Overbooking is a strategy that enables hotels to accept more bookings than available rooms in order to offset no-shows, cancellations, and early departures. Because this strategy can impact guest experience, properties need to evaluate if overbooking is the correct strategy for their property and guests.
You can learn more about specific overbooking actions using our guides:
Requirements
Before beginning the activation process, ensure that:
You have administrative access to System settings.
All other users are prepared to log out and back in after activation.
You understand the implications of overbooking limits for your property.
Configuration
To set overbooking PMS & CRS Configuration, follow the steps below:
Step 1: Activation
To activate the overbooking feature, follow the steps below:
Navigate to System, System, Ini Settings, then select Reservations.
Scroll down to locate the Overbooking panel.
Tick the box labelled Overbooking.
If required, tick to Include Overbooking by Default to show overbooking values within the Availability chart and Rate Plan Search.
📌 Note: This setting can be altered at any time. It only affects the default display value for the filter on those pages for all users.
Enter a Value per room type to place a limit on the total number of rooms a user is permitted to enter in the overbooking grid.
⚠️ Important: All fields must be completed - enter zero for room types which will not be overbooked.
Once completed, select Update to save the changes.
📌 Note: Max Overbooking limits can also be applied with Room Type configuration pages.
CRS specific: For CRS enabled sites where Room Types are being configured in CRS, the Max Overbooking value is configured by navigating to: CRS Module, Configuration, then select Room Types.
Step 2: Configuration grid
The configuration grid is used to set overbooking values per room type, per date.
You can navigate to the configuration grid in the following way: System, Codes & Rules, then select Overbooking.
CRS specific: this can also be achieved by navigating to: CRS Module, Configuration, then Overbooking for those groups with CRS activated. This will allow users to edit overbooking values for any site within the group, where Overbooking has been activated.
Grid features and functionality:
Month Selector - Select any month from the current month up to 3 years into the future and edit specific dates.
Pattern Fill button - Update values for 6-month periods at a time up to 3 years into the future and apply bulk changes to set days of the week.
Historical days - Read-only for the current month to date.
Current date onwards - Editable.
Active bedroom room types - All available room types are shown.
Total row - Displays the sum of all entered overbooking values.
Total House Overbooking value - For Best Western (BW) overbooking sites this row is not available.
For room types with a limit of 0: No overbooking values can be applied.
Grid cell information:
Remaining Room Type Availability: Read-only.
Sum of Remaining Room Type Availability + Overbooking Value in square brackets: Read-only.
Overbooking Value: Editable.
To set the required overbooking values within the system per room type, follow the steps below:
Navigate to System, Codes & Rules, then select Overbooking.
Once the page has loaded, use either the Month selector or Pattern Fill to select the required date range.
🤓 Tip: If using Pattern Fill, you have bulk entry options:
Set all room types and days: Enter a single value to populate the entire grid.
Set All: Available for each day column and room type row.
Type the overbooking value into the editable cells.
🤓 Tip: You will see cells change colour once a value has been entered, including:
Yellow highlighting: Indicates unsaved changes in overbooking value cells.
Red highlighting: Appears when entered values exceed configured limits set within system Ini Settings in Step 1. This also disables the save button.
Once set as required, click Save.
Step 3: Users to log out and back in
Once overbooking has been activated and configured, any users logged in at the time of activation will need to log out and then back in, before they are able to utilise this Overbooking feature.