Channels

On Channels you see for each connected channel whether the connection works: when something last went back and forth, how quickly a change arrives, and whether prices and availability there match yours. At the top it says whether changes are waiting to go out.

Open Channels

What is possible today

A connection with Booking.com, Airbnb or Expedia through a channel manager, where prices, availability and bookings travel back and forth by themselves, is not available yet. You also cannot add a channel here yourself. While nothing is connected, the screen says bookings only come in directly.

What you can do yourself is exchange calendars through iCal. You give the other channel the address of your calendar here, and add that channel's calendar. Then each knows what has been sold at the other. iCal only carries dates, no prices and no guest details. You set this up under Settings; see also iCal.

A channel card

When a channel is listed, its card shows:

• the status: "Active", "Being set up", "Paused", "Error", "Running behind" or "Quiet". Quiet means nothing has been passed on for longer than normal.
• "Last updated at" and "Last pull": when something last went to the channel, and when bookings were last fetched.
• "Delivery time, last 24 hours": how long a change usually takes.
• "Linked room types": how many of your room types are linked to a room type at the channel.

On an error you see the channel's own message, with "Try again": that puts the changes still waiting back in the queue. While a channel is being set up, there is a list of steps, each saying who does it: you, us or the channel. Tick a step off when it is done.

Last night's comparison

Every night at four we compare the next thirty nights with what the channel shows. Any difference in price or availability is listed here per room type and night.

The last rooms for direct bookings only

Choose a threshold per room type. When a night has only that many rooms of the type left, or fewer, the channels close for that night. Your own booking engine stays open, so a guest books the last rooms with you, without commission. When a cancellation frees up more than the threshold, the channels open again for that night by themselves; you do not have to do anything.

• Under "Turn on a threshold" you choose the room type and at how many free rooms or fewer. The period is optional: empty means all year, and with a start and an end (for example July and August) the threshold only applies then. With "Turn on", the nights already at or below the threshold close on the channels right away.
• "Remove" takes a threshold away; whatever it had closed opens again right away.
• Above the setting you see which connected channels close. A channel that cannot be closed for a single night stays open, and the screen says so. Your own booking engine and Google never close: through Google, the guest books in your own booking engine. Calendars you exchange through iCal do not close with it either, because iCal only knows busy or free.
• Your inventory itself does not change. In the calendar, a night that is open for direct bookings only has a D in its cell.

The threshold is off by default. Booking.com ranks properties that are often available higher, so closing too often can cost visibility. That is why "What it brought in" shows what the threshold did, over the nights from a year back to a year ahead:

• "Extra direct nights": nights booked directly while the channels were closed for that night.
• "Direct mix": the share of all nights sold that was booked directly.
• "Left free while closed": rooms that stayed free on a past night while the channels were closed. At most this many nights could the channels still have sold.

Combined units

The whole house, or another combined unit, can only be sold when every room in it is free. Any single booking on another channel closes it, and between that booking and our update to the other channels lies the delivery time shown on the channel card. That is why a combined unit is only sold on your own site, by phone and on Google by default.

• With "Also to the booking platforms" it also goes to the connected channels, as its own room type with its own mapping. Above it, each channel is listed as seeing it as an ordinary room type.
• Two bookings on the same rooms can never both stand: the second is refused, even when they arrive in the same second. Fetching bookings from the channels themselves is not available yet.
• The channel manager gets one number per night for all its channels, so on or off applies to all connected channels together.

Child prices

If you have age groups, this shows which channel has no child prices per age group. Then set the child policy at that channel as well.

More on how a connection comes about: Channel connections.