Booking.com FAQ

Booking.com supports:

• Cancellations
• Modifications
• Minimum length of stay
• Maximum length of stay
• Rate Plan Mapping
• Close Day (Stop Sell)
• Closed to Arrival
• Closed to Departure
• Credit Cards
• Cutoff (Early booker or Minimum Advanced Booking)
• Last-Minute Booking (Maximum Advanced Booking)

Yes - You can report No Show back to Booking.com, without leaving Cloudbeds system.

Check out this article for further details about this feature: How to report No Show reservations to the channels from Cloudbeds PMS.

ISSUE: When Booking.com sends us a booking, they include a value for the "Occupancy" of the booking.  This value actually corresponds with the occupancy of the entire room - not necessarily the true number of guests that booked the room.

In this example, we have a booking for a 6 person private room.  

However, on the channel the guest actually specified the following information:

• 2 Adults
• 2 Children

What our channel manager received: Since this is a Private 6 person room, Booking.com actually sent the number of occupants as 6 (full occupancy of the room) and not the actual number of the guest (4).

This is how the connection is designed and cannot be changed on our channel manager side. For further information on this topic please contact your Booking.com Account Manager.

The following information is valid for specific users who use rate plans derivations (optional) in Booking.com mapping and do not use Advanced Channel Rates. If you use advanced channel rates, check how to configure and sync them to Booking.com here.

How it works?

Cloudbeds PMS sends the standard rate (BAR) of your accommodations to Booking.com. Once your Booking.com account is properly configured, you can create various rate plans based on the BAR. Since Cloudbeds PMS will only sync the standard rate, other rate plans should be derived from the BAR in the extranet, as well as the per person pricing.

Pricing per guest allows you to tailor your room or unit rate based on the number of guests staying in it. It's easy to set up and update directly on the Extranet. Follow the steps to enable it in this Booking.com help guide: Setting up and updating pricing per guest

Example:

• Standard Rate: Managed by Cloudbeds PMS (XML enabled)
• Last Minute Rate: Standard rate -10% (restrictions applied)
• Non-Refundable:  Standard rate -10€ (different policies)

When the rate plan is XML Enabled, it can be configured inside Booking.com channel mapping in Cloudbeds PMS, however, the configuration can only be done by percentage (%) (e.g. 10% higher than the base rate) and not fixed amount (e.g. the base rate +10 USD).

If you'd like to set up the rate plan using the fixed amount, the rate plan has to be configured directly on Booking.com extranet with further assistance of your Booking.com account manager.

Background: Since Strong Customer Authentication was enforced for European customers/properties, Booking.com chat system automatically removes the links necessary for the payment approval from the emails.

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) is a new requirement of the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), which aims to add extra layers of security to electronic payments, such as 3D Secure.

Solutions:

1. For you to charge the card, the guest needs to approve the payment, but since the links are removed, you need to contact the guest, ask for their email address, change the email address on the credit card billing information, run the payment again, and then the guest has to approve it.
2. To avoid such a situation for the future, you can switch to channel collect type of payment method.
3. If previous solutions didn't work for you, you need to mark the credit card as invalid. This is the solution for the situation when credit card cannot be charged and the guest cannot be contacted. Here are the instructions on how to do it:
   How do I mark a credit card as invalid? This will notify booking.com that you cannot charge the card and will cancel the reservation.

Booking.com has a setting called "Auto Replenish." This setting causes a room to open back up when a Booking.com reservation has been cancelled, and it's totally independent of the channel manager and/or PMS.  

Reason: When a Booking.com reservation is cancelled on the Booking.com extranet by a guest, the channel will automatically open the room and rate for the dates that the booking had been previously booked under, even if those rooms/rates are closed by the channel manager.  This can lead to unexpected availability and thus could potentially cause an overbooking.

As per Booking.com Support team, there are 2 types of "Auto Replenish":

1. General auto-replenishment
   This option is integrated by default to all properties on Booking.com and cannot be deactivated. Whenever a cancellation comes through Booking.com, the room is put back on sale automatically to give the property another chance at reselling it.
2. Auto-replenishment on closed rooms 
   This feature can be deactivated at the property level, however, the general auto-replenishment for Booking.com cancellations will remain active. Deactivating this feature means that if the room/date is closed in red (stop sell), it will not be auto-replenished even if there are cancellations.

SOLUTION:

The first option above is normally enabled by default but is agreed on in the commercial agreement between the property and Booking.com Account Manager. If you want to change this, please contact your Booking.com Account Manager.

REASON: Let's suppose that the property closed a specific room for three days in Cloudbeds PMS.
On Booking.com extranet the same room with Standard rate was closed for reservations as well.

However, you can see that there is still 1 availability for this room with a Non-refundable rate. Myallocator (channel manager by Cloudbeds) only manages XML enabled rate plans. In this particular case, it is only the Standard rate.

That's the reason why availability wasn't closed for the Non-refundable rate, and the booking was allowed.

SOLUTION: There are 2 ways to fix it.

1. Manually manage availability for this rate plan on the Booking.com extranet.

2. Contact your Booking.com account manager and ask him/her to XML enable this rate plan. So both availability and rates are derived from the Standard rate and thus managed by the channel manager.

Problem: The rate plan was correctly connected through Cloudbeds PMS to your Booking.com account, but it is not visible on your commercial page, even though you can see it in your extranet account.

Solution: This can happen if the Booking.com relevant team does not verify your property. There will be certain restrictions on your property until it gets verified. Please, contact your channel account manager to fix it.

Reach out to your Local Booking.com Support team and request that viewing restrictions on the Calendar be allowed. For reference, the relevant internal setting is called Edit restriction rights.

When you select myallocator as your channel manager on Booking.com, the username MyAllocatorByCloudBeds will be automatically associated with your Booking.com account. This is expected behavior.

Booking.com gives Cloudbeds limited access to property accounts to assist in troubleshooting connection issues between the two systems. The limited access means we can see:

• Calendar & Availability
• Property Details
• Reservations
• Connectivity Provider
• Promotions

However, we do not have access to your account settings that might contain sensitive information (i.e, Change Password, Create and Manage Users, Notification Settings, Contacts, Contracts, Connected Applications, Security).

Note that the majority of our customers maintain our user listed on their accounts and while we do not recommend removing it, you can follow the instructions below to manage our user rights or completely have it removed from your account:

1. Go to Booking.com extranet and click on the Account icon in the top right-hand corner
2. Select Create and Manage Users from the drop-down menu
3. You'll see an overview of all users and their access rights
4. Click on Manage to edit use rights or remove the user MyAllocatorByCloudBeds

• Steps are taken from Booking.com guidelines on how to manage extranet logins.
• If you disconnect MyAllocatorByCloudBeds user from your Booking.com extranet, it will not affect your connectivity, however, it makes it hard for Cloudbeds support to troubleshoot any connection issues.

The connection between Cloudbeds PMS and Booking.com can only be controlled through your Booking.com extranet. Cloudbeds support team cannot disconnect the channel manager from Booking.com on your behalf. Follow the steps below to ensure the disconnection is complete.

Until this process is completed by the property, Booking.com will continue to allow the channel manager to control your property's rates and availability.

2 - Disconnect Cloudbeds in Booking.com

Login to your Booking.com extranet,

1. Click on the Account icon in the top right-hand corner
2. Choose Connectivity Provider from the drop-down
3. Click on Disconnect

Follow the rest of the Booking.com instructions, and if you have further questions about the Booking.com extranet, reach out to the Booking.com support team directly.

No. Cloudbeds supports a 1:1 connection between a Booking.com listing and a Cloudbeds property.
Booking.com does not allow multiple listings to be mapped to a single PMS property, and Cloudbeds does not offer a workaround for this limitation.
If you manage several listings on Booking.com (e.g., hotel rooms, apartment units, or separate properties), you must create a separate Cloudbeds property for each listing.
For centralized management, you can group these properties under an Organization and access them using the Multi-property view.

The most common reason is a mismatch in tax and fee configurations between the two systems. Cloudbeds typically includes the room rate plus all taxes and fees configured in the Cloudbeds PMS, while Booking.com only includes taxes and fees they are authorized to collect.

Why does Cloudbeds often display a higher total reservation amount?

When a user reports that a reservation amount in Cloudbeds (e.g., 272.48 AUD) is higher than the amount shown on Booking.com (e.g., 252.72 AUD), the difference is almost always related to tax and fee handling:

• Cloudbeds' Display: Cloudbeds includes the room rate plus all configured taxes and fees attached to the reservation folio.
• Booking.com's Display: Booking.com only displays the total amount being collected through their platform. If taxes or fees are configured for the guest to pay directly at the property, Booking.com’s displayed total will be tax-exclusive of those specific charges.

The difference in amount is usually the exact amount of the tax or fee that Booking.com is not collecting.

What are the steps to investigate the discrepancy in Cloudbeds and Booking.com Extranet?

In Cloudbeds:

You should open the reservation folio in Cloudbeds and verify the taxes and fees. Check the tax columns to precisely identify which taxes and fees are attached to the reservation and their respective amounts.

In Booking.com Extranet:

You need to confirm the tax collection status:

1. Log in to the Booking.com Extranet.
2. Navigate to Finance / Policies (or the equivalent tax/VAT setup section).
3. Confirm whether the taxes/fees identified in your Cloudbeds folio are marked as "Collected by Booking.com" or "Paid at the property".

How do I ultimately resolve the amount discrepancy for future reservations?

The ultimate goal is to ensure both platforms handle the charge the same way. You must align the tax and fee configurations:

• Ensure the "Paid at the property" status for specific taxes in the Booking.com extranet matches the taxes/fees you intend for the guest to pay on arrival.
• Once the tax and fee configurations are aligned between the platforms, future reservations will synchronize correctly.

Issue

This error appears when Cloudbeds sends a Last Minute Booking (cut-off) value that exceeds the maximum advance booking window accepted by Booking.com. If the property limits availability to a shorter period (for example, only 1 year ahead) while another tool or rate update pushes a longer range, Booking.com rejects the update and returns the error #FAULT.OTA.EXCEEDS_MAX_RELATIVE_RELEASE_TIME.BOO.

Solution

To correct the restriction and allow Booking.com to accept the update:

1. From the Main Menu , open the Availability Matrix.
2. Locate the Last Minute Booking row in the grid, and update the field
   1. Enter a lower number of days, or set it to 0 if you want to remove the restriction completely.
   2. You can do this directly in the grid or, for a larger date range, via +Long-Term Interval.

3. Save your changes.
4. Return to the Booking.com channel page and perform a Full Refresh.

Once the Last Minute Booking restriction is within the permitted range, Booking.com will accept the update, and the error will disappear.