Expedia | Manage Connection

Managing your Expedia Connection

There are some important things to be aware of about bookings, availability and rates with your Expedia Connection. Please review this list and bookmark it for future reference.

BOOKINGCENTER - EXPEDIA CONNECTION INFORMATION

1. As an Expedia Direct Connection Customer, you have access to these online channels depending on your contract with Expedia:  Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Travelocity.com, Orbitz.com, venere.com, trivago.com and wotif.com. If you have contracts for any of these channels, your rates and availability will update automatically from your Expedia channel allocations.
2. If you were an Expedia client prior this direct connection, the bookings that were received in the previous Expedia connection will not sync with BookingCenter and you will now need to manage those reservations manually.  Therefore is reservations made prior to the Expedia interface confirmation are cancelled or modified, you will receive a fax/email from Expedia noting those changes.  Please make sure you manually make those changes in BookingCenter to record the changes that came via email/fax.
3. All rates on all your rooms should be set to "Occupancy Based", NOT "Pricing per day". This means that all standard rates are based on on occupancy and not fixed. Ask you Market manager to set them up correctly for you.
4. BookingCenter sends ONLY Availability, Rates and Restrictions to your Expedia Extranet. If you have issues with any of these, please submit a support ticket at support.bookingcenter.com
5. When you make any changes in your BookingCenter PMS (for example, rates), you will see those changes reflected in your Expedia Partner Central (the extranet) in about 10 to 15 minutes.  You can see your rates, restrictions, and availability (denoted by the color of the squares) within Expedia Partner Central.
6. To manage or create promotions select the 'Promotions Tab' in Expedia® Partner Central. If you require further assistance from a local representative select the ‘Contact Expedia’ link at the foot of Expedia® Partner Central home page.
7. Expedia Partner Central can be used to update and override information within BookingCenter.  However, the next update from your PMS and override any changes made in Expedia Partner Central. This should only be done for short term and/or emergency changes.
8. In the rare instance that an Expedia booking does not integrate into BookingCenter, then Expedia will notify you of the reservation via email or fax.

BOOKINGS

1. All Expedia bookings will now have EXPDIR as the Source, EXPDIRHC, EXPDIREC and EXPDIRPK as the Agent and an "E", for Expedia, at the end of the booking confirmation #, I.e. 626310332E
2. When a booking is made on Expedia, you will receive an email notification from Expedia and it will automatically integrate into your PMS system. The booking will appear on the Tape Chart as an "Unconfirmed" booking.
3. You can also see all online bookings that have integrated into your PMS in SETUP | BOOKINGS | ONLINE BOOKINGS. For instructions see Online Bookings.
4. To locate an online booking at the front desk, go to BOOKINGS | SEARCH BOOKINGS and search by Source. For an example, see Search Bookings
5. In the rare instance that an Expedia booking does not integrate into BookingCenter, then Expedia will notify you of the reservation via email or fax.
6. If you have any questions about guest details, please contact Expedia.  You may not receive full guest information downloaded into BookingCenter, but that information will be stored in your Expedia Partner Central. BookingCenter staff cannot access this for you, as the information is only between your hotel and Expedia.

RATES

• All rates on all your rooms should be set to "Occupancy Based", NOT "Pricing per day". This means that all standard rates are based on on occupancy and not fixed. Ask you Market manager to set them up correctly for you.
• Room Type/Rate Plans have been allocated based on your initial mapping and can be viewed in the EXPDIR agents in Agent Relationships.  Keep in mind that you will NOT be able  to change these allocations or the percentage allocated to the channel in your PMS system.  If you do need to update your rate plans, please submit a support ticket with the requested changes.
• BookingCenter sends Rates and Restrictions: CTA, MIN LOS and MAX LOS to your Expedia Extranet. These can be changed in MyPMS in Manage Rates. If you have issues with any of these, please submit a support ticket at support.bookingcenter.com
• Restriction changes made in the property management system will be sent to ALL channels the Room Type/Rate Plan is allocated. Changes made in the Expedia extranet will apply ONLY to the Expedia channel.

ROOM TYPES AND ALLOCATIONS

1. All bookings will come in to your BookingCenter product with one or all of these agent codes depending on the program in which you are enrolled. EXPDIRHC for Expedia Hotel Collect, EXPDIREC for Expedia Collect EXPDIRPK for Expedia Packages. These agents will be listed in SETUP | RELATIONSHIPS | AGENT RELATIONSHIPS. For more information see Expedia | Agent Allocations
2. All changes to Property and Room Type information such as descriptions, images, amenities, etc. are made in the Expedia Partner Central extranet. You have complete control over this in your Extranet. If you need help with making these changes, please contact your Expedia Market Manager.
3. Room Type/Rate Plans have been allocated based on your initial mapping and can be viewed in the EXPDIR agents in Agent Relationships.  Keep in mind that you will NOT be able  to change these allocations or the percentage allocated to the channel in your PMS system.  If you do need to update these, please submit a support ticket with the requested changes.
4. To add or deactivate a Room Type, please do so with your Market Manager first and then submit a support ticket letting BookingCenter know that there has been a change in your room mappings.  We will map the changes and update rates and availability and notify you when it is completed. When the mapping is completed you will see the changes to allocations reflected in the EXPDIRHC agent. For more details see, Expedia Direct | Add or Remove Rooms

Find answers to questions on managing rates, availability and more on your BookingCenter PMS.

• BookingCenter Expedia Direct Connection FAQ | Bookings, Availability, Rates
• For help with Expedia Partner Central, go to Expedia Partner Central Help