FAQ - Channel Managers / General

Why did a reservation come through for a room type that wasn’t available?

If a guest books a room type that is no longer available, it may not be a true overbooking. Instead, it’s often caused by a brief delay in syncing availability between Visual Matrix (VM), SiteMinder, and the Online Travel Agency (OTA). During this short window, the OTA may still show availability even though the room type has already sold out in VM.

To better understand the cause, check how long the selected room type had been unavailable in your PMS before the reservation was made. This can help determine whether it was a sync delay or a deeper issue with how room types are mapped or updated across systems.

I am missing in Visual Matrix a booking that was made online. What can I do?

Check in your Channel Manager

First, log in to your Channel Manager to confirm that the booking is really there.

If the booking is in your Channel Manager

Write down the Channel Manager's confirmation number.

If the booking is not in your Channel Manager

This means the issue is between your Channel Manager and the OTA, not Visual Matrix. In this case:

- Create a walk-in reservation for the guest.

- If the booking was prepaid through an OTA, obtain the virtual credit card from that OTA and enter it manually in the reservation.

Avoiding duplicates

To prevent duplicate reservations if the Channel Manager later pushes the booking down, always enter the confirmation number you wrote down earlier in the “3rd Party Confirmation Number” field in Visual Matrix.

Enter the confirmation number from your Channel Manager, not the one provided by the OTA, like Expedia or Booking.com.

 

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