Maximising availability is important. You would want to be able to accept potential bookings if you have the space.
Split-leg bookings are an important way of filling up the last open rooms. This also increases both your occupancy and revenue.
If you have two or more physical rooms associated (linked) to one room type, split-leg bookings may encounter.
When this does occur, you will receive an e-mail from NightsBridge informing you of the split-leg booking and that it could not be entered into your calendar properly.
This is called a split-leg booking.
How do you know you have a split-leg booking?
NightsBridge will always notify you of split-leg bookings by email.
How does a split-leg booking happen?
- The Extranets you are connected (booking channels like Booking.com, Expedia and Agoda) can only see Room Type availability, and not the availability of your physical rooms.
- The booking channel then notes that, across all the physical rooms within one room type, your property has availability.
- When a guest searches for accommodation on these Extranets, it shows that you have availability for the period, and the booking channel will confirm and sends the booking through.
Below is a visual depiction:
The room type 'Double Room' has the physical rooms 1, 2 and 3 linked to it.
Should a guest search for accommodation in a Double Room, arriving 12 July and departing on 16 July, the booking channel will pick up that you can accommodate the booking based on the room type availability. This is as indicated by the yellow highlighted calendar blocks.
In this scenario, moving the arrival of the 14th July from Room 2 to Room 1 will resolve this.
What will the rooms look on your calendar?
An example:
- The guest wanted to stay in a double room for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
- You have availability for this guest on Monday in Room 3, on Tuesday in Room 2 and on Wednesday in Room 1.
- This is split-leg availability.
How will the room type show online to your guests?
How do I deal with a split leg booking?
There are three ways to solve the split-leg booking. We recommend you try the options in the order in which they are listed:
Option 1: Shuffle your calendar
- See if you can reallocate certain rooms to bookings in your calendar to open up space for the guest to stay on in one room for their whole stay.
- If you are using a PMS, please remember to free up the room that it was automatically booked in to and synchnronise so the booking can enter into your PMS.
The booking is now entered correctly
Option 2: Move the guest to another room during the stay
- Call or e-mail the guest to advise that he/she will have to move to a different room during the stay.
- Consider using this as your explanation: During your 3 night stay you will have to move rooms once, we will do most of the moving for you to save you the inconvenience, but we wanted you to be aware of this beforehand.'
- Guests usually have no issue with moving rooms if you will do the moving for them.
- It is important that the guest knows about the move before arrival though.
Option 3: Cancel the booking
Before cancelling the booking, check if you are able to find alternative accommodation for this guest using Concierge.
This tutorial will explain how this works.
- If the guest refuses to move rooms or is not happy with the option, the guest can cancel their booking.
- It is VERY IMPORTANT to ask the guest to please cancel the booking on the website or platform it was made (eg. Booking.com, Expedia, Agoda, etc).
- Try not to get involved in the cancellation of the booking. If you cancel the booking on their behalf, you will get charged with commissions and relocation fees.
- If the client cancels directly with the site they booked on, you will not get charged the commissions and relocation fees.
What if you don't want split-leg bookings?
If you do not want split-leg bookings, each physical room will need to be linked to an individual room type.
This is not recommended if you have more than one room type of the same quality and type like 'Garden-Facing Double Room' as an example.