Will my hotel API show me which properties have rooms available right now, or do I only find out after my customer tries to book?

Yes, the hotel API will show you real-time availability for each room type at a property, so you can see exactly how many rooms are left before your customer completes their booking. This means you know whether a room is genuinely available or whether someone else has just booked the last one. Real-time data protects you from the frustration of confirming a booking to your customer only to find the hotel has no rooms left, which damages your reputation and creates extra work dealing with the cancellation.

The level of detail you see depends on what the hotel supplier shares through the API. Some properties are more generous with their inventory data than others, and some may only show you whether rooms are available or sold out rather than the exact count remaining. You will also see the room types, rates and cancellation terms that are currently active, all updated throughout the day as bookings come in.

Keep in mind that between the moment your customer sees availability on your portal and the moment they click to book, another agent's customer could book the same room. This is why the API includes a final availability check right before the booking is confirmed, which catches any last-minute changes. If a room sells out in that final moment, your portal will let your customer know and suggest alternatives instead of taking their payment for something that no longer exists.

You can test how the availability information appears on your portal by searching for hotels and checking which room types show up for different dates, then comparing that against what you see in your supplier's own system to make sure the data is matching correctly.