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.

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

Write down the Channel Manager's confirmation number.

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.

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.