Charges API overview
With Charges API you can create and update charges that apply at the property level and room level, specify their configuration details, and set up different configurations for different dates.
What can you do with the Charges API?
You can set taxes and fees:
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Based on guests | For example: Based on the guest's travel origin or travel purpose |
| For a property vs. room amenities | For example: Setting a default cleaning fee at the property level and another for a specific room. |
| Across multiple time periods | For example: One set of charges for August and another for September. |
| As a percentage of room rate or other charges | For example: Tax as a percentage of room price. |
| To be applied using different modes | For example: Cleaning fee charged per night, per stay or per person per night. |
Charges API and OTA_HotelDescriptiveContentNotif
Charges API covers the functionality provided in OTA_HotelDescriptiveContentNotif (HDCN) within the TaxPolicy and FeePolicy objects. With two notable exceptions:
Reduced Validations in Charges API
The following validations were applied in HDCN which are no longer applied in Charges API:
- Restrictions on modifying taxes when the property is open bookable. In the Charges API, any charge type can be modified while open bookable.
- Limiting the number of charges per property. In Charges API, there is no limit on the number of charges a property can have (this includes no limit on room level charges).
- Restricting the usage of VAT and TAX on the same property. In Charges API, there is no restriction preventing VAT and TAX being used on a property.
Parking and Internet Charges
In HDCN, the parking and internet charge types were special cases that overloaded the FeePolicy object with details about the parking or internet facilities. These details now belong in Facilities API.
Information managed in Charges API is solely used to determine charges applied at checkout when a guest books a property. It applies to all bookings and does not provide any information about the parking setup or internet offerings. Within Facilities API the focus is on displaying information to the guest when viewing the property. It allows you to describe parking options or internet details. Any charge related information included within the Facilities API does not get applied to the price on Booking.com.
If you are migrating from HDCN to Charges API, to avoid clearing charges data you must omit the TaxPolicies and FeePolicies arrays in your requests to HDCN. This includes the parking and internet details. If you support sending these details it is recommended to migrate them to Facilities API in tandem with your Charges API migration.
Conditions
HDCN supported conditions that would allow a charge to only be applied based on conditionals when the guest arrived or left the property. These are no longer supported within the new Charges API.