Booking Engine
Your booking engine is the page where guests book directly with you, without going through Booking.com, Hostelworld or any other booking site. Direct bookings carry no commission, so the more guests you bring here, the more of each booking you keep.
Everything about that page is set up in one place in the Finance portal: open Booking Engine from the side menu.
Finding your way around the page
The list on the left follows the same order a guest goes through when they book: first they read about your property, then pick a room, add extras, enter a coupon, pay, and finally receive their confirmation. Click any item and its settings open on the right.
Each item has a short summary under its name, such as "2 of 2 rooms on sale" or "Pay on arrival", so you can check your whole setup without opening every section. An orange dot means you've made changes that aren't saved yet. A red dot means something needs your attention, for example no payment method is switched on.
When you change a setting, a Save bar appears at the bottom of the screen. You can move between sections before saving and your changes will still be there when you come back, as long as you stay on the page.
Two buttons at the top help you check your work:
Copy link copies the address of your booking page, ready to paste into your website, Instagram bio or a message to a guest.
Open booking page shows the page exactly as guests see it.
Property details: description, amenities and photos
This is what guests read before they decide to book, so it's worth spending a few minutes on it.
City and country
Where your property is.
Phone and website
How to reach you with questions before booking.
Short tagline
One line under your property name, for example "Rooftop bar and dorms five minutes from the old town".
Description
A few paragraphs about your place, the neighbourhood and what staying with you is like.
Amenities
The facilities you offer, such as Wi-Fi, lockers, a shared kitchen or air conditioning.
Address and map links
Your address, a Google Maps link for the View on map button, and an optional How to reach us link (Waze works well).
Hero photo
The large photo at the top of the page. Pick a wide, bright shot, at least 1280×720.
Room photos are added to each room separately, in Room Inventory.
Rooms & pricing: what you sell online and for how much
Rooms on the booking page. Click a room to show or hide it. Hiding a room only removes it from your booking page. It stays on sale on your other channels and at the front desk, which is useful if you'd rather keep a private room for walk-ins or long-stay guests.
Price adjustments. These are percentage rules that apply to your booking page only. A common use is offering direct guests a small discount compared to the booking sites, so they have a reason to book with you. Your prices on other channels don't change.
Booking tax. If you need to charge tax, enter the percentage here. It's added on top of the price and shown to the guest as its own line at checkout. Leave it at 0 if you don't charge tax.
Your base room prices aren't set here. You manage them on the Pricing screen in the Front Desk app.
Add-ons: extras guests can buy with their stay
Add-ons let guests add things like breakfast, an airport pickup or bike rental while they book. You decide the price, whether it's charged per night per guest or once per booking, and how many a guest can order. See the Add-ons guide for details.
Coupons: discount codes for direct bookings
Coupons are codes guests type in at checkout for a discount, handy for returning guests, partner promotions or quiet periods. You set the discount and the conditions a booking has to meet. See the Coupons guide for details.
Checkout & payments: how guests pay
Choosing payment methods
Switch on the ways you want guests to pay:
Card (Stripe)
The guest pays the full amount online by card. You'll need to connect Stripe first.
Pay on arrival
The guest reserves now and pays when they check in.
Card on file
The guest leaves their card details and you charge the card later from your own terminal.
For Pay on arrival and Card on file, you can also switch on Hold in waitlist. Bookings made that way won't be confirmed automatically. They go to your waitlist and wait for you to confirm them, which gives you a chance to check the guest before the bed is blocked. Card bookings are paid up front, so they're always confirmed straight away.
At least one payment method needs to be on. If all of them are off, guests can't complete a booking.
Connecting Stripe for card payments
You only need this if you want to take card payments online. Setup has two steps: paste your Stripe secret key, then add our webhook in your Stripe account so we're told when a guest has paid. The status bar at the top shows whether you're connected and to which Stripe account.
Below that, Checkout options lets you pass Stripe's processing fee on to the guest, choose the name that appears on the guest's card statement, and add your logo to the payment page.
The Stripe setup guide walks you through each step.
Policy: cancellation and refund terms
Here you write your terms for cancellations, no-shows, refunds and changes to a booking. Guests can read them on your booking page before they pay. Only admins and managers can see and edit this section. See Writing your cancellation policy.
Booking emails: the confirmation guests get when they book online
When someone books on your booking page, they get a confirmation email straight away. If the booking goes to your waitlist instead of being confirmed, they get a waitlist email telling them you'll be in touch. Both are always sent and can't be switched off, because a guest who has just booked, and often paid, online needs to hear from you.
These two emails are separate from the ones on the Email Notifications page, which cover bookings from booking sites and bookings your team adds at the front desk. So if you've already written your own confirmation email there, guests who book on your website won't get it until you add it here as well.
Writing your own confirmation email
Open Booking emails. At the top you'll see Confirmation and Waitlist, each marked either "Our default" or "Your own". Pick one and change the subject line or the email itself. Until you do, the editor shows our standard email, so you can see exactly what guests are getting today.
If you already have a confirmation email on Email Notifications, click Copy from Email Notifications and it's brought over for you. Read it through, then save.
Placeholders work the same way as on Email Notifications: click one in the list on the right to copy it, then paste it where the guest's details should go, for example {{guest_name}} or {{start}}. The list here is a little shorter, because these are the only details we have at the moment a guest books online. Switch to Preview to see the email filled in with sample details.
Going back to our email
Click Use our default and save. You can also leave just the subject empty: guests then get our subject line with your own email text.
Only admins and managers can see and edit this section.
After booking: confirmation emails and check-in
Once a guest has booked, a few things happen automatically. They're set up on their own pages, and this section links you to each one:
Confirmation email. Every online guest gets one straight away. You can write your own in Booking emails. If you don't, they get ours, which uses the address, phone number and check-in times from your Property Profile.
Pre-arrival and post-stay emails. Scheduled emails sent before and after the stay. The pre-arrival email includes the self check-in link.
Self check-in form. Your house rules, check-in instructions and the details guests fill in before they arrive. See Self Check-In.
Owner alerts. Who on your team is told about new online bookings, and how. See Owner Notifications.
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