Intro to product managementCopy link

A "product" is defined as a unique combination of unit (room type) and rate plan.

• A unit (previously referred to as "room type") describes the configuration of a specific room category or class in our system. Units belong to properties, and each unit is associated with one or more rate plans. A unit contains information such as bed types, smoking preferences, occupancy settings by age categories, and so on.

  Note: Property inventory can be updated using the Availability and Rates API. Various fees collected on-site can be added or updated with Partner Central or Property API as well.

• A rate plan is a set of attributes that describes the pricing information of a unit. It consists of the room’s rate and its policies (fees, cancellation penalties, length-of stay, and advance purchase options).

• Unit spaces can be used if there are multiple rooms (bedrooms and living rooms) within a unit; unit spaces are optional.

The product management capability provides the ability to create products as follows:

• Manage rate plans, including
  • Creating rate plans and attaching a cancellation policy, fee set, value-adds (special features to include with a rate, such as breakfast, internet, or parking), and restrictions (such as min/max nights or stay dates). Note that commission is automatically attached to rate plans by Expedia Group.
  • Retrieving a single rate plan (including the associated cancellation policies and fee sets).
  • Retrieving a list of rate plans associated with a unit.
  • Modifying existing rate plans.
  • Deleting rate plans.

Sell rates (gross rate paid by customer) and net rates (sell rate excluding commission) are supported.

• Manage cancellation policies, including creating, retrieving, and updating policies at a property level.
• Manage fee sets, including creating, retrieving, and updating fees at the property level. Fee sets define service and extra person fees.
• Manage units, including creating units with amenities, retrieving, and updating units, including their names, descriptions, and amenities.
• Managing unit spaces, including creating spaces, updating spaces (to add bedding), and removing spaces from units
• Retrieving property-level information for one or more properties, including units and rate plans associated with a property.

The property management capability supports multiple pricing models and pricing attributes:

• Per day for base occupancy (per day pricing model)
• Per day for base occupancy and per length of stay (per day, length of stay pricing model)
• Per day by occupancy (occupancy-based pricing model)

And the capability supports multiple rate plan types including

• Standalone
• Package
• Business
• B2B distribution
• Package distribution

Limitations

Be aware of these as you integrate the product management capability:

• The rate limit is currently set to five transactions per second (TPS).

Workflow

Create products as follows:

1. Create the following components in any order:
   • Fee sets using the createFeeSet mutation
   • Cancellation policies using the createCancellationPolicyConfig mutation
   • Units using the createUnit mutation

Use the metadata query to determine all of the supported values for fields that can be set on a cancellation policy, unit (unit), and unit space. And at any time, you can use the property query to review what has been created for a property.

2. Create unit spaces (bedrooms and living rooms), if any, and associate them with units using the createUnitSpaces mutation.

   Note: Refer to updateUnitSpaces mutation to information about adding or removing amenities from a unit.

3. Create rate plans and associate each rate plan with a unit, cancellation policy, and fee set (optional) using the createRatePlan mutation. After at least one active standalone rate plan associated with a unit, the unit becomes active.

How is business model and commission set?? Channel restrictions??

Then, to manage products after creation, use these queries and mutations:

• policies query, to retrieve cancellation policy details
• ratePlan query, to retrieve details about rate plans
• ratePlansByUnitId query, to retrieve all rate plans associated with a unit
• feeSets query, to retrieve fee sets
• unit query or units query, to information about a single or multiple units
• replaceCancellationPolicyConfig mutation, to replace a cancellation policy
• replaceFeeSet mutation, to replace a fee set
• updateRatePlan mutation, to update rate plan details
• updateUnit mutation, to update a unit
• updateUnitSpaces mutation, to update unit spaces
• deleteRatePlan mutation, to delete a rate plan
• deleteUnitSpace mutation, to delete a space

Comparison to Product API

The following table shows which product management features are currently available in Product API.