How to setup shared dorms on Expedia

If you sell Dorm Rooms on Expedia, but have Occupancy Based Pricing setup, you are likely to receive an error message similar to the one below:

Failed: 1133 A mapped channel room has fewer beds configured than the channel manager. Check with your channel's account manager that the number of accepted beds match for each room. Example: [201180997] on date [2016-02-05]. (#FAULT.OTA.ROOM.BEDS_INSUFFICIENT.EXAMPLE)

This error occurs when you have Occupancy Based Pricing, because myallocator is forced to send rates for each of your occupants, such as:

• 1 Person: $100
• 2 People: $200
• 3 People: $300
• 4 People: $400
• and so on...

The problem occurs when you have Occupancy Based Pricing setup, but also have your dorm rooms set as "Single Occupancy".  Setting your dorms as Single Occupancy is fine as long as you have "Per Day Pricing" setup.  However, if you have Occupancy Based Pricing, and sell your dorms as a single unit, this error will occur.

Solution:  Change your pricing model in Expedia to Per Day Pricing.  If you want to make a change to the Expedia pricing model, please contact your Expedia Market Manager for assistance.

This option allows you to sell the maximum amount of your inventory with the lowest possibility of overbookings.

Advantages

• You can sell every single bed that is available.
• Clearly communicates with customers what they are purchasing.
• Best option for most Hostels

Disadvantages

• The room only shows up when guests search for a single person
• Some rate plans based on per-person pricing are not possible

How to set it up

Example room:

• Room type: 5-bed dorm
• Number of rooms: 4
• Total accommodations: 20

1. Contact your Expedia Market Manager to set your Pricing Model to Per Day Pricing
2. On Expedia's extranet, configure the room type to only allow 1 person to stay.
3. The number of rooms for our example room type on Expedia would then be set to 20 (4 dorm rooms, each with 5 beds = 20 total accommodations. )
4. Name the room on Expedia something like "1 bed in a 5-bed dorm"
5. If the customer wants more than 1 bed they book the room multiple times.
6. If there are 8 beds available for example, we set an availability of 8.

Advantages

• The rooms will show up when guests search rooms for multiple people.

Disadvantages

• The primary disadvantage is that the beds will only be bookable if you have the full number of beds available for the dorm room.
• This option also requires you to setup the Dorm Room as a Private Room, thereby selling the entire room with each reservation (even if only one person books it).

Example: In our 5 Bed Dorm scenario, the dorm beds will only be bookable if you have all 5 beds open.  If you have even just 4 beds left, the room will be "blocked"

How to set it up

Example room:

• Room type: 5-bed dorm
• Number of rooms: 4
• Total accommodations: 20

1. Contact your Expedia Market Manager to set your Pricing Model to Occupancy Based Pricing
2. On Expedia's extranet, configure the room type to have 4 rooms on Expedia, each with an occupancy of 5 people.
3. Name the room something like "5 Bed Dorm Room".
4. Depending on the number of beds currently available on myfrontdesk, here is how we set the number of fully available rooms on Expedia:
   • 20 beds = 4 rooms available
   • 15 to 19 beds = 3 rooms available
   • 10 to 14 beds = 2 rooms available
   • 5 to 9 beds = 1 room available
   • 1 to 4 beds = 0 rooms available

Once your pricing model has been chosen and set, you simply need to select the correct option in the Expedia setup page, as shown below.

1. Click on the gear icon
2. Click on Channels tab
3. Click on the green button next to Expedia. If you're starting the process now, the button will be red
4. Click next through each screen until you come to the "Channel-specific Options" screen
5. Choose the correct Pricing Model
   • Note: this setting must match the setting in your Expedia Extranet.
   • Click Next (until the end of the process)
6. Click on "Full Refresh" in the top of the page (blue button on the right side)