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BDC Support on breaking Channel Manager connection

Hello everyone,

Just to make this very public as I'm super fed up already with the situation.

Here is a back story:

BDC force changed the currency we can work with on the Romanian market, so we cannot use EUR as before, only RON. Our channel manager can work with both currencies ONLY IF Booking.com does the setup correctly on their side.

I have been writing numerous support messages and all come back with the same reply:

The issue is that with the current setup on BDC, we get RON sums on EUR currency, which is NOT ok and we can never know the exact EUR amount for the reservation.

Of course 21 days have passed since my second message to them and we are still here, without a solution.

I call the Support Team and ask about this issue, where they say they cannot change the currency to EUR, because our local currency is RON. I wonder how all other websites do it? DUH! Also, there are countries which have local currency and yet they still post prices in USD/EUR.

Then I tell them that the issues is with Booking.com not respecting basic Channel Manager obligations on their side, because they need to send the same type of currency back to the CM as we send it.

So my CM does a currency Exchange within the XML post, therefore BDC has to send back the total amount in the same way, doing a currency exchange in their XML response.

But no, it's not possible for them to do this. Actually they don't want to and don't give a rats ass about their partners.

 

I'm just curious to see if anyone else has dealt with this situation and if there is a way to force BDC to make the necessary changes.

Madly, deeply disappointed,

Zsolt - Thuild Group


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pibomarco 5 years ago

I think that tehnical support will not be so quickly responsive to this matter if it is not reported also from many other hosts that have the same issue.

Do you believe that if you try with another channel manager provider the problem would be the same?

Not sure if I udnerstand the problem though. You don't loose money right? Your issue is, that you see the booking amount in your local currency and not in EUR?

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Thuild - Your … 5 years ago

Marco, it's like this:
1. I set my rates in EUR in my PMS, this gets transferred to all channels in EUR (Including BDC)
2. When Siteminder sends the rates to BDC, there is a separate XML message that converts the EUR to RON
3. BDC now has RON in the inventory
4. Someone makes a booking and BDC sends the XML message to Siteminder containing the booking total in RON
5. The booking in my system will be shown in EUR with the booking total amount (RON sum)
6. My system reporting, automated e-mails, cancellation calculations are all messed up by the wrong sum/currency

At stept 4. BDC should also make a currency conversion from RON to EUR in the XML post message. This is where the issue is.

Basically, it doesn't matter what CM or PMS you use, all rates must match the exact currency. Therefore if BDC requires us and forces us to use RON instead of EUR, they should at least implement a way for them to send the correct sum/currency as all 2-way XML connections should happen.

What could happen:
1. A guest cancels and an automated cancellation is sent out for 500 EUR, whereas that should only be 110 EUR.
2. My PMS is useless for accounting purposes unless I manually modify every rate to the correct EUR equivalent.
3. When booking modifications are made, the guest will see 2 very different sums, which will be very bad customer service.
4. By accident, a guest could be charged the RON sum in EUR currency, meaning that it will come with a really bad case of a scandal. Especially for no-show and cancellation cost calculations.

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pibomarco 5 years ago

Basicly this new policy is implemented for all countries that have their own currency like Hungary, UK, China,....?
If this is the case I am sure that they will be forced to make an update as it will affect many hosts if they are experiencing the same issue as you do.

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Thuild - Your … 5 years ago

They haven't implemented it to all countries.

For example this argument they hide behind "Your country's currency is X and you cannot use Y as currency anymore" is a weak statement, when clearly other countries which have local currencies, still need to post their pricing in USD/EUR, for example Cuba, India, The Philippines.

You know what happened when they introduced this? 70% of properties on the market instantly went offline from the search list. And some haven't returned anymore.

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pibomarco 5 years ago

This is really interesting.. Maybe they are implementing it slowly but surely to other countries too.
Unless your country pushed some new laws/restrictions and this is cause of that.

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M Adamopoulou 5 years ago

Zsolt I thought your currency problem was solved through your Channel Manager. So sad that booking.com cannot find a solution to this vital issue for you. Maybe pibomarco is right. Perhaps your country pushed some new laws/restrictions. This happens many times in my country and unfortunately are not infomed properly.

Wish you all the best...