If a family books with children, will the hotel API give me the right price for the kids or do I have to work it out myself?

Yes, the hotel booking API will normally price the children for you, as long as you tell it how old each child is when you search. Hotel rates depend on who is sharing the room, so the search has a place for the adults and for the ages of any children with them. The rates that come back already include whatever that hotel charges for the children, which may be nothing at all, an extra bed charge, or a full adult rate if the child is above the hotel's own age limit.

The ages matter more than most people expect. A child treated as an infant by one hotel may be treated as an adult by the next, because each hotel sets its own cut off. If your staff guess the ages or leave them out, the room is priced for adults only, and the hotel can ask your customer to pay the difference at the desk, or the supplier can refuse the booking because the guests do not match the ones you searched with.

There are limits worth knowing. Not every room type takes children, so a family search usually returns fewer hotels than the same search for adults, and family rooms tend to sell out earlier. Where a supplier does not handle child ages well, the price may come back covering the adults only, and your portal should say so plainly rather than let the booking go through quietly.

Before you start selling, run a few family searches on your own portal and check that the age boxes appear at search time and that the confirmed voucher lists every guest, children included.