Hotel Reservation Service

If you have an account set up with Hotel Reservation Service, you can connect it to your iBex Channel Manager so that any rates and room availability are automatically updated by your iBex system. In return, any bookings made at HRS will also be automatically updated in your iBex system.

PMS users

All Bookings will automatically be allocated a unit in accordance with what order you have set your units to be allocated to and will show on your Bookings Calendar.

Click here for more information on listing with Hotel Reservation Service

If you're not already signed up with HRS, please click here and complete the details required. They will get back in touch.Please read the important notes about interface limitations.

Set up the connection yourself FREE OF CHARGE using our self help instructions below.

Note: If you would like Seekom support to make the connection for you, a charge of $110 per hour (+tax) will apply with a minimum charge of $50 (+tax).

Instructions

Connection Instructions

There are 2 steps to connect your iBex account with Hotel Reservation Service

1. Sign up for the connection directly with HRS (all illustrated in Step 1 below),
   
   
2. Register HRS in your iBex Channel Manager account and set which rates and availability should be sent to them (illustrated from Step 7 below).

Step	Action
1	The property will need to sign up with HRS using the regional contacts found on their main website and obtain the hotel id and password to their extranet.
2	Log into the HRS extranet and click on Hotel Self Administration on the menu to open the Rates & Availability page
3	Read Important Notes about HRS room and rate types before progressing to the next step..
4	Choose the rooms that are to be mapped and enter in the prices for the first 3 days in the calendar if there aren’t any prices already defined. iBex can only pull down room and rate type details for the mapping screen when there are values in the first few days in the calendar. When manually entering rates in HRS, make sure the rate type selected are either the HRS or Special
5	On the menu, click on Channel Manager tab and find iBex on the screen. Enable it by ticking it.
6	The breakfast type can be set by going selecting Breakfast when hovering over the Other Prices on the menu. See Important Notes for more info. There will be errors in the channel log if the setting is incorrect.
7	Login to your iBex account – click here
8	From left menu select Sales Channels Add a sales Channel
9	At the pop up window titled ‘New Sales Channel’ click the button Register Available Sales Channel
10	Enter ‘Hotel Reservation Service’ into the search field at top right of window and press enter on your keyboard.   Matching results will be displayed – see example screen image below.
11	Click the green plus icon adjacent to Hotel Reservation Service (see above example).
12	Optionally update General section fields as required. Notes are private.   Refer sample example screen image below.
13	At Rules section: select what Selling Group you want Hotel Rservation Service to be registered to (click here for more information about selling groups) select the Rate Modifier that you want booking.com to use – Rate 1 will typically be same as you sell at, other options will be a % increase or discount (click here for more information about Rate Modifiers). PMS accounts only – set Multi-booking Invoice as required.No’ means you will send an invoice for each booking, ‘Yes’ means you can send multiple bookings on one invoice. PMS accounts only – If you want to remove the amount charged by Hotel Reservation Service for any bookings received, set the Commission charged by Hotel Reservation Service. PMS accounts only – In order for the commission amount be removed from the booking, it needs to be registered to the booking as an extra. Set the extra that the amount is logged to in the Commission Extras Code field.Note – if you have not an extra registered to your account, save the details and register the extra once you have set it up. Refer example below:
14	Click Register Sales Channel button.You will progress to the Channel Mapping tab.
15	Enter your email address at iBex Notification Emails To field.
16	It is recommended that iBex Email on New Booking are set as follows: Block Operator – not checked Block Property – checked Block Customer – checked
17	It is recommended that iBex Booking Email Rule is set to ‘Follow normal email rules’.   As booking.com does not send cancellation emails your only notification of these will be if you turn on iBex emails.
18	At Channel Property ID enter xml user name as supplied by Hotel Reservation Service.
19	Set Min Stay Handling field as required (we recommend First Available).   This is really only relevant if you will be mapping a single room type from iBex to multiple room types at booking.com (eg. for length of stay price variations, etc).
20	Set Allocation Handling field as required (we recommend Total per Room).   This is really only relevant if you will be mapping a single room type from iBex to multiple room types at booking.com (eg. for length of stay price variations, etc).
21	Set Breakfast Type field as required (Not Available, Included, or Excluded).
22	Click Save button.
23	Room and rate mapping will now be set – refer sample screen image below.
24	Complete each room mapping row as follows:   Channel Room Name – select as required (this is the room type name at Hotel Reservation Service).  iBex Rate Name – select as required. Channel Rate Name – select as required (this is the rate name at Hotel Reservation Service)   Click ‘+’ to map any iBex room type to further room types at Hotel Reservation Service (eg. for differing minimum stays/rates – see notes at bottom of this page). See image below for an example where the Standard Room has been connected to multiple room types at Hotel Reservation Service.
25	Click Save button.
26	Click Save & Update Channel button.
27	Wait a few minutes and click View Log button.   TIP - If the Remote Service Log Viewer indicates queued updates are pending, wait a further few minutes and click the ‘Refresh’ button.
28	If you have performed the connection successfully you will see OK messages for inventory & rates uploaded.    See example below:

IMPORTANT NOTES

Room Types

• There are two basic HRS rooms (or what HRS calls category), the Standard Single and Standard Double.
• These are the non-standard rooms/category – 3-bed room (3 pax) and 4-bed room (4 pax), Budget, Superior Room, Business Room, Junior Suite, Suite, Apartment, Family, Room with a Balcony, Room with a Terrace, Room with a view of a Lake, Room with a view of Mountains, Room with a view of the River, Room with a Sea View and Room with a view of the Pool.
• The only room that iBex doesn’t support is Budget room. This room works on discounts.
• Only 3 other non standard rooms (excluding Budget room) can be set added to the calendar where daily availability can be updated manually or by a channel manager. If more rooms are added, the availability will be linked to the standard rooms and a fixed surcharge rate has to be entered manually in HRS.

Rates Types

• iBex has to send room rates to the standard rooms, so 1 pax rate for the Standard Single and 2 pax rate for the Standard Double.
• The standard rooms are the only ones that can accept room rate rate values. The non-standard rooms are updated using surcharge rate values which are added to the standard room rates before being displayed on HRS front booking screen.

Here is how the surcharges work for the non-standard rooms.

• 3-bed room (3 pax) and 4-bed room (4 pax) – These rooms take surcharges on top of the standard double rooms. For eg, say a daily rate Standard Double is $100, the surcharge iBex send to HRS for the 3-bed room is $20. The room will then be sold at $120.

         

• Budget – iBex doesn’t support this room as it works by discounting the standard room rates.
• Other non standard room types (eg. Business, Suite etc) – Each of these have single and double categories. Both are linked to the Standard Single and Double room respectively. Eg. if a daily surcharge $15 and the daily rate for Standard Single is $90, the Business Single room, the room rate will be $105.

        
       
 
These are rate types that are available for the standard rooms in HRS.

• HRS rate – The base rate for standard single and double with fixed 1 night minimum stay and standard cancellation policies.
• Special – This rate handles different daily minimum stay so is the best one to map to in iBex.
• TradeShow rates are currently not supported

Rate set up in iBex – If the non standard room are to be used, rates for each room should linked to the single or double iBex rates. The link rate in iBex should be set with a negative % offset that will calculate the surcharge. The reason for using link rates is that if the single or double rate for a day is cleared in the calendar, ie no rate defined, this will automatically close the other rooms for the same day. A unlinked rate can also be set up but will cause some issues if rates for the standard rooms are cleared. Essentially,

• Standard single and double rooms are mapped to the respective normal iBex rates which will be used as the parent rates.
• Each non standard rooms are mapped to a separate iBex rate, with negative % offset, links to the standard single and double room iBex rates.

Breakfast OptionsThere are three options on the mapping screen Not Available, Included and Excluded. They are applied to all period in an update. The interface doesn’t support different daily breakfast options.

• Included and Excluded – This means breakfast is either included or excluded in the price and will be noted on the front booking screen. To use these options, the breakfast type for at least the next two years have to be set up in the HSA since rate updates that include the next year will require breakfast option details. The breakfast type will need to be set again for the following year as we progressed into the next year.
• Not Available – This is used when the breakfast type is not set at all in the extranet. The breakfast information will be not be present on HRS front booking screen.

The errors will show in the log viewer if settings are not correct.

Additional Notes 
 

1. The interface process new, modification and cancellations.
   
   

2. Credit card details are not included in bookings received sent by HRS.
   
   

3. Availability/rates are updated up to 365 days ahead.
   
   

4. Rates and availability calendar are available in the Hotel Self Administration Tool (HSA) pages of the extranet.
   
   

5. While logged into the HSA, session might be overridden by rate/availability updates by iBex. So, if someone is viewing the rates calendar in the HSA and the connection is enabled in iBex, that person might be kicked out of the rates calendar when iBex sends rate updates so that person will have to login again at a later stage.
   
   

6. There might also be a warning on the HSA login page that user seekom is already logged in. This means that iBex is in the process of doing updates at the time.
   
   

7. When someone is viewing the HSA pages, the property will not be available in search results on the front booking screen.
   
   

8. Holiday Hotels type accounts, which is another type HRS accommodation account, are not supported by the interface

ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT NOTES
 

Hot Deal Rate

         

1. There are now additional options above on the interface that supports Hot Deal rates only. Please refer to HRS support for the explanation on the functionality of the options as well as how these rates work on the the HRS booking page.
   
   
2. They apply only to the Standard Single and Double rooms. Each room can be mapped to 3 different Hot Deal rates, Hot Deal 1, Hot Deal 2 and Hot Deal 3.
   
   
3. The Free Cancellation tickbox has to be enabled and interface saved before the values for Free Cancellation Deadline can be entered.
   
   
4. As with other rates, before mapping the Hot Deal rates, values for the first 3 days of the Hot Deal Rates have to be entered manually in the HRS extranet so that the interface is able to pull down the details on to the channel mapping page.
   
   
5. This rate type accepts room rate prices similar to the ‘HRS’ and ‘Special’ rate types.
   
   
6. Daily minimum stay values for this rates can be updated via the connection.