Once you have an active Booking.com Direct connection (interface between Booking.com extranet and your BookingCenter MyPMS software), adding promotions to your profile can be quite simple.
There are two kinds of promotions you can set up in the Booking.com Extranet: "Instant Promo" and “Extranet Only” promotions
If you ever create an “Extranet Only” promotion on Booking.com, please ask your market manager to to enable rate plan updates to “Follow Closed” for standard rates. This setting must be changed for “Extranet Only” promotions on Booking.com so that these non-mapped rate plans update correctly.If this setting is NOT enabled in your Booking.com extranet, then will not process updates for “Extranet Only” promotions.
To Set up any promotion in Booking.com follow these steps:
- Contact your Booking.com market manager and set up the promotion in your Extranet.
- Please tell your Booking.com Market Manager that the promotion must be setup in "Instant Promo Mapping". This setting was designed to be for short-term promotions for properties who wanted to offer promotions with short notice and NOT require extra mapping from the Channel Manager (in your case, BookingCenter).
- Check with your Market Manager that you are set to "Double Occupancy/Derived Rates." We have you do this during the set-up of your connection, but if you missed this step, it will cause all your promotions to fail.
- The rate for the "Instant Promo" is derived from the Standard Rate you are pushing to Booking.com from BookingCenter. Please ask your Market Manager to help you set up the needed rate for the promotion.
- Once the "Instant Promo" is set up with Booking.com, there nothing else you need to do. The promotion will be active and bookable.
Managing Promotions and Bookings in your PMS.
- The rate for the "Instant Promo" s derived off the standard rate. This means that the promotional rate will be based off of the chosen standard rate and any changes to the standard rate will also change the rate of the promotion.
- Rate Restrictions for the promotion are also derived from the Standard Rate. Closed to Arrival, Min LOS are managed in your property management system in SETUP | RATES | MANAGE RATES
- BookingCenter will not see your Instant Promo Mapping. You will only see it in your Booking.com extranet.
- If you were to look in your BookingCenter software, the reservation will still come under agent BKGDIR, but will reflect the discounted rate.
If you have any questions about how the promotions are to work, please contact your Booking.com Market Manager.
Things you should know about Promotional Programs
We recommend that you begin with the Booking.com Standard Program (BKGDIR) until you have experience managing the Booking.com agent, and then add additional programs when/if needed.
Booking.com offers numerous promotions and as we progress, you will need to communicate to your Market Manager that in order for the connection to work, you MUST ONLY use their "Instant Promo Mapping based on the Standard Rate." If you do any other promotional tool, including the Booking.com Promo Wizard, these promotions will not be mapped to your BookingCenter software, and this can lead to overbookings. Please note that these Instant Promo Mappings will assume the policies of your Standard Rate, as set in Booking.com.
If done correctly, BookingCenter will never handle your promotions or the details of your promotions. Instead they will flow into your MyPMS with the same agent as Standard Rate. However, you will see the promo reflected in the price you set inside Booking.com for the promo.
For example, a stay 3 nights, save 30% is perfect because the 30% discount will be based on the Standard Rate that is already loaded, and will dynamically be applied when booking 3 nights inside Booking.com. Please know that any other ways to set promotional rates will NOT work correctly from your BookingCenter software via the interface. If you have any promotional questions, those need to be addressed with your Booking.com Market Manager.
Once again, if you have any current promotions with Booking.com prior to your interface with Booking.com, you need to put those on hold during the interface. After your interface has been validated, you can then make use of the "Instant Promo Mapping based on the Standard Rate" to set promotional programs within Booking.com.
Overview
Content Tools
