How to Make a Group Hotel Booking with HotelHub
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Making a group booking with HotelHub is super simple, and the platform allows up to nine travellers to be booked at the same time. It’s one of the key pieces of travel tech that’s become a massive time-saver for agents and TMCs – and in this post, we’ll run through the step by step process of how to make a group booking with HotelHub.
Good to know…
Currently, group bookings made via HotelHub support pay on departure (POD) – but other payment modes are being investigated. Group bookings currently support a maximum of nine individual traveller PNRs.
Learn more about HotelHub – How Does HotelHub Work?
Within these parameters, you can make a group booking within HotelHub extremely quickly and easily – so let’s show you how!
Making a group booking in HotelHub
Here’s our simple, step by step process for making a group booking.
1. Enter PNRs
Each traveller has a PNR (passenger name record), which must be entered in HotelHub’s booking area. But there’s only space for one at first.
To unlock group bookings, enter the first traveller’s PNR. Once complete, a + symbol will appear – click this to add more PNRs to the booking.
You can currently add up to nine PNRs this way.
The next steps are familiar and straightforward for current HotelHub users, but with some handy built-in automation.
2. Next, choose a destination
Select the group’s destination and their dates of travel, and the rate search begins – within the client’s preset travel policy guidelines, if you’ve set them up. You can now select GDS and non-GDS rates, just as you would for a single traveller in HotelHub – but for the whole group.
After you select your hotel, the number of rooms is automatically updated to the number of travellers – so there’s less to do, and less to remember.
Plus, we’re announcing a new feature; during rate selection, you can now set the same room type for all travellers, or you can tailor room types for different members of the group.
3. Add credit cards
Although POD is the only payment mode currently available for group hotel bookings in HotelHub, it’s practically effortless to add a card. In fact, you don’t have to do anything – card numbers are pulled in directly from the PNR.
4. Add amenities
You can customise the booking further, adding breakfast, WiFi access, or parking, if the group requires those extras.
5. Confirm your booking
That’s it! Each traveller’s PNR will be updated as an individual booking, automatically – which makes amending the booking later much simpler.
What if the booking doesn’t go through?
It’s not super common, but bookings can fail for a number of reasons – most often, it’s something as simple as an expired credit card.
Should any bookings fail, HotelHub immediately notifies you and gives you a series of options to manage failures, showing you which steps went wrong and what to do to fix it.
Does the PNR show a group booking?
As we’ve mentioned, each booking is made as an individual, not a group – but there are clues in the PNR that show it’s part of a group booking. All bookings will share the same reference number with a -1 to -9 added to the end, signifying the order in which each traveller’s PNR was added.
Advantages of using HotelHub for group bookings
Using HotelHub for group bookings is lightning-fast – way faster than on-request group bookings – but that’s not even the best reason for TMCs to use it!
Direct hotel group bookings run the risk of losing commission, and ensuring it all goes through can be a lot of work. But by using HotelHub, all commission is consolidated into the group booking process.
And that’s not all; because each traveller has an individual booking, not subject to the rest of the group, our Rate Optimiser add-on can be used.
Rate Optimiser is a hotel reshopping tool that dynamically tracks prices and amenities, and alerts you as soon as better rates become available. Because of this setup, each individual booking can be re-shopped automatically, getting the best amenities for travellers and the most profitable rate for the TMC, without compromising the group booking.
It’s just one of the reasons HotelHub is the preferred platform for some of the world’s biggest TMCs. So, if you’re looking to streamline your corporate hotel bookings and maximise the return from your hotel strategy, HotelHub could be your perfect partner.
Optimise corporate hotel bookings with HotelHub
HotelHub is the world’s most advanced hotel booking software. Our unique platform makes group hotel booking for corporate clients easier than ever before. For more information or to schedule a demo, get in touch.