The ThinkReservations "Booking Engine" is the webpage that your prospective guests use to check availability and make online reservations. It is a mobile-responsive page that is customized to match the look and feel of your website. In short, this is the page your guests are directed to after they click your "Book Now" button on your website.
We recommend that you make a reservation at least once using your website so that you can become familiar with and understand the process.
Booking Flow:
Search Page - Where guests enter their travel dates
Results Page - Where guests choose the room and rate
Upsell Page - (Optional) Where guests can select room enhancements
Registration Page - Where guests fill out their name, billing information, and notes.
Confirmation Page - When a booking is created; the "Thank you" page.
Each of these pages can also be tracked in your Google Analytics as a separate URL so you can see the drop-off rate.
Search Page
The first page in the booking flow is the Search Page. The main components of the first page are the Business Image and the availability form, where your guests choose:
Their check-in and check-out dates
The number in their party - "Guests", or Adults and children
The number of Pets if configured at the room-level
Special Rate information such as a coupon code or customer group
The Business Image is outlined in the gray box below. Update your business image in Settings > Booking Engine
Best Available Rate simply means the best rate available. This is a universal term that we have adopted that prospective guests understand means your standard rate.
If a customer qualifies for a special rate, they can click "Special Rates" or where it normally says "Best Available Rate" by clicking anywhere in that box. It's one button that will expand the menu. If you have one or more Customer Groups, it will show as a selectable option. In the example below, "Military" indicates a Customer Group qualifier on a rate type. If you have a coupon or promo code, the guest can choose "Promotional Code" and enter it into the box. Promotional codes are not case-sensitive.
Once your guests complete the form, they click the blue Search button. This takes them to the results or availability page.
Results Page
The results page is where the guest selects the unit and rate. It's at this stage where the guest needs to make a decision to add one of the results to their "cart", which we call "Your Reservations", or choose a different room or travel date at the top. The name of the room, description, photos, rate type name, rate type description, and optionally promotion name and description and an averaged price per night are all used together to educate the guest and help them select the room that is right for them.
The Booking Engine will only show the qualifying rate type(s) and the rooms that are available for their selected search parameters. This way, guests don't have to filter through rooms that they cannot book due to unavailability. If a room is available, but there is a restriction in place, it will move that room to the bottom of the list and explain the restriction. If the guest's travel dates are flexible, they can adjust them at the top of the page!
Guests can browse the available rooms, click through and enlarge the images, and optionally view the availability calendar at the bottom. The availability calendar lets the guests know what dates to change their search to if they are flexible.
If you are full, they can add themselves to the Wait List if you have this feature enabled. (The wait list only looks at availability, not restrictions.)
Prospective guests can update their travel dates, guest count, and Special Rates if they need to at this step as well.
When they have decided which room they would like, they'll need to click the blue Reserve button. This will move them to the next step; either the upsell page, or the registration page. They are only moved to the Upsell page if your property has one or more items or packages that are available for guest to add to their reservation; otherwise, they will move to the registration page.
Upsell Page
If you have any upsell add-ons or packages, your guests will be taken to a page where they can add those enhancements to their reservation on their own.
At this point, they can click Continue, or Add another room, if you've set up your account to allow multi-room bookings online. On the right of this page, is the "cart" showing an outline of the room, dates, charges, Taxes and fees, and the deposit required.
Taxes and Fees Section
You can now click the down arrow next to the "Taxes" or "Taxes and Fees" text to expand this section and view the individual taxes and fees applied to the reservation.
Registration Page
When they click Continue, they are taken to the registration page where the guests enter their name and billing information. They will see a Summary at the top, and a Checkout section below.
You can add custom questions and options here with custom reservation attributes. Common options are "What is your reason for stay?", and "How did you hear about us?".
They are required to enter the following fields before the system confirms their reservation:
First Name
Last Name
Phone number
Email
Cardholder Name
Credit Card Number / Expiration Date / CVV number
City / State / Zip
Arrival Time
Checked "I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Cancellation Policy" checkbox.
Any Custom Bill Attributes that you have chosen to set as required fields
If something is missing or not filled out correctly, the system will identify the problem and indicate to the guest that they need to fix something with red text saying REQUIRED and showing a message at the top of the page which says:
"Please correct the errors in the form," as seen in the image below.
If they have a gift certificate, they can apply it on this page, but they must also always provide a valid credit card.
If you have enabled Travel Insurance, then guests will be able to add real insurance to their stay (after they enter their state). Travel insurance is enabled in Settings > Travel Insurance.
When your guests have filled out the form, they click the blue Confirm Reservation button.
As soon as they click the Confirm reservation button, the following checks and validations are performed.
The first check is to see if any required fields are missing. If missing, it's outlined in a red square with REQUIRED.
Next, the system checks to see if the room is still available. The room isn't held at this point, so another guest or staff member could book the room. There is no in-between phase of a reservation; it's either booked or not.
Security checks. Our system performs some security checks to ensure it's a human making a legitimate reservation.
The connected payment processor will attempt to validate the credit card information. If there is a deposit required, it will be charged to the guest at this time.
If the payment processor won't accept the card, or if the payment doesn't go through, then the page will scroll back to the top for them to display an error about the payment. A valid card is required to proceed.
Confirmation Page
Finally, the booking is created! Only then is the customer directed to the last step, where a purchase confirmation page provides an outline (and in very large font) of their Confirmation ID and a summary of the charges with special attention to the deposit that was charged, if any. This page makes it clear that a booking was successful.
Also, at this time, several updates happen simultaneously:
ThinkReservations will automatically send them your confirmation email to the email address the guest provided.
If you take advantage of ThinkMessenger, a confirmation text may also be sent automatically.
A notification email and/or text message is sent to the property
The reservation is put on the calendar and your inventory is updated.
Any connected OTAs have their availability updated.
Reports are updated to show the new booking.