Will my customers automatically get an email confirming their booking, or do I have to send it myself?

Yes, in most cases the portal sends the confirmation email on its own as soon as the booking is confirmed, so you do not have to sit and write one out for every customer.

When a booking goes through, the system puts together an email with the traveller details, the flight or hotel details, the reference the supplier sent back and the amount paid, and it sends that to the email address your customer entered at the time of booking. A copy normally goes to your own office address as well, so your staff can see what has been sold without having to log in and look. The emails carry your own agency name and logo rather than anyone else's, because the portal belongs to you.

You can usually change the wording and the look of these emails, and it is worth doing that early so they sound like your agency and not like a machine. What you cannot always control is the timing of the supplier documents. The confirmation from your portal goes out straight away, but if a ticket or a hotel voucher has to come back from the airline or the hotel system first, the email carrying that document can only go once the supplier has actually issued it. With some fares and some suppliers that happens instantly, and with others there is a short wait.

Before you go live, put a test booking through to your own inbox and read the email exactly as a customer would, check the spam folder as well in case it lands there, and let us know if you want the wording changed or a second office address copied in.