Will my customers always get instant confirmation when they book a hotel on my website?

No, not always, although the large majority of hotel bookings made through an API do confirm within a few seconds. Most of the rates you will see in search results come from suppliers who hold live availability, so the booking is accepted, a confirmation number comes back, and your customer sees it on screen right away. A smaller number of rates work differently. The supplier has to check with the hotel first, so the booking goes into a waiting state until the hotel replies with a yes or a no.

How long that wait lasts is not something we control. It depends on the supplier and on the hotel itself, and it can be quick or it can take hours, particularly with smaller properties or at busy times of year. Whether a particular rate behaves this way also depends on the supplier you are connected to and on the plan you are on, so the mix you see may be different from another agency's.

In the portal, a booking that has not been confirmed yet shows a clearly different status from a confirmed one, and the status updates when the supplier responds. The important habit for your staff is to never treat a waiting booking as done. Do not tell the customer the room is secured and do not send a voucher until the status has changed. If the hotel declines, the booking fails rather than silently becoming something else, and how the money is handled then depends on your supplier terms and the way your payment setup works.

Before you go live, run a few test bookings and ask us which of your connected suppliers return anything other than instant confirmation, so you can word your confirmation emails to match.