Question 1

If I sign a contract with a new supplier myself, can I connect them to my booking system or do I have to wait for you to do it?

Accepted Answer

In most cases no, you cannot connect a brand new supplier entirely on your own, because every supplier hands out its own API in its own format and that has to be mapped into the booking flow before anything can be sold through it. What you can do yourself is turn the already supported suppliers on or off, enter your own contract credentials for them, and decide which ones your customers search first. Adding a supplier that is not yet supported is development work. You need a signed contract with them and a set of test credentials, and then their search, booking, cancellation and ticketing calls are matched to the way the system already handles those same steps. How long it takes depends almost entirely on the supplier, on how clear their documentation is, and on how quickly their technical team replies while testing is going on. Some are certified in a couple of weeks, others sit in testing much longer because they run their own certification before they will open a live account. There are also suppliers who will never connect. Many small hotel chains and local ground operators have no API at all, only an extranet or an email address, so their rooms and tours have to be loaded and kept up to date by hand instead. Whether an integration is covered by your plan or quoted separately also varies, so that is worth settling before you sign with the supplier rather than afterwards. Before you commit, ask the supplier for their API documentation and a test account, then pass those to us so we can tell you honestly whether the connection is straightforward or not.

Question 2

If one of my suppliers goes down, can my customers still search and book on my website?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in most cases your website keeps working, because each supplier is connected separately and a search goes out to all of them at the same time. When one supplier stops replying, the search returns the results from the suppliers that did reply, and your customer sees fewer options instead of an error page. A hotel search that normally pulls from three sources will still show what the other two sent back. Booking works the same way, as long as the option your customer picked came from a supplier that is still responding. Where this does hurt you is when the supplier that is down is the only one you have connected for that product, or for that part of the world. If you have a single flight source and it goes quiet, flight search has nothing to fall back on, and all you can do is wait for them to come back. It also matters if the outage lands between the moment a booking is sent and the moment the confirmation comes back, because then the booking has to be checked directly with the supplier before you tell your customer anything. Some suppliers send a clear failure message, others simply stop answering, so the picture is not always as tidy as you would like. Check how many live sources you have for each product you sell, and if any of them is the only source for something, ask about adding a second supplier for that same product.

Question 3

Can my customer end up paying a different price from the one they saw when they searched?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it can happen, although on most bookings it does not. The prices on your search page are the ones the supplier gave at the moment that search ran. Airlines and hotel suppliers change their availability and their rates through the day, so by the time your customer has picked a room, filled in the passenger names and reached the payment page, that exact rate may no longer be on sale. This is why a booking system checks the price with the supplier again just before taking payment. If the supplier comes back with the same price, the booking goes through quietly and your customer never knows anything happened. If it comes back different, a sensible system stops there and shows the new price for the customer to accept, rather than charging the card and leaving your team to sort out the difference afterwards. How often this happens is up to the supplier and not up to you. Some suppliers hold a quoted rate for a short while after the search, some do not hold it at all, and budget airlines in particular change fares constantly. No booking system can make a supplier honour a price they have already withdrawn, so anyone who promises you the search price is always final is not being straight with you. The thing to check with whoever runs your portal is that this recheck happens before the card is charged and not after, and that your team can see which bookings were repriced. If one supplier keeps doing it far more than the others, that is a conversation to have with them.

Question 4

Can I add a new travel supplier to my booking website without replacing the whole system?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in many cases a new travel supplier can be added without replacing your whole booking system. The supplier must offer a suitable connection that allows your portal to search its products, show availability and complete bookings. The exact services available will depend on what the supplier supports. Before the connection is added, it is important to check which booking steps are covered. Some suppliers provide live prices, booking confirmation, changes and cancellation, while others offer only part of this process. Your team may still need to handle certain requests directly with the supplier if they are not available through the connection. The new supplier also needs to fit your existing sales setup. This includes how markups are applied, which customers can see the content, what traveller details are required and how booking records reach your back office. Some changes may be included in your plan, while a new or unusual supplier connection may need separate work. Ask the supplier for its current connection documents and a clear list of the services it supports, then check with your travel technology provider whether it can be added to your present portal and which booking steps will remain manual.

Question 5

Can my customers cancel a hotel or flight on my website without calling my team?

Accepted Answer

Yes, customers can cancel some bookings through your website, provided the supplier connection supports online cancellation. The system can show the booking, check whether cancellation is allowed, display the supplier's current rules and ask the customer to confirm before sending the request. This does not mean every booking can be cancelled in the same way. Some suppliers allow a complete cancellation through their connection, while others may require your team to contact them. Certain fares, rooms and special offers may also be non refundable, or may carry a cancellation charge. The answer shown to the customer depends on the information returned by the supplier. Refunds can also follow different processes. A supplier may confirm the cancellation immediately but take longer to approve or return the money. Flight changes are often more complicated than hotel cancellations because the airline may need to recalculate the fare or deal with unused tickets. In those cases, your team may still need to handle the request manually. Before offering self service cancellation, check which of your connected suppliers support it, how their cancellation rules are displayed, and whether your chosen plan includes the required customer booking tools.

Question 6

If two of my suppliers sell the same hotel, will my customers see it twice on my website?

Accepted Answer

No, not if the properties are matched properly, but that matching is something that has to be set up and then watched. Every supplier sends its own list of hotels with its own internal codes and its own spelling of the name, so the same property can easily arrive twice under two slightly different names. The system compares these against one master list of properties and joins them together, so the hotel shows once in the search results with the rates from both suppliers behind it. How well that works depends on the quality of the data each supplier sends. Where a supplier gives a recognised property code and a full address, the matching is reliable and you will rarely see a duplicate. Where a smaller supplier sends little more than a name and a city, some properties do slip through and appear twice until someone corrects the match by hand. Apartments, guest houses and hotels that have recently changed name or brand are the ones that most often need a human look. You can usually choose what happens once two suppliers are matched to the same hotel. Some agencies show only the cheapest rate, some prefer the supplier they earn more with even when it is not the lowest, and some show both so the customer can compare the cancellation rules. Which of these you can do depends on your plan and on what your supplier contracts allow, so it is worth asking before you assume one of them. When you add a new supplier, run a handful of searches in the cities you sell most often and look for the same property listed twice, then pass anything you find to whoever looks after your hotel mapping so it can be corrected before your customers notice it.

Question 7

If one of my suppliers has a system outage, does my whole booking website stop working?

Accepted Answer

No, your website should keep working, as long as you have more than one supplier connected for that type of product. Each supplier sits behind its own connection, and a search asks all of them at the same time rather than one after another. If one stops answering, the search waits a short while, gives up on that one, and shows the customer what the other suppliers sent back. The page still loads and bookings can still be made. What you do lose is that supplier's content while they are down. If they were the only source you had for hotels in a particular country, or the only airline content for a certain route, those results simply will not appear until the supplier comes back. Customers do not see an error, they just see fewer options, which is why it is worth knowing which parts of your inventory depend on a single supplier. Bookings that are already made are a separate matter. A change, a cancellation or a voucher reprint has to go back to the same supplier that holds the booking, so while their system is down those actions may have to wait, or be done by phone or email with the supplier directly and recorded in your system afterwards. How much of this can be queued and retried automatically depends on the supplier and on what their API allows. It is worth asking each of your suppliers about their planned maintenance windows and whether they notify you of outages, and asking your technology provider whether a slow supplier is skipped automatically after a set number of seconds and whether someone on your side is alerted when a connection fails.

Question 8

If I sign up with a new supplier, how long before their flights and hotels start showing on my website?

Accepted Answer

Yes, a new supplier can be added to a portal that is already live, but how long it takes depends far more on the supplier than on the portal itself. Once they have given you a signed agreement and working credentials, connecting them is a defined piece of work, not a rebuild of your website. Most of the waiting usually happens on the supplier side. They have to approve your account, issue test credentials, and then certify you before they open the live environment to you. Some suppliers finish that in a few days, some take several weeks, and a few will ask you to show a licence or a minimum volume first. None of that is under your control or ours, so ask them for their certification steps before you sign rather than after. The technical part is mostly matching. Every supplier names cities, room types, fare rules and cancellation terms in its own way, and all of that has to be lined up with how your portal already stores them, so that results from the new supplier appear next to your existing ones instead of looking like a separate website. How quickly that goes depends on how clear their documentation is and how much detail they actually send back in a search. Before you commit, ask the supplier for their test environment, their documentation and their certification timeline in writing, and check that their contract covers the countries and the currencies you really sell in.

Question 9

How does a Flight API handle connecting flights and layovers?

Accepted Answer

A flight API handles connecting flights and layovers by combining multiple flight segments into one complete itinerary. It collects real-time schedules, fares, seat availability, airline details, terminal information, baggage rules, and connection times from airlines, GDSs, NDC platforms, or other suppliers. The API checks whether each connection meets the airport’s minimum connection time and presents valid options to the traveler. It also displays layover duration, departure and arrival terminals, aircraft changes, overnight stops, and whether baggage must be rechecked. During booking, the Flight API validates the entire itinerary, confirms seat availability for every segment, and calculates the total fare, taxes, and applicable fees. If a schedule changes or a flight is cancelled, the API can return updated itinerary information and alternative options, depending on the supplier. This process helps travel websites offer accurate connecting flights, clear layover details, and a smoother booking experience for customers across domestic and international routes.

Question 10

If the same hotel comes from two of my suppliers at different prices, which one will my customer see?

Accepted Answer

Yes, the system can show just one of them, and in most setups it shows the cheaper of the two so your customer is not looking at the same hotel listed twice. That sounds simple, but it only works properly when the system is sure the two rows really are the same property, and that is the part worth understanding before you connect a second supplier. Every supplier uses its own code for a hotel, and they rarely spell the name or write the address the same way. Matching those together is called mapping, and it is never perfect. When a match is missed you get the same hotel appearing twice in your results, which looks untidy but is harmless. When two different properties are wrongly treated as one, the customer can end up seeing a rate that does not belong to the hotel they clicked, so the mapping is worth checking rather than assuming. Which rate wins does not have to be the cheapest one. It can also be set to favour a supplier you have a better commission with, or the one whose cancellation terms you trust more, or simply the one that returns a result faster. What choices you have depends on your plan and on how the suppliers are set up on your portal, so it is better to ask what is possible for your own connection than to assume a rule is already in place. Before you switch a second supplier on, pick a handful of hotels you know well in your main destination and search them on your portal to see how they come through. If anything looks doubled up or the address looks wrong, raise it early, while there are only a few bookings to worry about.