Booking.com: Errors and Troubleshooting

ISSUE: On the Booking.com extranet you have the message "This property isn't taking reservations on our site right now".

REASON: Usually when this message appears on Booking.com, it means that Booking.com manually closed the availability on the extranet due to the connection process with myallocator (Channel Manager by Cloudbeds).

SOLUTION: You need to contact your account manager and ask them to reopen it because your connection to the channel manager is finalized. 

Please login to your Booking.com Extranet and follow the steps below to confirm the connection:

1. Click on Account at the top
2. Click on Channel Manager section
3. Then, go ahead and confirm the connection with myallocator by clicking on Activate the Connection with myallocator

ISSUE: During mapping, you receive this error: "There are no usable rate plans configured for this channel. It's possible that they are all read-only, which means that we cannot update them."

REASON: This error happens when all of your rate plans are set up on Booking.com to be "read-only".  When they are set up as read-only, it means the channel manager is unable to update rates or availability for those rate plans.

Having them as read-only is not possible for channel management, so they must be changed to XML enabled.

Note:

If your Rate Plans are marked as Read Only, you may see a message similar to the one circled below.

This rate is connected.  You can receive reservations via channel manager but you need to update your availability via the Extranet.

SOLUTION: The only way to resolve this is to ask your account manager (NOT Booking.com Customer Support) to change your rate plans to be XML enabled.

Send an email or message to your Account Manager stating the following,

Hi [Account Manager's name],
This is [Your Name] from [Your Property].  My Property ID is [ID].
I am currently connected to myallocator as my channel manager.  However, my rate plans are setup to be "read only" and they cannot control my availability or rates.
Please change my Rate Plans to be XML enabled to resolve this problem.
Thank you!

Once the change has been made to XML Enabled, you will be able to complete the Booking.com setup normally per the instructions here: Start mapping Booking.com in myfrontdesk

ISSUE: During mapping, you receive this error: "No rooms are configured with this channel. Please log into the back-office of Booking.com and add your room setup."

REASONS:

1. There are no rooms set up on the channel
2. There are no cancellation policies in the extranet

SOLUTION:

You need to access channel extranet and make sure you have set up rooms and canncellation policies

REASON: When adding a room in Booking.com, there is a setting called NON-XML which would hide it from being viewable by channel managers.

SOLUTION:  Please make sure this setting (NON-XML) is not enabled for your room.  If it is, deselect that setting and submit the room again, which should make it viewable by myallocator.

ISSUE: After connecting, the rates on Booking.com are very high.

EXPLANATION: If your currency is USD and the rate for some dates became 9999, or if you use another currency but the rate equals 9999 USD after conversion, the reason is that the price for this date was set to 0 in myallocator (Channel Manager by Cloudbeds). The myallocator connection is designed to send 9999 USD instead of 0 rate.

*If the rate is too high but does not equal 9999 USD - the reason for the issue is different. Try checking the Base Rate Adjustment setting in your channel mapping or your currency settings, if they were set incorrectly, this might cause wrong rates.

SOLUTION: We plan to start sending 0 rate in the future; meanwhile, you can close the room for the dates with 0 rate or myallocator will keep sending 9999 USD for these dates.

ISSUE: The reservation is imported into myfrontdesk with the rate plan description 'genius rate' while in Booking.com it was made under the non-refundable rate plan.

REASON: (provided by Booking.com team) "As this rate was not created through the Promotions API or using the Promotions tab, the Rate Name will not display. However, within it will be sent not as a rate plan name but as a description (additional information) mentioning that the booking was made with a non-refundable policy."

REASON: For certain OTA (channel) bookings, you may not receive all of the information due to connection limitations. It's important to remember that an OTA is the source of this incoming information (not myallocator). Myallocator (channel manager by Cloudbeds) will always display the full information the OTA provides and it will be imported to myfrontdesk. If there is a piece of information missing, it means the OTA did not send it to the channel manager.

Another reason is the setting inside your OTA extranet: it might be that certain guest data is not set as mandatory on your Extranet.

SOLUTION: To resolve this, you'll need to email your OTA Account Manager (NOT the customer support team) and inform them that you are missing guest data from bookings that are forwarded to myallocator, and myallocator has already confirmed that their system is working.
Your Booking.com Account Manager will be able to update the setting for you.

ISSUE: myfrontdesk is showing the following error: "Please activate the connection with the channel manager in the Booking.com extranet. No updates are possible until you do this"

REASON: This message means that you have not activated the connection to the channel manager myallocator in the booking.com extranet.  

SOLUTION: You must log in to your Booking.com extranet and confirm the connection to myallocator.

Please follow the steps from this article to confirm the connection.

ISSUE: During a Full Refresh you receive an error "#1118 At least one room/rate combination could not be updated, as it's inactive (Room Id #####, Rate Id #####). 

This is usually not a problem since you might not have all rate plans available for all rooms.

SOLUTION: If you see this error message in myfrontdesk channels page, please contact your account manager at Booking.com and ask them for help. Give them the rate and Booking.com room IDs. They will know more about the issue since this message is coming from their system.