hotel rooms and rates are retrieved from Kayak / Hotels Combined and presented in the Rentals United platform.

   Important: Anytime you add or change your rate plans in Kayak / Hotels Combined dashboard, you need to re-import it in Rentals United platform. Otherwise, you risk overbookings.

9. Assign the Rentals United properties (one or many) to each Kayak / Hotels Combined room by clicking the Edit room option. Save your changes.

   

10. Make sure that all your rates are in the Active status.

    Note: If your rates are not active, it means your properties can get out-of-sync. It may result in overbookings!

11. Click the Save button.

    From this moment on, Rentals United sends the prices and availability to the channel and Kayak / Hotels Combined passes correctly all the reservations.

    Note: Due to a strong Kayak / Hotels Combined policy to prevent duplicates, it is not possible to re-create the property's connection with the channel (archive and connect again). Archiving a property does not resolve this, as the connection between Rentals United and Kayak / Hotels Combined is still maintained in the background.

Editing rates

The information in this chapter is useful when you already have properties mapped, but you want to organize them in a different way or introduce changes to rates that will affect only Kayak / Hotels Combined.

Editing mark-up for multiple hotels

1. Tick the boxes next to the hotels you want to edit.

2. Update the mark-up value.

   

3. Click the Apply button.

   Note: Changes introduced here will not affect any other channel than Kayak / Hotels Combined.

For more details, you can check out the video below on how to set mark-up for various channels.

Editing data for all rates in the group

1. Click the edit group button.

   

2. Adjust the available options.

   

   • group name and location,

   • External ID and currency,

     Important: Do not change the External ID unless you are certain about it.
     Important: This is the currency in which Rentals United sends your properties' prices to Kayak / Hotels Combined. Do not change the currency unless you are certain about it and understand the consequences. Wrong settings may cause that Kayak / Hotels Combined receives your prices in wrong currencies, which results in huge financial loss.

   • mark-up,

   • currency,

   • add or delete the properties in the group.

     Tip: If you add more than one property to the group, please check the Moves algorithm in Step 5: Price and availability. You will find there some useful information on how Rentals United send your availability to Kayak / Hotels Combined.

3. Click the Save group button.

   Note: Changes introduced here will not affect any other channel than Kayak / Hotels Combined.

Quick editing data for single rates

With these settings, you can override the property data you have in the Edit property page for the reservations coming only from the Kayak / Hotels Combined channel.

1. Click the quick edit button.

   

2. Adjust the available options.

   • Mark-up - with this value, you can scale up the total price which is sent to Kayak / Hotels Combined on the basis of prices in Step 5: Price and availability.

   • Number of people in the price - it refers to the Standard number of guests the price is calculated for. It is possible to overwrite the value set in Standard number of guests in Step 5: Price and availability.

   • Minimal price per night - in case the prices in Step 5: Price and availability set below this level, they will be updated in this particular rate.

   • Additional amount per day - you can specify an additional amount that will be charged each day of the reservation. It may cover for additional services available at this rate

     Example: If you offer a breakfast service to your guests, you can create a rate for this purpose and cover it in the additional amount per day.

   • Overwrite minimum stay - it is possible to overwrite the property's minimum stay in this particular rate.

     Example: Minimum stay from Monday to Friday is 2 nights, from Saturday to Sunday is 4 nights.

     • If you set the overwrite minimum stay value to 1 or 2, nothing will happen.

     • If you set the overwrite minimum stay value to 3, only the Monday to Friday season will be overwritten.

     • If you set the overwrite minimum stay value to 5, the Monday to Sunday season will be overwritten.

3. Click the Save rate button.

   Note: Changes introduced here will not affect any other channel than Kayak / Hotels Combined and will only apply to this rate.

Manual options for all rates in a group

1. Click the manual options button.

   

2. Adjust the available options.

   

   • You can verify the availability of a single rate, as well as the total availability of all rates in the Summary row.

   • You can verify and temporarily update total availability, price and minimum stay by selecting the relevant row and typing the new value. To undo and come back to the default value, click the red back-arrow icon. To copy the settings to other days, click the green arrows icon.

     

     Example: You received a reservation from 26 May 2021 to 30 May 2021 for Property 15 from another channel. The availability is blocked. However, you already know that the reservation is canceled, but the availability has not been updated yet. You may still want to rent the property at this time, hence you can temporarily update the availability and receive reservations for this time.
     Important: Bear in mind that once you change anything in manual options, the settings will be persisting until you manually undo them! For example, if you bump up the availability and a reservation comes, the availability will not be automatically closed and overbookings are possible! You will have to reset the settings in manual options.

3. Click the Send my changes button to update data in the Kayak / Hotels Combined channel.

   Note: Changes introduced here will not affect any other channel than Kayak / Hotels Combined.

Updating listings (N/A)

Deactivating properties

In this section, you can find more information on how to stop renting your properties on the Kayak / Hotels Combined channel or why your connection stopped syncing.

Deactivating rate

1. The Property list opens.

2. Click the deactivate button next to the rate.

   Important: Make sure that the rate has been deactivated first in the Kayak / Hotels Combined dashboard.

   

3. Confirm the operation.

   Note: 

   • If there are multiple rates in a group, you stop sending availability and prices to Kayak / Hotels Combined, leaving the property open to new reservations on the Kayak / Hotels Combined channel. This means that new reservations can be made through Kayak / Hotels Combined, but the channel will not receive the correct availability and pricing information.

     

   • If there is only one rate in the group or you deactivate the last rate, you need to choose if you want to stop sending availability and prices to Kayak / Hotels Combined, leaving the property open to new reservations on the Kayak / Hotels Combined channel or to close the availability. Closing availability means that you will not receive reservations from Kayak / Hotels Combined anymore.

     

   Availability can be always re-opened by clicking the Activate button next to the rate.

Deactivating rates in a group

1. The Property list opens.

2. Click the deactivate button in the group.

   

3. Confirm the operation.

   Note: If there are multiple rates in a group, you stop sending availability and prices to Kayak / Hotels Combined, leaving the property open to new reservations on the Kayak / Hotels Combined channel. This means that new reservations can be made through Kayak / Hotels Combined, but the channel will not receive the correct availability and pricing information. Availability can be always re-opened by clicking the Activate button next to the rate.

Rates or group deleted

Deleting rates results in having the rates visible in the Kayak / Hotels Combined dashboard, but not in the Rentals United platform. This means there is no mapping between them and they are out of synchronization, which is not the desired state. If you really aim to delete the rate, make sure that it is first deleted in the Kayak / Hotels Combined dashboard.

Once the delete button is clicked, the property is removed from the rates.

You can filter archived rates out by the Inactive filter on top. Archived rates will be shown as greyed out.

Reasons for connection deactivation

There are three reasons a connection with the channel gets deactivated.

• The connection was deactivated purposefully

  In case you would like to stop offering your listing on Kayak / Hotels Combined, you can do it at your convenience. In order to do so, follow the steps in Deactivating properties. Once completed, Kayak / Hotels Combined will no longer have access to your property data, nor will they be able to accept bookings for this property. You can always resume updates with just a few clicks. To do so, Click the Activate button.

• The property that was connected to the channel listing is no longer available

  This may happen if you have removed the property or changed its status to inactive in Rentals United or your PMS without disconnecting from the Kayak / Hotels Combined first. In such a case, Rentals United automatically closes availability in Kayak / Hotels Combined. When the property is activated in Rentals United again, updates will be resumed automatically.

• There is an error preventing updates

  This means Rentals United attempted to update the data in Kayak / Hotels Combined, but the channel declined. For example, Rentals United may no longer have access to your listings in the channel or the listing in the channel was removed. In such a case, the connection cannot be activated again until the source of the problem is eliminated.

  Note: It is very important to watch out for these errors and take action immediately. Without immediate actions, you risk overbookings as well as incorrectly priced reservations.