Question 1

Can my customers see which hotels can be cancelled free of charge and up to what date before they book?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in most cases they can see that before they pay. A hotel booking API normally sends a cancellation policy along with each room rate, so your portal can show on the room itself whether the rate is refundable, whether there is a free cancellation window, and the date the window closes. Many portals also show the same wording again on the payment page and on the confirmation, so nobody can say they were not told. How clear that wording looks does depend on the supplier behind the rate. Some suppliers send the deadline as a proper date the portal can read and display as a short label, while others send the policy as a block of text written by the hotel, which the portal has to show as it is. A few only return the full policy once the room is selected and priced, so the detail appears a step later rather than in the first list of results. Non refundable rates are almost always marked plainly, because suppliers treat that as essential information. It is also worth knowing that free cancellation deadlines are usually set in the hotel's local time, not your customer's time, and that a rate which looks refundable can still carry a charge if the guest does not show up at all. Filtering a search so it only shows refundable rooms is possible with most suppliers, although rates that arrive without a readable deadline may be left out of that filter. Before you go live, run a few searches on hotels you sell often and check that the cancellation wording appears where your customers will actually look, and that the same wording reaches them on the confirmation email.

Question 2

Can my customers pick their seats and add extra bags on my portal, or do they have to do that with the airline?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in many cases they can do it on your portal, but how much is on offer depends on the airline and on the supplier the fare comes from, so it will not be the same for every flight. Where the supplier passes seat maps and baggage options through to us, your customer sees them during booking, picks a seat or adds a bag, pays for it along with the fare, and it goes to the airline as part of the same booking. Where the supplier does not pass those options through, the booking still completes normally but the seat and bag choices are simply not shown. As a rough guide, low cost airlines tend to make seats and extra bags available at the time of booking because that is how they sell, while full service airlines are more mixed. Some release seat maps openly, some only allow a seat request rather than a firm assignment, and some keep paid seats and extra bags for their own website or airport counter. Meals, lounge access and other extras follow the same pattern, so treat anything beyond the fare itself as something to confirm rather than assume. It is also worth knowing that an extra bought at booking is usually confirmed with the ticket, whereas a request made after ticketing may need to go through the airline directly using the booking reference. If an airline does not accept an extra through the channel we have, the honest answer is that your customer will need to add it on the airline side, and your staff can guide them to that instead of promising something the airline will not take. The next step is to tell us which flight suppliers you plan to use and we can confirm which of them support seat selection and paid baggage at booking, so you know in advance where your team will need to send customers to the airline.

Question 3

Can I give my sub agents a credit limit so they can book now and pay me at the end of the month?

Accepted Answer

Yes, this is one of the standard ways agency software handles sub agents, and it is usually set per agent rather than as one rule for everybody. You give each sub agent a limit, and when they confirm a booking the cost is taken off their available balance instead of asking them for card payment at that moment. As they settle up with you, you record the payment against their account and their balance frees up again. If an agent reaches their limit, the portal stops them from confirming anything further until they pay or until you raise the limit yourself. Alongside the limit you normally get a running statement for each agent, showing the bookings they made, the cancellations and refunds, the payments you have received and what is still outstanding. That is what saves most of the manual work, because you are not keeping a separate spreadsheet and trying to match it against bookings later. You can also mix the two methods, so some agents work on credit while newer ones pay by card or bank transfer for each booking until you trust them. The honest limit is that credit is your own money at risk, not the supplier's. The supplier still has to be paid for the ticket or the hotel at the normal time, so a generous limit means you are funding those bookings until the agent settles. Some ticketing and instant purchase situations also need payment taken up front regardless of the agent's credit, and exactly which features you get can depend on your plan. Before you open credit to anyone, decide what limit you are comfortable carrying for each agent and how often you will ask them to settle, then ask us to walk you through how that is set up in your portal.

Question 4

Can my white label portal sit on my own web address so customers never see anyone else's name?

Accepted Answer

Yes, your portal can run on your own web address, and that is how most agencies set it up. You can either use your main site address or a section that branches off it, such as a booking area attached to your existing website. Customers type your address, land on your pages, and see your agency name, logo and colours as they search and book. Setting this up is a small job that is done once. You keep ownership of the domain name, and you or whoever looks after it makes one change at your domain provider to point the booking part of the address across to the portal. We tell you exactly what that change is. If you only point a section across, your existing brochure pages carry on untouched, which is why many agencies start that way rather than moving their whole site. To be straight with you about the limits, there are two places where another name can still appear. When a customer pays by card, the payment page may show the name of the company processing that payment, because that is their security rule and not something we can hide. And once travel is booked, airline or hotel tickets and vouchers can carry the supplier's own name, since the supplier is the one issuing them. Your own documents, such as the confirmation and invoice, stay in your branding. It is also worth checking your email side early, because sending confirmations from your own address depends on your email provider allowing it. Have a word with whoever manages your domain and your email, and let us know whether you want the main address or a booking section, and we can set it up from there.

Question 5

Can my customers book a multi city trip on my portal, like London to Dubai and then on to Bangkok?

Accepted Answer

Yes, most flight booking APIs can handle a multi city trip, so your customer can search one city to the next and then on to a third before flying home, all in one go. On the portal this usually appears as a multi city or add another flight option next to the one way and return choices, and the results come back as one itinerary with one total fare. How well it works depends a lot on which airlines and suppliers you have connected. Full service airlines sold through a global distribution system are generally comfortable with open jaw and multi sector journeys, and they price the whole thing as a single ticket, which often works out better for your customer than buying each leg separately. Budget airlines are different. They mostly sell one sector at a time, so a multi city trip made up of low cost carriers will come back as separate one way flights, each with its own fare rules, its own baggage allowance and its own ticket. That is how the airline sells it, so the portal cannot combine them into one ticket. There are practical limits too. Most suppliers cap how many sectors a single search can include, and very complicated routings with long stopovers or a gap where the customer travels overland can return few results or take a while to load. For those unusual trips many agencies still prefer to price the journey by hand with the airline and then record the booking in the software afterwards. The best next step is to check which flight suppliers your portal is connected to, then run a few searches on the exact multi city routes you sell most often so you know what your customers will actually see.

Question 6

If my customer cancels a booking, how does their refund actually get back to them?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can cancel a booking from the portal and see what is being refunded, but the money reaching your customer is a separate step from the cancellation itself, so it helps to understand both halves. When you cancel, the portal sends the request to the supplier and records what comes back, which may be a full refund, a part refund, or nothing at all if the booking was past its free cancellation window. That outcome comes from the supplier's own rules, not from us, so the cancellation policy shown on the rate before you book is the thing worth reading carefully. The portal will keep the cancellation reference and the refund amount on the booking record so you have proof of what was agreed. How the money moves depends on how the booking was paid for. If your customer paid by card through your own payment gateway, the refund normally goes back to the same card and your gateway handles it, which usually takes some working days to show on their statement. If you settled with the supplier from a credit or deposit arrangement, the refund tends to come back into that balance instead, and you then pay your customer yourself. Airline refunds are often slower than hotel ones because the airline has to process them in its own time, and some tickets are non refundable apart from taxes. Before you promise a date to a customer, check with your payment provider how long card refunds take and whether their fees come back, and ask each of your suppliers what refund timeline they work to so you can set honest expectations.

Question 7

Can my customers look up their own bookings on my portal instead of ringing my office every time?

Accepted Answer

Yes, a white label portal can give your customers their own login area where they sign in and see the bookings they have made with you, so simple questions do not always have to come through your phone line. In that area they can normally view their booking reference, travel dates, passenger or guest names, the hotel or flight details and the current status of the booking, all under your own branding with no sign of anyone else's name. What appears there depends on the type of booking and on the supplier behind it. Bookings that confirm straight away usually show full details within moments. Bookings that have to wait for the hotel or airline to accept will only show as confirmed once that reply comes back, and travel documents such as hotel vouchers or electronic tickets appear once the supplier has actually issued them. Bookings you took over the phone and entered by hand will show up too, as long as you record them against the same customer record. Whether customers can go further and change or cancel on their own is a separate decision. Some agencies prefer to keep those buttons hidden so that every change goes through a member of staff who understands the cancellation rules and any fees involved. Others are happy to allow self service cancellation where the supplier rules permit it. What you are allowed to switch on will depend on your plan and on the suppliers you are connected to, so it is worth asking rather than assuming. The next thing to do is confirm that the customer login area is enabled on your portal, then make a test booking yourself and sign in as a customer to see exactly what your travellers will see before you start pointing them to it.

Question 8

If a hotel cancels on my customer after they have already booked through my portal, will I find out about it?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you should find out through the portal, but how quickly you hear depends on the supplier who holds that booking. When a hotel cancels or rejects a reservation, the supplier sends that change back through the connection, and the booking in your portal moves out of confirmed status so your team can see something has changed. Most setups can also send you an alert by email so you are not relying on someone happening to open the booking that day. The honest part is that suppliers do not all behave the same way. Some push a change the moment the hotel reports it, and some only report it when the booking record is next checked, which means there can be a gap between the hotel deciding and you knowing. That gap is set by the supplier, not by the portal, so for bookings that matter a lot, such as a group or a wedding, it is still worth a direct check close to travel rather than trusting silence. It is also worth being clear that the portal will tell you, but it cannot fix it for you. No booking system can make a hotel honour a room it has given away, so rebooking the customer into another property is a decision you or your staff will make. Any money owed back comes through on the supplier terms that applied to the original rate, and how long that takes varies by supplier. A good next step is to check that cancellation and change alerts are switched on and pointed at an inbox someone actually watches, and to ask which of your connected suppliers report changes automatically before your busy season starts.

Question 9

If an airline changes the flight time after my customer has booked, will I find out through my portal?

Accepted Answer

Usually yes, but how reliably you find out depends on the supplier the booking was made through. When an airline moves a departure, cancels a leg or changes an aircraft, that message travels from the airline to whoever holds the booking, and from there into your portal. Where the connection supports it, the booking record is updated with the new timing and flagged so your team can see at a glance that something has changed, and a notification can be sent to your agency inbox so you are not relying on someone opening the file by chance. The honest limit is that not every supplier pushes these messages the same way. Connections through a traditional consolidator or a full service airline tend to be good at sending schedule change notices. Low cost carriers often send the notice straight to the passenger contact details held on the booking instead, which means it may land with your customer before it lands with you, or it may need checking on the airline side. Timing varies too, as some changes arrive months ahead and some arrive the day before travel. It is also worth knowing that being told about a change is not the same as resolving it. Accepting a new timing, asking for an alternative flight or requesting a refund where the change is big enough normally has to be actioned with the airline or the supplier under their own rules, and the portal records the outcome rather than deciding it for you. Before you go live, ask which of your connected flight suppliers send schedule change messages back into the booking, and make sure the contact details stored on each booking reach your agency and not only the traveller.

Question 10

If I connect more than one hotel supplier, will the same hotel show up twice in my search results?

Accepted Answer

Yes, the same hotel can appear more than once, and it is a normal thing to see when you connect a second or third hotel supplier. Every supplier keeps its own list of properties with its own internal codes, its own spelling of the hotel name and sometimes a slightly different address, so one property can arrive from two places looking like two different hotels to the portal. The usual fix is hotel mapping, which matches properties across suppliers by name, address and map position so they are joined into a single listing. When mapping works, your customer sees the hotel once with all the available rates grouped underneath, or just the lowest one, depending on how your search results are set up. Mapping is good but it is never perfect. Large, well known hotels match easily because the supplier data is clean. Small guesthouses, apartments, newly opened properties and hotels that have recently changed name are the ones most likely to slip through and show twice. There are a few ways to reduce it. You can give one supplier priority over another so its content is used as the main record, and you can switch a supplier off for a destination where it adds nothing useful. How much control you have over this depends on your plan and on the quality of the data each supplier sends us, so it is worth asking before you add a new connection rather than after. After you connect a second supplier, run searches in the three or four destinations you sell most and send us a note about any duplicates you spot, so we can correct the mapping for those properties.