To sell rooms through an online travel agency using Mews Channel Manager, you need to connect it to Mews, tell the agency to send bookings through Mews, configure how it behaves, map its room rates to your Mews rates, and turn it on. This article walks you through the five setup steps at a high level, and points you to the detailed article for each step.

 

You do this once per online travel agency you want to connect. Your setup progress is saved between sessions, so you can leave partway through and come back later without losing your work.

 

In this article, you can learn about:

• Before you start

• Step 1: Add credentials

• Step 2: Confirm the connectivity partner

• Step 3: Configure the channel

• Step 4: Map room rates

• Step 5: Enable the channel

• Resuming a setup you started earlier

• What to do next

 

Before you start

Before you start, make sure you have:

• An active account with the online travel agency you want to connect, including your credentials for its extranet

• Your room rates already created on the agency extranet, so Mews can read them for the mapping step

• Photos and descriptions of your rooms uploaded to the agency extranet, so your listing is complete before you start selling

 

For more detail on what each agency requires, see Prerequisites for connecting to a channel in Mews Channel Manager.

 

Step 1: Add credentials

On the Channels screen, select the online travel agency you want to set up. In the Add credentials step, enter the fields the agency requires. These fields come from the agency itself, so they vary by channel. Common fields include a reservation email address, a property code, a property ID, and a currency.

 

You get these credentials from your account on the agency extranet.

 

For more detail, see How to add channel credentials in Mews Channel Manager.

 

Step 2: Confirm the connectivity partner

Mews Channel Manager is powered by SiteMinder, so the online travel agency needs to know that SiteMinder is authorised to send it your rates and availability. You do this on the agency extranet, not in Mews, by setting the connectivity partner to SiteMinder, not Mews.

 

Once you have set the connectivity partner on the agency extranet, come back to Mews and select Test connectivity. If the test passes, you can move on to the next step. If it fails, check that you have set SiteMinder as the connectivity partner on the correct property in the agency extranet.

 

For more detail, see Confirming the connectivity partner on your channel extranet in Mews Channel Manager.

 

Step 3: Configure the channel

Configure how the online travel agency behaves. The settings on this step come from the agency itself, so they vary by channel. Common settings include minimum length of stay, maximum length of stay, and a rate modification factor that adjusts the rates you send.

 

For more detail, see How to configure channel settings in Mews Channel Manager and Using the rate modification factor in Mews Channel Manager.

 

Step 4: Map room rates

Map each room rate on the online travel agency to a Mews room category and rate, so bookings arrive on the correct rooms with the correct pricing.

 

Mapping works differently depending on the channel:

• Most channels support automatic reading of your room rates, so Mews shows them here and offers a best-guess match you can review.

• A small number of channels do not, so you enter the room rate names manually.

 

In both cases, your room rates must already exist on the agency extranet, otherwise there is nothing for Mews to map to.

 

For more detail, see How to map room rates to a channel in Mews Channel Manager and Understanding room rate mapping scenarios in Mews Channel Manager.

 

Step 5: Enable the channel

Once your credentials, connectivity, configuration, and mapping are all in place, enable the channel to start selling.

 

Before you can enable a channel, you confirm that you have uploaded proper photos and descriptions to the agency extranet. This protects your channel ratings once bookings start arriving.

 

Once you enable the channel, its status changes to Syncing, and your rates, availability, and restrictions start flowing to the agency.

 

For more detail, see How to enable a channel in Mews Channel Manager.

 

Resuming a setup you started earlier

You do not have to complete all five steps in one sitting. Your progress is saved after each step, so you can leave and come back later. When you return, the channel shows as In setup on the Channels screen with the number of steps completed, for example, "2 of 5 steps done". Select the channel to continue from where you left off.

 

For more detail, see Resuming a channel setup in Mews Channel Manager.

 

What to do next

To set up your first online travel agency:

1. In Mews Operations, go to the main menu, click Revenue > Tools > Channels.

2. Select the online travel agency you want to set up.

3. Work through the five setup steps in order, using the linked articles above if you need more detail on any step.

4. Once the channel is enabled, monitor its sync status on the Revenue overview and its performance in the Channel Performance dashboard.

 

Once your online travel agency is set up and enabled, your rates and availability sync to it automatically, and bookings flow back into Mews without any manual intervention.