Agent Relationships

All Room Type and Rate Plan allocations to Agent Channels are listed and managed in SETUP | RELATIONSHIPS | AGENT RELATIONSHIPS.  The default screen of Agent Relationships displays the details of your Agent Channels:  Agent ID, Agent Type, Agent Name, Number of Rooms Allocated, Commission percentage and Rate Loading percentage.

Examples of Agents Channels include: your website, promotional codes,  buuteeq, GDS, Booking.com and other online travel agents. To see the contact details of each Agent, click the Agent ID.

Because you can setup and manage a unique set of Room allocations and Rate Plans to each Agent Channel,  we refer to this as an Agent Relationship. There are three general types of Agents, each of which can have multiple channels depending on the online distribution channels you choose to set up. Some Agents are set up by BookingCenter (Master Agents), some are created by you (MyPMS Agents) and some are added automatically after you have signed up for an OTA contract Rate program (Net Rate Agents). See Agent Types for more details.

Agent Types

• Master Agents: These agents control the availability and rates to your basic channels:  They must have allocations in order to function properly.
• PMS Agents: These are "special" agents that you have set up in the My Agents area. This Agent is also used to set up Promotional Codes.
  
• Net Rate Agents: These agents will only be visible if you have signed up for a Contract Program with a major OTA

Agent Channels

Master Agents and Net Rates Agents are added internally by BookingCenter when you sign up and activate GDS or OTA distribution channels. MyPMS Agents appear as you create them in My Agents. MyPMS Agents are typically used to set up promo codes, connect certain travel agencies, direct booking relationships, etc. See Promo Codes and Special Agents.

Agent Channels are primarily used to sell and distribute rooms online through your Website, GDS and specific Online Travel Agencies (OTA's). The only exception to this are Master Agents BC and BCM which are internal channels that manage your database (See below for details). Selling rooms online or, Online Distribution is process that first involves setting up your Agents and then allocating the Rooms and Rate plans to those Channels.

Each online channel you choose to connect to MyPMS will be listed in Agent Relationships and will grow as you add more channels. For example,  you may start with one online channel like your website and then choose to increase your online distribution through GDS and OTA Channels. The number of channels will depend on what you have elected to sign up for or activate.

Once the Agent Channels are set up and listed in Agent Relationships, they can then be managed independently in each channel.

There are two standard channels used to sell online These channels must have subscriptions and be activated before the will be live online and be able to accept bookings.

• Agent BC  (Distributes Rooms to your Booking Engine and Website)
• Agent WR (Global Booking Network - Displays allocations on all GDS channels).
  

The other channels that sell online are either added by you (MyPMS Agents) or added when you sign up for an OTA Contract Rate Program. See Agent Channels for a complete list and details on each channel. 

Understanding Room Type and Rate Plan Allocations

A Room Type/Rate Plan allocation controls the availability of Rooms and the Rates you offer  in each channel. Room Type/Rate Plan allocations are also used to sell packages,  discounted rates and for Promo Codes. The Room Types and Rate Plans available to allocate in the channels are already setup in Room Types and Default Rates or Packages. When you add Room Type/Rate Plan allocation to a channel, all of the rooms assigned to that Room Type will be available at the Rate Plan you have assigned to it.

You can use the current Room Types you have set up or create new Room Types and Rate Plans and Packages for use in a specific channel. The functions you decide to use depends on how you want to manage your online distribution and the complexity of your Room Type and Rate Plan Structure.

Understanding how you can use combinations of Room Type and Rate Plan allocations and control the restrictions through Manage Rates will help you in managing availalbility.

Examples of how Room Type and Rate Plan allocations are used:

Example 1

Property A has 50 Rooms categorized and assigned to 3 Room Types (KING, QUEEN and SINGLE) and 3 Rate Plans (KING, QUEEN, SINGLE). They sell online through their website and want all of their Rooms available online at their current Rates.They also want to offer a Package with a special called Weekend Escape (ESCAPE) for the KING Room at a different Rate and for only two months. (The Rates and availability dates of the Package are set up in the package itself. See Packages) Notice that the King Room Type is allocated twice, but with different Rate Plans.

To do this, they would allocate their current Room Types and Rate Plans to Master Agent - Agent BC like this:

Example 2

Property B has 15 very unique Rooms, each with a different Rate, so they have set up 15 Room Types and 15 Rate Plans. They already sell their Rooms on their website so have allocated all of the Room Types and Rate Plans in Agent BC as shown in Example 1. They already sell online through their website and GDS, but have decided to add two OTA Contract Rates Programs  to their online distribution and need to allocate Room Types and Rate Plans. Since each Room Type only has 1 Room assigned, they want to be careful about offering all of them online so they decide to only sell 10 of these Rooms online,

To do this, they would allocate the 10 Room Types and Rate Plans to Master Agent - Agent WR like this:

(Note: this is an abbreviated list, it would have 10 lines with the 10 Room Types.

When you add Room Type/Rate Plan allocation to a channel, all of the rooms assigned to that Room Type will be available at the Rate Plan you have assigned to it.

EXAMPLE 3

Property C has a 25 Rooms and 5 unique Suites. The 25 Rooms are categorized into 4 Room Types (KING, QUEEN, QUEEN2 and SINGLE), the Suites are categorized and assigned to 2 Room Types (1BDRSUITE and 2BDRSUITE) 

They already sell their Rooms on their website and GDS so have allocated all of the Room Types and Rate Plans in Agent BC and Agent WR as shown in Example 1 and Example 2. They have decided to add two Contract Rate Programs to their online distribution portfolio and need to allocate Room Types and Rate Plans.

The first consideration is that a requirement of OTA Contract Rate Programs is that all availability and rates remain in parity, meaning that they are all offered the same availability and rates. In addition, any agreed upon discounted rates must be based on the rates allocated to GDS in the WR channel. Therefore, if you have agreed to an 18% discounted Rate, it must reflect 18% discount off of your "general published rates" or GDS in the WR Channel. For example, you agree to sell rooms at an 18% discount to 1 OTA Channel. This discount is 18% off of the Rates published in GDS not the Rates shown on your website or in the Front Desk. To do this, they make sure the same allocations are in both the GDS and OTA channel and then they enter -18% in the Rate Loading of the OTA Channel. Since OTA Channel is discounting from the same Room Types allocated it GDS.

At this point, they decide to create unique Rates just for GDS and OTA distribution, but using the same Room Types. The new Rate Plans are called QUEENGDS, KINGGDS and so on. Then, they allocate those new Rate Plans to their current Room Types, first in Agent WR (GDS) and then for each Net Rate Agent (OTA's). Therefore, the allocations in both channels look like this:

To do this, they would allocate the 10 Room Types and Rate Plans to Master Agent - Agent WR like this:

Managing Room Type and Rate Plan Allocations

Allocating a Room Type and Rate Plan involves the same function for all channels in Agent Relationships.To see which Room Types and Rate Plans are allocated to an Agent Channel or to ADD or DELETE a Room Type allocation, click on blue link that displays the number of rooms allocated in the "Rooms Allocated" column for the corresponding Agent. For example, 15 of 17. When you click on this number a new screen will open with a List of the Room Types and corresponding Rate Plans you have allocated to that Agent. At this point you can Add or Delete a Room Type Allocation.See Add or Delete Allocation.

Overall, the Room Type Allocation function can be use in the following ways:

1. Use one Rate Plan for different Room Types in one channel. For example, STANDARD Rate Plan is allocated to Room Type STANDARD and Room Type STANDARDVIEW.
2. Multiple Rate Plans can be allocated to one Room Type in the same Channel to offer different rates for the same room.  For example, a QUEEN Room Type with a Standard Rate, Weekend Special Package and Seasonal Rate all allocated individually and only accessible if the booking meets rate and availability restrictions. See Rate Restrictions. Packages and Manage Rates
3. Use Rate Loading to Increase or decrease the Rates of all of the Room Types and Rate Plans allocated in the entire channel. See Rate Loading

However, managing Availability and Rates to each channel can further customized by strategically using the Room Type and Rate Plan allocation functions.

To quickly block out a room or block of rooms for short time period, see Blocking out rooms for a specific time period

Managing Availability on GDS and OTA Channels

Selling Rooms through GDS and OTA channels involves the same functions as all other channels. However, with an OTA Contract Rate plan there are further considerations such as the agreed upon neogiated rate and maintaining availability and rate parity. See Managing Availability and Rates on GDS and OTA channels. Each Contract Rate you enter into has a unique set of requirements and conditions which must be taken into consideration when setting up your Room Type and Rate Plan allocations.See Managing Availabiilty on GDS and OTA channels for more details on each Channel. Also, Room Types must be mapped with each OTA in order to function properly. See GDS and OTA Best Practices, Tips and Help Articles.

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