Question 1

Do I get hotels from all over the world through the hotel booking API, or only in certain countries?

Accepted Answer

Yes, a hotel booking API gives you properties in most parts of the world, but the depth of that coverage is not the same everywhere, so it is worth checking your own destinations before you promise anything to a customer. Hotel content reaches you through suppliers, and every supplier is stronger in some regions than others. A well known city will usually return a long list of properties, from international chains down to small guest houses, because several suppliers hold contracts there. A quiet town away from the main tourist routes may return only a few options, or none at all, simply because no supplier connected to your account has signed up the hotels in that place. That is not the software choosing what to show you. It depends on which suppliers are enabled on your plan and on what each of them has contracted. Because of that, the honest way to answer whether you can sell a particular destination is to search for it rather than assume it is there. If your business is built around one region or one country, tell us which one before you go live and we can look at whether the suppliers on your plan cover it properly or whether another supplier should be added. Adding one is often possible, though it can depend on your plan and on that supplier's own terms for new agencies. Before you start selling, run a few real searches for the cities, dates and types of property your customers ask about, and compare what comes back with what you would expect to find. That simple test will tell you more about your true coverage than any headline claim.

Question 2

Can I choose to show only the travel services I actually sell on my portal and hide the rest?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can choose which travel services show on your portal and hide the ones you do not sell. A white label portal is usually built as separate modules, so flights, hotels, holiday packages, transfers and sightseeing can each be switched on or off for your brand. If you only sell hotels and packages today, your customers will never see a flight search box, and your menu will show only the things you actually handle. What you can switch on depends on two things, your plan and the supplier behind each service. A module only works if there is a live supplier connection feeding it, and some of those connections need paperwork or approval before they can go live. So the honest answer is that hiding a service is possible straight away, while adding one may take a little time and may depend on what your plan covers. You are not locked in to the choice you make on the first day. Most agencies start with one or two services they know well, then open up the rest once their staff are comfortable, and turning a new module on later does not disturb the bookings you have already taken or the look of the rest of your site. Before you launch, ask which modules are included in your plan and which ones need a supplier agreement first, and check that any service you switch off is also taken out of your menus and home page so a customer is never sent to an empty search.

Question 3

Can I book a trip with more than two flights in it, like a customer flying to three different cities, as one booking through the API?

Accepted Answer

Yes, the flight booking API supports multi city trips, so a customer visiting three or four cities can usually travel on one booking instead of several separate ones. You send each leg with its own origin, destination and date, and the search comes back with fares that cover the whole journey. Keeping it as one booking is usually better for your customer, because the airline sees the trip as a single itinerary. How many legs you can put in one search depends on the supplier behind the results. Most sources allow a handful of legs in a single request, and a few limit it to fewer than you might expect. Mixing airlines across the legs is often possible, but not always, and when it is not you may get back results that cover only part of the route. Low cost airlines in particular tend to price each leg on its own rather than as one journey. It is worth knowing that a single multi city booking behaves as one unit later on. If your customer changes or cancels one leg, the airline rules for the whole ticket usually apply, not just the leg being changed. That can work in your favour on a proper connected itinerary, and against you when the legs were really separate trips that happen to be booked together. The practical step is to run the exact route your customer wants as a multi city search and see what comes back, then compare it against booking the legs separately before you quote them.

Question 4

Will someone train my staff on how to use the software, or do we have to work it out ourselves?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you will get help learning the software and you should not have to work it out on your own. Most plans include a guided walk through of the portal and the back office with someone from our team, plus written notes you can keep and share with your staff. How many sessions you get, and whether they are group sessions or one to one, depends on the plan you are on, so it is worth confirming that before you sign up. Training normally covers the everyday work your team will actually do, such as searching and booking flights and hotels, cancelling a booking, setting your markup, creating a login for each staff member, and pulling the reports you need at month end. If you have a team, it usually works better to train two or three people properly and let them show the rest of the office, because they can answer the small questions as they come up. There are honest limits. We can teach your staff how the software works, but not supplier rules, fare conditions or visa and documentation requirements, because those belong to the airline, the hotel or the local authority and they change without notice. If your developer is working directly with the API instead of using the ready made portal, what you get there is technical documentation and support for the developer, not classroom training for your counter staff. Ask what training is included in your plan before you commit, book the sessions for a quiet part of your week, and keep a practice account open so your staff can try bookings before they touch a real one.

Question 5

If a hotel cancels my customer's booking at the last minute, will I find out through the API or do I have to keep checking myself?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in most cases you will find out through the API, but how quickly depends on the supplier. When a property or a supplier cancels a booking that was already confirmed, the status of that booking changes on their side, and when your portal asks the API about the booking again it comes back as cancelled, usually with whatever reason the supplier has recorded. Some suppliers also push a message out the moment it happens, and where that is available the change can appear in your system without anyone going looking for it. Where it gets less tidy is that not every hotel supplier sends that message. Some only change the status quietly and wait for someone to ask. For those, the safest habit is to have your portal re check the status of upcoming bookings on a regular schedule, and to check more often for stays that are about to start. That way a quiet cancellation is picked up by your system rather than by your customer standing at the front desk. It also helps to be realistic about what happens next. The API can show you the cancellation and any refund the supplier has recorded against it, but it cannot make the property keep the room or pay anything towards the trouble. Putting the guest somewhere else is a fresh booking, made the normal way, and any money you are owed for the cancelled one follows the supplier's own rules. The next thing to do is to ask which of your hotel suppliers send live cancellation updates and which ones have to be checked, then set your re check schedule so it covers the ones that stay silent.

Question 6

Will the booking confirmations and vouchers my customers receive have my agency name on them, or will they look like they came from someone else?

Accepted Answer

Yes, the confirmations and vouchers your customers receive can carry your agency name, your logo and your contact details, so nothing they open points back to anyone else. These documents are built from templates inside the software, and each brand you run has its own set. You can normally change the logo, the colours, the wording of the message and the name your customer sees in their inbox, and you can add your own terms and cancellation notes at the bottom. Hotel vouchers and ticket layouts work the same way, so a voucher your customer prints at home reads as if it came straight from your office. There are limits that are fair to mention. The travel details themselves, such as the airline booking reference, the fare conditions or the hotel confirmation number, come from the supplier and cannot be reworded, because the airline or the property has to be able to read them at check in. On flights, the airline sometimes sends its own message to the passenger as well, and that one is outside your control. Whether your own address is used as the sender also depends on your plan and on the email records being set up for your web address, otherwise your messages can land in a spam folder. The sensible next step is to open the email and document settings in your admin area, make one practice booking to your own inbox, and check who it appears to come from and whether the logo and terms are the ones you want before you send anything to a real customer.

Question 7

Can I add my own markup or service fee to the prices my customers see on my white label portal?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can add your own markup or service fee on top of the prices your customers see on your white label portal. The supplier price comes in as the starting point, and whatever margin you set sits on top of it, so the person booking sees one final price rather than your cost and your fee side by side. If you would rather show the fee openly as a separate service charge, that is usually possible too. Most setups let you decide how the margin works. You can apply a fixed amount on each booking, or a share of the fare, and you can normally set different rules for flights, hotels and other products, since the margin you work on is rarely the same across them. If other agents book through your portal, you can usually give them their own margin as well, so they earn something while you still keep yours. There are limits worth being honest about. Some suppliers and some fare types do not allow the displayed fare to be altered, and in those cases your fee has to sit as a separate charge instead of inside the fare. Taxes and supplier charges are not yours to change and stay exactly as the supplier sends them. How much control you get also depends on the plan you are on and on the contracts behind each supplier connection. Before you start selling, decide your markup rules product by product and run a few test searches, so you can check that the final price your customer sees is the one you expected.

Question 8

Can I let other small travel agents book through my portal and set a credit limit for each of them?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can. Alongside your own staff logins, you can add other agents underneath your account as sub agents. Each one gets their own login and books through your portal, seeing your brand and the prices you decide to show them rather than the raw supplier price. Their bookings still come through to you, so you keep a full view of everything sold under your business. Credit limits are part of that setup. You choose an amount for each agent, and every booking they make is taken off what they have left. When the limit is used up, the agent cannot confirm anything new until they settle with you or you raise the limit again. Many agencies prefer to work the other way round and ask sub agents to keep a topped up balance in advance, which works in much the same way and carries less risk for you. How far you can go with this depends on your plan and on how your suppliers are set up. Things like different markup rules for different groups of agents, or letting agents pay you online instead of by transfer, are not always available everywhere, and online collection in particular depends on the payment options supported in your country. It is also worth remembering that you stay responsible to the supplier for whatever your agents book, so the credit limit is your main protection. Before you start, decide whether your agents will work on credit or on a prepaid balance, and how many levels of agent you really need, then check with us which of those options your current plan covers.

Question 9

Do I need my own agreement with the airlines to sell tickets through the flight booking API, or does that come through you?

Accepted Answer

In most cases no, you do not need your own agreement with each airline. The flight content reaches you through supplier connections that are already in place, and you sell under those, so you can begin taking bookings without approaching airlines one by one yourself. There are real limits to this, and they depend on your market and your plan. Some countries expect a travel business to hold a local licence, or its own accreditation, before it can issue tickets in its own name, and that is a rule you have to meet no matter whose API you use. On top of that, some airlines only release their best fares to agents who hold a direct deal with them, so those fares simply will not appear in your results until such a deal exists. Which suppliers are switched on for you also depends on the plan you are on, so two agencies can see different results for the same route. What your own airline deal changes is mainly commercial rather than technical. A direct deal can give you better fares and a better margin on the routes you sell most, and it is normally added alongside the connections you already have rather than replacing them. Until you reach that stage, you trade on the connections that come with the service, which is how a great many agencies run for years. The sensible next step is to ask which suppliers are enabled for your plan and to check what your own country requires before you issue tickets, and if there is one airline or one route you sell heavily, raise it early so a direct deal can be looked at for you.

Question 10

Can I use my own web address for my white label portal instead of one that has someone else's name in it?

Accepted Answer

Yes, your portal can run on a web address that belongs to you rather than one carrying another company name. Most travel businesses point either their main domain or a subdomain of it, something like the word book followed by your own company name, at the portal, so the customer never leaves your brand from the moment they start searching to the moment they pay. Setting this up is mostly a small change made where you bought your domain. You add a record there that sends visitors to the portal, and a secure certificate is issued so the address shows as safe in the browser. The change is not instant, because the wider internet needs time to pick up the new setting, so it is normal for the address to work for some people a little before it works for everyone. Once it settles, the portal simply answers on your address and nothing about your daily booking work changes. There are a few honest limits. How many addresses you can attach can depend on your plan, so if you want a separate address for each brand you run, confirm that is included before you go and buy the extra domains. Sending booking emails from your own domain is a separate job, because email needs records of its own or confirmations can land in the spam folder. And if your main domain already runs a website you do not want to disturb, a subdomain is the safer choice. Check who in your business actually controls the domain settings, and whether your plan covers the number of addresses you have in mind, before you promise a launch date to your customers.