Third-party inventory rates FAQs

• TPI rates are accommodation offers sourced from external providers through Booking.com’s third-party inventory system.
• These rates may come with different pricing, policies, or confirmation processes compared to direct Booking.com listings.

• You are not onboarded for TPI.
• You are sending a multi-room search (TPI supports single-room searches only).
• The extras field is missing or does not include "products".
• There may be no available TPI rooms for the selected date and accommodation.

• Commissionable (Sell) rates - Include a margin for your business. You collect payment from the traveller.
• Net rates - Exclude margin; you are responsible for setting the final price.

• Pricing flexibility - Net rates enable you to apply your own mark-ups, providing the ability to directly optimise your profitability while having greater autonomy in promoting and selling accommodation options. You can adjust pricing based on their overall strategy, market conditions and demand.
• Real time reporting - Real-time reporting is available, providing maximum visibility and control over your pricing strategy.
• Improved price competitiveness - Greater price competitiveness and the ability to participate in promotional offers enable you to further enhance your value proposition to customers.
• New growth opportunities - Net rates can be easily incorporated into opaque package deals that include other travel services, such as flights and car hire.
• Seamless integration - Net rates are available via the latest version of the Demand API (v3.1 and above), enabling seamless integration with advanced technology.

• Offer incremental availability: Enabling you to grow in more regions and boost conversion.
• Access to more competitive pricing: Enabling you to offer more value and win new customers.
• Zero integration effort for partners: Rates from third party sources are distributed to you through existing integrations.

• Look for third_party_inventory: true field in the response. This indicates that the booking originated from a third-party source.

Check the inventory.type field:

• "net" indicates a non-commissionable Net rate

• "sell" indicates a commissionable Sell rate

Search & look flow:

1. Search for eligible properties using the accommodation/search endpoint.
2. Look up availablity, pricing and policies at accommodations/availability endpoint.
3. Display TPI rates to your travellers.

• Show the retrieved TPI rates to your travellers in your booking flow.
• Then, redirect to Booking.com to complete the booking or jump to step 4 and 5 if you are integrating a full booking flow.

Book:

4. Preview the booking with the order/preview endpoint.
5. Use the order/create endpoint to finalise and confirm the booking.

• Net rates - Require a Virtual Credit Card (VCC).
• Sell rates - Require Credit Card or Virtual Credit Card (VCC).

• The selected product ID.
• Traveller details.
• Order token.
• Correct payment method.

The field method_required under general_policies in the Orders/preview response identifies whether a payment method is needed in the order.

The method_required can be:

• True: This means that a payment method (such as a credit card) is mandatory. This is the option we need to use in the requests for TPI rates.

• False: The product does not require a credit card for booking. This is not supported for TPI rates.

• The pincode.
• The confirmation number.
• The check-in number.

These are required for the traveller to check in and for customer support validation.

These are included in the response from the orders/create endpoint under third_party_inventory.

• /orders/details — for order-level booking data.
• /orders/details/accommodations — for product-level details (ideal for financial/operational reporting).

• booking_id
• third_party_inventory:true
• inventory.type
• cancellation policy details (optional)
• booking status (e.g., "stayed")

• The policy is flexible and cancellation is allowed.
• Do not attempt cancellation for non-refundable or partially refundable products — doing so will return a 500 error.

You can find the applicable cancellation policy information at different stages using the Demand API endpoints, and can be found in the same locations as for regular rates:

• Pre-booking: When calling the /accommodations/search or /accommodations/availability endpoints, you can get basic information about the cancellation policy type and the free_cancellation_until date if applicable. At this stage, applicable special conditions fees are not yet disclosed.

• Booking: Use the /orders/preview endpoint to retrieve the applied cancellation policy type, timelines, and applicable fees before confirming a booking.

• Post-booking: After booking, you can use the /orders/details/accommodations endpoint to view the product details, including the applicable cancellation policy, timelines, and fees.

The cancellation policy details are typically found within the policies.cancellation field in the response of these endpoints.

This typically indicates the booking is non-refundable. Always check the cancellation policy before calling /orders/cancel.

Ensure the correct payment method is used:

• Use VCCs for Net rates.
• Use Credit Cards or VCCs for Commissionable Sell rates.

Ensure your request includes "credit_card_required": true in the payment configuration of your orders/create call.

• Your regular AID for Sell rates.
• Your dedicated AID for Net rates.

Contact your Booking.com Account Manager if you’re unsure.