Booking.com charges commissions of 15% - 17% and bills the property manager directly each month.
Lodgix will assess an additional 2% commission, which will be billed to the credit card on file at Lodgix, once per month, for all Booking.com reservations that checked in during the prior month. This commission is calculated off the original invoice generated in Lodgix, and only is assessed against the nightly rate setup in Lodgix. Fees, taxes, etc are not utilized when calculating the 2% fee. Lodgix commissions are not adjusted when an invoice is changed post booking.
Booking.com will not allow reservation cancellations by the property manager, only the guest can cancel. Canceling a Booking.com invoice on Lodgix will not cancel that booking on Booking.com. Booking.com will still bill you for the booking, even though it has been canceled on Lodgix. Only the guest can cancel a Booking.com reservation and they must do it from within Booking.com.
Booking.com does not collect guest address data , the guest email or the credit card security code (CVC) by default. You must contact Booking.com and ask them to make the guest email, the guest address and the guest credit card security code mandatory fields for all bookings. This is an important step. Failure to make those fields mandatory will result in bookings not being transferred to Lodgix which could result in double bookings.
Booking.com does NOT dynamically query the Lodgix API to generate guest quotes. As a result Lodgix cannot send tax, deposit or fee data to Booking.com. We can only send rate and availability data to them. Therefore it is the responsibility of the property manager to setup the correct taxes and fees for each property on Booking.com.
Guests can change the dates of their stay on Booking.com. Those dates changes DO NOT flow through to Lodgix. An email will be sent to you outlining the property, the guest and the date changes. It is your responsibility to make the changes on the Lodgix invoice.
** Using the two way sync Lodgix will create an invoice on Lodgix from any bookings that originate on Booking.com. However that invoice will reflect all of the rates, fees, taxes, etc.. that exist on Lodgix and ignore what was quoted on Booking.com. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ADJUST THE INVOICE TOTALS ON YOUR LODGIX.COM INVOICE TO MATCH THE INVOICE TOTALS FROM BOOKING.COM. **
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Lodgix will ONLY build listings on Booking.com. This means that all of the content for each of your properties on Lodgix will overwrite any data on your current booking.com listings.
The sync is a two way sync. Any reservation created on Lodgix will block off those dates on Booking.com and any bookings created on Booking.com will create invoices on Lodgix (however as noted in a previous step, the Lodgix invoices will not match up with Booking.com invoices.)
Here is the url to the Booking.com extranet:
For vacation rental owners and mangers, it makes the most sense to setup each property as a separate booking.com extranet. Booking.com can consolidate all accounts under one "master login".
Lodgix + NextPax = Booking.com
Lodgix has partnered with NextPax.com, to liaison with Booking.com. NextPax is a channel manager.
If you are new to Booking.com, you can register here:
Step #1: Enable the Booking.com Integration Within Lodgix
To enable the Booking.com integration, please go to Settings > Channel Management > Integrations.
Select the NextPax tab and turn on the feed. Once the feed is enabled, the terms and conditions will be displayed in a separate window.
Click the Settings button...
Configure your Channel Commission and Rates Export Period...
Commission: Enter a commission percentage to pass through to owners for bookings that originate through Booking.com (optional). More information here.
Step #2: Map Booking.com Property IDs to Lodgix Property IDs
Enter your booking.com property ID. Every property must have a unique ID.
THIS STEP IS VERY IMPORTANT. NextPax will not accept the connection to Booking.com until the Booking.com IDs have been setup.
Where are my booking.com property IDs?
For those that have each property setup on a separate extranet, the Booking.com ID will be displayed on the very first page after logging into Booking.com.
Step #3: Enable the NextPax - Lodgix Feed within Booking.com
The setup documentation from Booking.com for the Lodgix / NextPax connection is located here:
Once the Booking.com integration has been enabled and setup on both Lodgix and Booking.com, NextPax will contact you via email when the connection is live.
NOTE: The connection request will not be accepted by NextPax until you've assigned the Booking.com property ID's to Lodgix ID's as outlined in the previous step.
Step #4: Confirm the Connection within Booking.com
SUPER IMPORTANT!!! As soon as the connection is accepted, the rate inputs that you've previously setup in Booking.com are no longer used and the Booking.com system will only use the data coming from the Lodgix - NextPax connection. If the connection contains no data (for whatever reason) Booking.com auto close the property. The auto close script at Booking.com is run early in the morning and is only done once a day. Thus it can be very frustrating if you confirm the connection before you have correctly mapped your Booking.com property IDs to your Lodgix property IDs. Your properties will be closed on Booking.com and won't be open for booking again till the next run, 24 hours later and only if the connection issues have been resolved.
Rate Multipliers
Within Lodgix a default currency must be chosen for all properties. However Booking.com requires that listings be in the local currency. So if your Lodgix account is set to use the Euro, but Booking.com requires the Rupee for example, a rate multiplier will need to be set. A rate multiplier of 1.10 for example will result in the rates being sent to Booking.com increased by 10%. A setting of .90 will decrease the rates by 10%, etc..
NOTE: When a booking is made on Booking.com and a corresponding invoice created in Lodgix, the invoice will not reflect the rate multiplier, the invoice will need to be manually edited to match the rates / fees on the Booking.com invoice.
Per Person Rates
The Booking.com integration will ignore any per person rates which are setup for that property in Lodgix. You will need to set the "Base Guests" and then the additional guest rate you wish to charge after the "Base".
Managing Expectations: Connection Timelines
From the time the Booking.com connection has been properly configured on both Lodgix and Booking.com, a most probable expectation would be a 2 to 5 business day time to completion. Booking.com is a large organization and your Booking.com extranet may require some backend modifications to work with the NextPax - Lodgix feed. At times, this can take a few days for Booking.com to make those changes. Please be patient.
Cancellations
Booking.com will not allow reservation cancellations by the property manager, only the guest can cancel. Canceling a Booking.com invoice on Lodgix will not cancel that booking on Booking.com. Booking.com will still bill you for the booking, even though it has been canceled on Lodgix. Only the guest can cancel a Booking.com reservation and they must do it from within Booking.com.
Calendar Availability
Booking.com calendars are synced continually with your Lodgix calendar. Updates are pushed to Booking.com every 3-5 minutes, with a full calendar update occurring every 6 hours.
Collecting Guest Payments via Booking.com
Subscribers are strongly encouraged to use the Booking.com model where credit card data is passed to Lodgix and payment is then processed through the payment gateway configured within Lodgix.
However, subscribers in some countries may not have access to a payment gateway supported by Lodgix. In these instances Lodgix does support the Booking.com model where payments are collected directly by Booking.com.
If using this model, no payment information is passed between Lodgix and Booking.com. Invoices are automatically created in Lodgix for new reservations from Booking.com, but payment must be applied to those invoices manually in Lodgix once payment is received through Booking.com