Booking.com | Create Promotions

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."  or  “Extranet Only” . 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 connection.  If you have any promotional questions, those need to be addressed with your Booking.com Market Manager.  

Things you should know about Promotional Programs

1. Please be aware that promotions will only be seen in the Booking.com extranet and can't be seen by BookingCenter. They must be managed in the Extranet.

2. 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
   

3. Bookings with promotional rates will still come under agent BKGDIR and will reflect the discounted rate of the promotion.
   

To Set up a "Instant Promo Mapping" promotion in Booking.com follow these steps:

1. Contact your Booking.com market manager to set up the promotion in your Extranet. 
2. 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. 
3. Setup in "Instant Promo Mapping". This does NOT require extra mapping and is designed for short-term promotions and for promotions with short notice. 
4. Please ask your Market Manager to help you set up the needed rate for the promotion.The rate for the "Instant Promo" is derived from the Standard Rate you are sending to Booking.com from BookingCenter.
5.  Once the "Instant Promo" is set up with Booking.com, there nothing else you need to do. The promotion will be active and bookable.
6.  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.  

To Set up a "Extranet Only" Promotions in the Booking.com Extranet
If you do 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. 

Further detail can be found below on this, but basically when BookingCenter closes out availability for a room type on a given day, Booking.com will not process it unless this setting is enabled for extranet only promotions.

The official explanation from Booking.com is as follows:

"When sending a close you need to have the following elements: Room code, rate code and date range. Since the rate plan booked is not a mapped rate plan when BookingCenter pushes a close it will not close unless it is set to follow closed on the Booking.com extranet, which it currently is not setup to.  In this case, the property needs to manage this rate plan manually. If they would like for it to “follows closed” when BookingCenter pushes a close for the Standard rate please have them reach out to their Booking.com Account Manager to update the settings of the non-mapped rate plans."

Because we only map to the standard rates, any promotions in the extranet or via the instant promo wizard are either managed manually or setup as a child/derived from the standard rate.  I talked to my connectivity manager today and he confirmed that the local market manager should have setup these promotions to 'follow closed' off the standard rate, and that by not having it defined that way in the Booking.com extranet it essentially becomes a free sell scenario.  Booking.com's connectivity team is going to reach out to your local market manager to have them make the necessary corrections.”

In summary, for extranet only promotion within Booking.com, please have your market manager enable rate plan updates to “follow closed” for standard rate. There is a setting that your Booking.com Account Manager will need to update of the non-mapped rate plans for any extranet promotion.