Getting started with Rapid API

Set up Rapid API yourself or work with a certified third-party partner to launch your customized travel site

Set up your Rapid API implementation

As with any API, you'll need to do some prep work before you can use the Rapid APIs.

Step 1. Become a partner

To integrate with Rapid API, you need to apply to become a partner if you aren’t one already.

Step 2. Review our launch requirements, whichever are applicable to your website

Review the launch requirements to decide which requirements will require front end user interface development and factor this into your project planning.

Lodging API

• B2B standalone
• B2C standalone
• Vrbo

Car API

• B2B or B2C

Step 3. Prepare your environment

Review these resources to prepare your environment for using Rapid.

• Lodging API overview
• Car API overview
• Handling booking requests
• Constructing lodging cancellation policies

Step 4. Get credentials and configure for Rapid authentication

Once you have become a partner and been approved to integrate with Rapid API, you will need to obtain your API key. You can do this by logging into Portal and clicking Connectivity in the menu bar on the left. Then select API key from the options. Portal will show your current API key details.

The API key is one of two key credentials required for signature authentication. You will also need your shared secret, which you can access by going into Portal and navigating to the API Keys page. Your API key will be in a restricted development mode until you have been approved for launch to a production environment, after your site review.

To make a request to our API service, whether in test or production, you'll use the HTTP authorization header to transmit your API key and an SHA-512 signature hash with each request. The SHA-512 hash consists of your shared secret, your API key, and a current UNIX timestamp. Authorization headers for Rapid API always use the following format:

Authorization: EAN APIKey=yourAPIKey,Signature=sha512Hash,timestamp=yourUNIXTimestamp

See full details on our signature authentication page. You can use our signature generator tool to generate the SHA-512 hash value to test against your integration.

Step 5. Begin testing your requests

Once you have received your credentials and have configured for authentication, you can start making requests against our testing endpoint, https://test.ean.com/. Any booking requests made against https://test.ean.com/ will not result in actual property reservations or credit card charges. You can choose from our documented test headers for the Booking API to control what type of response you want to see, or if you omit a test header for any booking-related request, the test server will add one for you automatically.

Important: To ensure we deliver a stable and maintainable service rate limits are applied. The system monitors anomalous API traffic and will take action to protect itself automatically. Before making any planned changes to the behaviour of calling the API, or conducting performance tests with API access, make sure to review your plans with your Rapid consultant.

Specifying your API version

Use the servers.url value in the OpenAPI spec to construct the URL. test.ean.com is for validation of your integration, and api.ean.com is the production endpoint. Preserve the protocol and path when switching between endpoints.

https://test.ean.com/v3/itineraries?… https://api.ean.com/v3/properties/22135/payment-options?token=U1dFC0JHTW

The servers.url value is found at the top of our downloadable OpenAPI spec files and will always correspond with the version number for the given API service.

Example: OpenAPI spec

openapi: 3.0.1
info:
  title: Rapid
  description: EPS Rapid V3
  version: v3
servers:
  - url: https://test.ean.com/v3

Step 6. Request a site review

Once you’re comfortable with your integration and have confirmed you meet the applicable launch requirements, ask your business development manager for a site review. When you're approved to go live, your business development manager will enable your API key for production use. Simply switch your request endpoints from https://test.ean.com/ to https://api.ean.com and continue making requests, no additional code changes are required.

Work with one of our certified tech partners

Prefer to outsource your Rapid Lodging API development? You can work with one of our Elite and Preferred technology partners, who can design, build, and optimize your integration so you can go live faster with less in‑house development.

Explore our Certified Technology Partners Program