OVER Room, Room Type, and Rate - what does it mean and how to prevent it?

All BookingCenter systems have a Room, a Room Type, and Rate called OVER. None of these can be edited or deleted, as the Central Reservation Service uses these to assign any <potential> anomalous bookings. There are two general sources that can generate OVER bookings:

1) From the BookingCenter Central Reservation Service / Booking Engine.

When an online booking goes into an OVER Room, it's because the booking was received for a Room Type which could not be placed into a single Room for the entire stay. Our properties can prevent this from happening by choosing to NOT allow non-continuous Bookings. On the Booking Engine Setting page, there is a setting that, if unchecked, will NOT allow for a Type booking from your Booking Engine if a continuous room is not available for the entire stay. Depending on the product used, here is how you do this:

MyPMS Users
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In the Setup area (https://mypms.bookingcenter.com/site_enquiry_settings.phtml)

For Desktop and Management Tool Users
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In the Members Area (https://members.bookingcenter.com/site_enquiry_settings.phtml)

For example, if the 'Allow non Continuous Bookings' is checked, BookingCenter will allow a booking if a Room Type (such as a Queen room type) exists for the duration of stay, but there may be no single Room available for the entire stay. This is usually the recommended setting to maximize booking capabilities, under the assumption you will make Room assignments close to arrival to place bookings in rooms that maximize the 'yield' of your room inventory.

For example, if the 'Allow non Continuous Bookings' is NOT checked, BookingCenter will allow a booking ONLY if a single Room (such as Room 123) exists for the duration of the stay. This is usually the recommended setting if you always do Room assignments at the time of a booking and do not maximize the 'yield' of your room inventory.


2) From the Global Booking Network (GDS, OTA, and IDS systems)
When reservations are placed into these room/room types from a Global Booking Network source, it is because the ROOM TYPE was available when the reservation was made on a remote system but was assigned to the OVER room when imported into the Central Reservation System or the Property Management System because it was not available for the entire stay. This can cause problems, as the guest believes they have a room...NOT a booking in an 'Overflow' room.

To see what the Guest believes they booked, look into the Office Notes in your Desktop PMS or the Booking Notes in MyPMS for the Room Type and Rate that the guest thinks they booked at. If you can fulfill on the booking, then simply transfer the booking to an available room. If not, contact the Guest or the Agent and see about fulfilling on a different date or into a different room.

Because of the nature of the Global Booking Networks, there is no way to enforce the 'Allow non Continuous Bookings' concept, as BookingCenter can enforce on the Booking Engine, as the global systems only sell Types and not actual Rooms. As such, there is no way to make a booking dependent upon a single Room having availability for the duration of a stay, only the Room Type.

To see what the Guest believes they booked, look into the Central Reservation System through your Members Area (http://members.bookingcenter.com ) and choose 'Online Bookings' to view the reservation BookingCenter has on record. If the Central Reservation System lists 'OVER' as the room. look into the Office Notes for the Room Type and Rate that the guest thinks they booked, such as "Office Only Guest originally requested RoomType: APARTM2S at Rate:APARTM2". If you can fulfill on the booking, then simply transfer the booking to an available room. If not, contact the Guest or the Agent and see about fulfilling on a different date or into a different room.

-----------------------More Info ----------------------

We have additional info on strategies to PREVENT OVER Bookings in this article.

We explain how you can better manage - and prepare for - OVER bookings that come from Network sources (OTAs, GDS, etc) in this article.