Note that the activation of this interface is contingent upon a commercial agreement with Expedia.
Expedia is a global online travel agency that offers hotels and packages, which can be sold on your website. Expedia offers separate hotel and package rates.
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Note that the activation of this interface is contingent upon a commercial agreement with Expedia. |
The system interfaces with the Expedia Affiliate Network (EAN), which allows you to market Expedia products on your website.
You can work with Expedia on either a cash or credit basis, depending on the agreement you negotiate:
If you are working on a cash basis, when connecting with the interface, you will need to provide a credit card through which Expedia can charge you for all transactions performed through their interface.
If you negotiate a credit agreement, Expedia will provide you with a Ghost Credit card. This credit card will be charged instead of your company credit card, and you will reconcile with Expedia at a later point according to the terms of the agreement you negotiated.
If you are selling dynamic packages through the reservations system, you need to create a separate account with Expedia through which they will provide you with hotels at package rates.
Expedia returns commissions, and the system can identify these commissions and apply them to the services sold through Expedia, according to the system definitions.
Expedia can return reviews from TripAdvisor. To display these reviews, you will need to receive a key from Expedia.
After the agreement has been finalized between your company and Expedia, you need to provide full details to your project manager. Based on this information, you will be instructed as to how your Expedia interface should be configured in the system.
Setting up the Expedia interface includes 2 stages:
Go to Setup – Business Environment - Supplier Accounts - New Item.
Create a supplier account for Expedia.
In the Services expander of the supplier account, define a new hotel service according to the terms of your commercial agreement with Expedia.
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If you are working with a ghost credit card, the Method of payment should be Voucher. Otherwise, the Method of payment should be Cash. |
Open the Online Supplier expander of the supplier account.
In the CRS Interface field, select Expedia (EXPEDIA) from the drop-down list.
Select the Active check box.
Click the link in the text: Click Here to update interface properties.
The configuration dialog box for Expedia is displayed:
Enter the configuration details supplied to you by EAN:
General URL
Reservation URL
Terms and conditions URL
In the Currency field, select the currency that is used for reconciling with Expedia.
If you want to display TripAdvisor reviews, enter the keys supplied to you by EAN:
Desktop review key
Mobile review key
In the Hotel Connection Details section, enter the configuration details supplied to you by EAN:
Cid
Shared secret
API key
If you have a separate account with EAN for package rates, in the Package Connection Details section, enter the following information supplied to you by EAN.
Cid for package rates
Shared secret for package rates
API key for package rates
If you want to apply package rates when adding a hotel to an existing travel file that contains a flight transaction, select Apply package rate for adding hotel into existing travel file with flight.
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If you do not have a separate account with EAN for package rates, leave this section empty. When users search for dynamic packages, the system will return hotels using your regular account, and the rates returned will be regular hotel rates, not package rates. |
In the Payment details section:
If you are working with a Ghost Credit Card:
In the Company credit card field, select the ghost credit card which will be used for paying for reservations.
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All of the credit card details needs to have been entered into the system, including Credit Card Owner (must be in this format: "last name\first name"), phone (must be defined as Main Phone) and address. Expedia requires all of this information. |
In the Card holder e-mail section, enter the e-mail address to which the details of Expedia reservations should be sent. This e-mail address is going to be used if their are any issues with the reservations.
Select Ghost Credit Card.
If you are working on a cash basis:
In the Company credit card field, select the company credit card which will be used for paying for reservations.
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You need to select a credit card in which all of the credit card details have been entered into the system, including credit card owner name, and address. Expedia requires all of this information. The credit card company name needs to be a code that EAN recognizes. For example, instead of Visa Euro, the credit card company name should be VI. |
In the Card holder e-mail section, enter the e-mail address to which the details of Expedia reservations should be sent. This e-mail address is going to be used if their are any issued with the reservations.
If you negotiated an agreement in which Expedia returns a commission, in the Profit Details section, in the Gross profit share field, enter the commission percentage.
In the Response Definitions section, in the Number of results field, select the number of results you want returned from Expedia. The more results you select, the longer users will have to wait for search results when making a query in the Reservations System.
Click Save in the dialog box.
Click Save on the main page.
If you have a B2B website:
Go to Setup - Website Definitions - B2B - Content - Online Suppliers - Expedia.
In the General Details section, in the Agent terms of use URL, enter the agents terms of use URL supplied to you by EAN.
Click Save.
When working with online content suppliers, it is necessary to map the destination values in the supplier’s database to those already defined in the local database.
This section will describe how to map the destination values in Expedia to the destination values in the local database.
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In the Online Supplier expander of the Expedia account, click Match Destinations.
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This process can take several minutes to complete. |
A table is displayed, presenting the destination values in the local database with those in the supplier’s database.
A supplier destination value with a corresponding identical local destination value will be automatically matched and the two values will appear on the same row in the table. Rows with unmatched values will appear at the beginning of the table, followed by the matched values.
The unmatched supplier destination values relevant to products in your system need to be mapped either automatically or manually.
To map automatically:
Click 
by the supplier destination value
to automatically add the
supplier destination value to the local database and map the supplier
value to the local value.
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Use this action with caution as this action copies the supplier's destination value to your database and in some cases may result in duplicate values. For example: If your local database includes the value London and the supplier's database includes London, UK Then, the It is recommended to consult your project manager prior to mapping the supplier destination values. |
To map manually:
Click 
by the supplier
destination value.
A drop-down list of local database destinations is displayed. Select the relevant local database entry to match the supplier value.
Click 
to save the entry or 
to revert.
To map the supplier destination value to more than one value in the local database:
Click 
and select Multiple Mapping.
A multi-selection list which includes all the local destination values is displayed.
Click the destination values in the Not Selected list to map to the supplier destination value. These values are displayed in the Selected list.
Click Save to save the mapping.
After completing the mapping process, click Save and Exit.
Supported/Unsupported Features:
Feature |
Supported |
Unsupported |
Description of hotel |
✔ |
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Description of hotel amenities |
✔ |
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Hotel search by area name |
✔ |
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Reservation with OK status |
✔ |
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Reservation with Request status |
✔ |
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Reservation for different room types |
|
X |
Online reservation amendment of dates |
|
X |
All other reservation amendments (except dates) |
|
X |
Per-night price breakdown |
✔ |
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Filter search results by hotel facilities |
✔ |
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Address displayed in Google Maps format |
✔ |
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*Online reservation cancellation |
✔ |
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Cancellation fee |
✔ |
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Multi-language |
✔ |
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Refine search according to location |
✔ |
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*In order to display and trigger cancellation fees in the Reservations System, in the cancellation fee policy module, in the Rule definitions tab, you need to select Enabled.
The age range for an infant and child varies according to the hotel selected. Expedia determines the relevant price according to the age details entered in the search query.
The board base is added to the name of the room type.
Special remarks returned by the XML are displayed.
All search results are returned in USD, but are displayed according to the system definitions.
Search results can be filtered according to facility.
Non-refundable reservations appear in the search results.
Expedia returns hotels in 90,000 destinations and 10,000 neighborhoods (if you want the interface to return neighborhoods contact your project manager).
Expedia supports multiple languages.
Expedia supports multiple currencies.
Expedia returns captions which are displayed below the images in the Hotel Details page.
Only available hotels are returned in the search results.
The cancellation fee is displayed in the Hotel Details page and in the FOC. The full cancellation terms appear in a tool tip when hovering over Cancellation Policy.
Cancellation numbers are saved in the transaction as remarks.
In the FOC page, there is a Terms and Conditions link, which opens the Expedia terms and conditions in a new tab.
In the FOC page, there is an option to send special requests to the interface. These requests are limited to 256 characters and are only available for stand-alone hotel reservations.
The price break down also includes local taxes and fees.
When adding or deleting a remark to an online transaction, a new reservation record with the same details is created, the remark is added or deleted, and the old transaction is cancelled.
If you are working with Expedia on a cash basis, after the reservation is made, a payment requisition and remittance are issued automatically. During the supplier reconciliation both documents need to be selected, and a receipt needs to be issued for the commission that was received.
If you are working with Expedia on a cash basis, if a reservation is not confirmed by the supplier, after updating from the supplier, payment is charged and financial documents are issued.
If the system fails to identify the commission returned by Expedia, it uses the commission defined in the hotel service defined in the supplier account.
In the transaction, you can update both the status and the transaction price when selecting Update from Supplier.
The booking is done in two phases. The first query is sent to Expedia to return the search results. The second query is sent before the Booking Details page is displayed to verify that the information is still current. The system will not allow customers to complete the booking, If any of the rooms are sold out or if the number of passengers in each room does not match the information returned from Expedia.
Click here for a list of recognized
credit card codes.