What is the Group Booking Engine?

The Group Booking Engine is an online booking engine that offers a central location for individuals to book a room as part of a Group Reservation. By logging in to a secured area, bookings can be viewed and added to a group without having to contact the property directly.

The Group Booking Engine provides Rooming Lists, individual payment options and group booking details to give guests the information they need to choose a room and complete payment. Guests can select the Room type they want from availability based on the hard allocation in the Group Booking in MyPMS.

All bookings made on the group booking engine are automatically updated and managed in MyPMS giving the Group Booking Engine complete control without the time commitment of taking individual bookings.

The group booking engine can also be customized to your property by adding a logo banner, displaying your marketing policies and room type images.

Note: The Group Booking Engine is available to MyPMS customers who currently use the BookingEngine.

Features and Benefits

• Full availability control and guest management in MyPMS
• Secure guest access with User ID and Password
• Availability and rates based on group booking allocation
• Seamless integration of rates and availability with MyPMS
• Customized banner and Room Type images
• Display Deposit, Confirmation, and Cancellation Policy

How does the Group Booking Engine work?

• First, create a Group Booking in the Group Booking Wizard in MyPMS. The confirmation # of the booking will become the User ID.
• Open the Group Booking and go to the Booking Data Tab.
• In the Booking Information section, create a password and enter it in the password field and click Save. (See below)
• The Group Booking can now be accessed through the Group Booking Engine, https://groups.bookingcenter.com/ using the Confirmation # as a User ID and the password you created for the Group. The User ID and password is the same for all guests logging into the Group Booking.
• Give the Group Contact the User ID and password and direct them to https://groups.bookingcenter.com/ to log in and start making bookings.
• To easily email the USER ID and Password to the Group Contact, add the USER ID and Password to the Group Confirmation Letter using merge fields. 

NOTE:

• Group ID: is auto set via the system, it is the Group Booking ID. This field is not editable.
• Password: is set via the property o teh Group Data page. Guests cannot change this field, but it be changed at any time.

Customize the Group Booking Engine

There are several settings in the Setup Area of MyPMS that are used to customize the group booking engine to your property. You may already have some or all of these set up for your website booking engine. The booking engine settings that are already enabled will automatically be used on your group booking engine.

These settings are all located in SETUP in MyPMS.

• Email Notifications and Guest confirmations of bookings
• Deposit Policy and terms
• Deposit, Confirmation, and Cancellation Policy Message
• Customized logo/banner
• Room Type images

Go to Group Booking Engine in the Online Manual for Step-by-step instructions.

Group Booking Engine Overview and Instructions for Guests

After the group booking is created. Give the Group contact the User ID (Confirmation #) and password and ask them to log in at https://groups.bookingcenter.com/

Note: If the Group check-in date is in the past, or the group has been cancelled, then the system will not allow anyone to log in.

Once logged in, the guest will be logged in to the Group Booking Engine and the Add Booking Tab.

The Group Booking Engine has four Tabs:

Add Booking

• Arrival and Departure Date cannot be changed in the booking engine. If a guest has different booking dates than the group, they will need to call the hotel to make their reservation for the different dates.
• Choose # of guests
• Choose the room type from the drop down menu. (These have already been allocated in the Group Booking)
• Enter First and Last Name and Email Address
• Choose method of payment from the drop down list.
• If Credit card is chosen, then enter the credit card number and expiration date.
• The last step is to agree to the terms and conditions if present and click Complete Booking.
• The booking will now display in the Rooming List.

Rooming List – This list displays the bookings that have already been booked as part of the group.

Group Information – This page shows basic information about the group, i.e. check in and checkout dates, etc.

Property Information – Basic contact property Information, phone, address, Address of the property

To Customize a Group Letter with the USER ID and PASSWORD

After the group booking is created and assigned a password, you can then easily give the guest the login information by using a merge field in a custom Letter. 

• To create a Custom Letter for a Group Booking, see Add or Edit Letters
• To insert User ID (Confirmation #) and Password merge fields, See Merge Fields - Group Letters
• To enter the Password for the Group Booking, see Group Bookings - Create Password

Sample Group Booking Engine Letter using Merge Fields for USER ID and PASSWORD. The following example shows how the Letter looks in the Template Editor with merge fields inserted for the User ID and Password. Please feel free to copy and paste this into your Group Booking Letter.