Turning Agents into Wholesale Agents to Book Online for their Accounts
Posted by Jeff Tweddale on 15 Apr 2011 03:31 PM

Turning Agents into Wholesale Agents to Book Online for their Accounts



We have a simple way for your agents to book so that the Agent can maintain the relationship with the Guest, if you wish.  We call it a Wholesale Agent.  This is a special Agent that causes the Booking Engine (BE) screens to adjust to a paradigm where an Agent is making a booking at a property on behalf of a traveler.  

When this happens a number of screens in the Booking Engine change to reflect the Wholesale Agent.

For example, on the Results page
 
* Note, the banner is now the Agents’ banner and the email is assumed to be the ‘Agents/Booking Consultant’s email’ address.

Also, the ‘Booking Consultant’ can enter in a free-form text field to add their comments:
 
The final booking page has branding that goes to the Agent and/or the Guest containing the Agent’s details, maintaining the Agent’s ‘branding’ throughout the booking process. The Agent’s branding will be sent with the email confirmation as well as the 'Fax or Phone' payment option.

In summary, an Agent designated as a "Wholesale Agent" means that when they make a booking;
·      The Agent branding will be presented to the buyer.
·      They can choose whether or not to email the Guest with the booking details.
·      The Fax confirmation is designed to be sent from the Agent to the Guest.
·      The emails and Booking Engine screen all carry Agent Branding.


An example of the 'email trail might look like this: a Wholesale Agent makes a booking and selects to 'notify guest' with the confirmation, there would be 3 emails generated:


Email to Property (always sent):
-------------------
American Express Travel Agency from AmEx Corporate Travel has just made a new booking. Please login to MyPMS to review the details

Although the Guest has received a similar automatic email, we advise confirming with the Agent as soon as possible.

Booking Number: 21823857W
Site ID: JEFTWE


Email to Agent (always sent):
-------------------------------
Attention: American Express Travel Agency, AmEx Corporate Travel
Booking details for: 21823857W

Although the Guest has received a similar automatic email, we advise confirming with the Guest as soon as possible.

Go here to view Booking Details -> http://agents.bookingcenter.com/agent_sites.phtml

Booking Number: 21823857W
Site ID: JEFTWE


Email to Guest would only be sent if the Agent selected 'notify guest' with the confirmation:
-----------------
Thank you for your booking with Yellow Rose Inn
If you have any questions, please use the booking number below.

Booking number: 21823857W

Guest... Jeff man
Phone... 707 874 3922
Email... jeff@internetcorps.com



You can make any of your Agents into a "Wholesale Agent" by going to the MyAgents area and choosing the specific Agent you have loaded that you wish to turn into a Wholesale Agent from the "Agent Class" option:

Standard
Wholesale
Promo Code

 

If your Site ID is 'DEMO' and your Agent ID is: 'TOUR', then the Agent ID used in the URL would be: DEMOTOUR (you need to pre-pend the Site ID to the Agent ID to make it work). For help making Agent URLs, please see this article: https://docs.bookingcenter.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3212361 

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