Mews Booking Engine: An overview of configuration settings

Field

Description

Add translation

Select a language to add a translation. A new box automatically appears under the Check-out statement field and the Competitor rate description field for you to add your translations. 

Select the default language of the booking engine.
Note: If you do not select a language, Mews displays your property’s default language. 

Name

Enter the name of the booking engine. Note: This name is only for internal use. 

Payment card input

Choose how you want the booking engine to handle payment cards:

• Select Always required to always request a payment card. 
• Select Not required to never request a payment card. 
• Select Not required for fully or partially paid bookings to not request a payment card for bookings paid fully or partially upon reservation creation. Note: Mews recommends this setting if you accept an alternative payment method. 
• Select Not required for fully paid bookings to not request a payment card for bookings paid fully upon reservation creation. Note: Mews recommends this setting if you accept an alternative payment method. 

Note: Whether the system asks customers to provide a payment card or not, there is an opportunity to pay by payment request after booking. 

Currency

Select a currency to charge the customer in. Note: If you do not select a currency, Mews charges the customer in your property’s default currency.  

Start offset

Enter the number of days you want to offset between when the customer opens the booking engine calendar and the earliest start date available to them. 
For example, when a customer uses the booking engine on the 1st and the Start offset is 3 days, the booking engine selects their default start date as the 4th.
Note: If you do not enter a Start offset, the default is 0 days. 

End offset

Enter the number of days you want to offset between when the customer opens the booking engine calendar and the earliest end date available to them.
For example, if you enter "3" here, and a customer uses the booking engine on the 1st, the booking engine selects their default end date as the 3rd.
Note: If you do not enter an End offset, the default is 2 days. 

Enter a time interval during which customers can complete their payment before the booking engine cancels their reservation.
Mews holds the reservation as an optional reservation for this time. If guests do not complete payment within this time interval, Mews:

• Cancels the booking, and 
• Sends a cancellation email to the guest. You can learn more about the cancellation email here. 

Note: 

• For a reservation to be eligible for payment via the booking engine, it must: 
  • Have automatic rates with settlement triggers in the past, or
  • Have the "On confirmation" settlement trigger without any settlement offset value.
• If you do not select a time duration, Mews sets it to 15 minutes by default with an extra 5-minute buffer before canceling. 
• Mews sends the cancellation email within 10 minutes of canceling the reservation.
• You can view the reservation details and cancellation reason in the Reservation report. 
• Mews does not send the Booking abandoned cancellation email automatically by default. To enable the feature, submit a support ticket through the Mews Digital Assistant.
• The cancellation offset does not apply to same day reservations. 

Adult count

Enter the number of adults that the booking engine selects by default. 

Child count

Enter the number of children that the booking engine selects by default. 

Voucher code

Enter a voucher code for the booking engine to apply to the Promotions field by default.

Display voucher code

Choose whether customers can add voucher codes in your booking engine:

• Select Default or Yes to allow voucher codes.
• Select No to not allow voucher codes. 

Display special requests

Choose whether to include a field for customers to add special requests to their reservation:

• Select Default or Yes to show the special request field.
• Select No to hide the special request field.  

Note: When customers fill in this information, Mews lists it in the reservation notes. 

Display rate comparison

Choose whether to show a rate comparison banner beneath your space categories:

• Select Yes to show the rate comparison banner.
• Select Default or No to hide the rate comparison banner. 

Note:

• The banner shows your rate, the URL of any travel agencies you enter in the Online travel agencies field, and the rate from that travel agency.
• You can adjust this rate in the Competitor price relative adjustment field.  

Display availability    

Choose whether to show your property's availability in each space category:

• Select Default or Yes to show availability.
• Select No to hide availability. 

Note: This is shown next to the maximum occupancy field in the booking engine. 

Display cancellation tags

Choose whether the booking engine displays rate labels and the ‘Free cancellation only’ option: 

• To display the rate labels and the 'Free cancellation only' option, select Yes. 
• To hide the labels and the 'Free cancellation only' option, select No.  

Note: If you select Yes, guests can still decide if they want to switch the option on or off.  

Choose how the booking engine displays taxes: 

• Select None to hide all taxes. 
• Select VAT to show VAT only. 
• Select VAT + city tax to show VAT and city tax.  

Note: To set up city tax, follow the instructions here.  

Child selection enabled

Choose whether to include the option to add children to reservations:

• Select Default or Yes to include the option to add children.
• Select No to omit the option to add children. 

Online travel agencies

If you selected "Yes" in the Display rate comparison field, enter the URL of the travel agencies you want to show in the rate comparison banner.
Note: Enter only one URL per line, and format each URL like "booking.com". 

Competitor rate description

Enter features that differentiate your online booking from your competitors, for example, "20% online booking discount" or "Breakfast included".
Note: Make sure you create a new line for each feature. 

Competitor price relative adjustment

If you selected "Yes" in the Display rate comparison field, enter the percentage of your competitor’s prices as compared to your best available rate.  
 
For example, if your best available rate is 50EUR, and you enter "100" here, Mews shows the competitor’s rate as 50EUR. If you enter "110", Mews shows their rate as 55EUR, since you added a 10% markup. 

Intro video URL

Enter the URL of a video that you want Mews to show the customer when they open the booking engine.
Note:

• You need to format the URL as “https://www.example.com”.
• The video must be in MP4 format on a cloud-based webpage. You cannot link to videos from YouTube, Vimeo, or other video sharing platforms. 

Google tag manager ID

Enter the GTM container ID that you would like all Mews Booking Engine events sent to formatted as "GTM-XXXXXX". GTM allows you to connect your Mews Booking Engine to a tracking system, such as Google Analytics. Once you set it up, you can use the preview mode to help you visualize the data collected on user activity during the booking process.

Theme

Select the colour scheme you want: Dark or Light.  

Guest email (when booker is not a guest)

Choose whether the booking engine asks for the guest’s email address when a booker creates the reservation:

• Select Required to require the guest’s email address.
• Select Optional to give the guest the option of providing their email address or not. 

Required fields

Select Telephone to require this field during the booking engine process.  

Primary color

Enter the main display colour. Note: You need to format this as a hex code. You can learn more about hex codes here. 

Travel agency

Select a set up travel agency from the drop-down. When a reservation originates from that travel agency and the current configuration, Mews reflects this on the reports it generates.  

Collect emails for bookings in Google Tag Manager purchase event

Check this box to opt in to include the guest's email address in the purchase event data sent to Google Tag Manager when a guest confirms a booking.