Booking Queue and GDS Finalisation

The Booking Queue is where every booking request lands, whatever its source: requests raised by portal and organisation clients, requests forwarded to you, and GDS bookings you started yourself and sent to the queue. It is also the only place a RateHawk hotel booking can be finalised into a real supplier order. This article follows one request from the queue through to a confirmed booking.

Opening the queue

Go to Bookings > Booking Queue. The red badge on the menu item is the number of unclaimed requests, and it updates in real time. The page header reads Booking Queue, with a banner explaining that all requests from private users and organisations appear here.

Five summary cards sit above the list: Unclaimed, My Bookings, In Progress, Completed and Total Value. The first three are clickable and apply the matching filter. Below them are a search box (request number, client name, client email, traveller name or source organisation) and three dropdowns:

• Status — All Status, Unclaimed, Pending, In Progress, Cancellation Requested, Completed.
• Assignment — All Consultants, Unclaimed Only, Assigned to Me, Other Consultants.
• Source — All Sources, Organization, Portal, Private.

Reading a request card

Each card shows the request number and a row of badges. Alongside the status and source badges you may see:

• GDS — the request carries live supplier data and must be finalised through RateHawk, not completed by hand.
• Rate valid mm:ss or Rate EXPIRED — re-selection required — the countdown on the pre-booked rate. See the article on the rate lifetime window.
• A payment badge for the client's card payment: AUTHORIZED, PAID, VOIDED, REFUNDED, RE-AUTH NEEDED or HOLD EXPIRED.
• Hold expires in Nd when an authorisation hold is within two days of lapsing, or Hold expired once it has.

Claiming a request

1. Find an unclaimed request and click Claim on the card (on mobile, use the three-dot menu and choose Claim Request).
2. Claiming assigns the request to you and moves it to Pending. Using Claim Request from inside the details modal also moves it straight to In Progress.
3. The client is notified that you have been assigned, and a message thread is opened between you and them with the system message “<your name> has been assigned to your request.”
4. For a forwarded or guest GDS request that carries a bookable rate, the claim also fires the single pre-book for this booking attempt and starts the rate countdown.

Once a request is yours, the card offers Release (send it back to the queue) and Chat. The details modal adds Reassign (hand it to another consultant), Share Access (grant another consultant editor or viewer access), and, when the client has an authorised card hold, Decline & Release Hold — which cancels the request and releases the hold without taking any money.

Step 1 — Review Pre-booking and set the markup

Open the request (Details) and scroll to GDS Workflow. Step ① is Review Pre-booking. The panel shows the hotel, star rating, check-in and check-out dates, base total and rate per night, plus a markup control.

1. Choose % or the fixed-amount option in the markup dropdown and enter the value. The calculated markup and the resulting Client total update as you type.
2. If the client was quoted a different figure on the portal, a note tells you what they were quoted. Totals within about R1 of the quoted figure are snapped to it to avoid rounding drift.
3. Click Approve. This saves the pricing breakdown (supplier cost, markup percent, markup amount, client total, and who approved it) onto the request, and creates a draft quotation for the booking — or reuses one already linked to it.

Step 2 — Raise the supplier payment

After step ① a Create Payment Request button appears. It takes you to Documents > Supplier Payments with the booking, the supplier cost and the client name already filled in. Once submitted, the workflow shows a status banner:

• Payment request saved as draft — with a Continue link.
• Awaiting admin payment approval — nothing else can proceed yet.
• Payment rejected — revise and resubmit — with an Edit link back to the request.
• Payment approved — workflow unlocked or Payment completed — finalisation is now available.

Step 3 — Finalise with RateHawk

With the payment approved, click Finalize on step ② of the workflow, or Finalize Booking with RateHawk at the bottom of the details modal. Both open the finalisation page, headed Finalize Booking with RateHawk, which shows the request number, hotel, dates, occupancy, original total and the live rate countdown.

Before letting you book, the page checks several things and may stop on one of these screens instead:

• Supplier payment required — the payment request is missing, still awaiting approval, or was rejected.
• Client re-authorization required — the client's card hold has expired, was released, or the price changed. Nothing has been booked; use Re-check & continue once the client re-authorises.
• Rate re-selection required — the pre-booked rate window has lapsed. Use Select a current room & rate.
• Previous attempt still processing — an earlier attempt has not resolved at the supplier. No new attempt can start until it does; use Re-check outcome.
• Already finalized — the booking is done. You can still Verify booking details with RateHawk to pull the supplier's order status and total.

Entering guests and placing the order

1. If the supplier flagged a price change at pre-book, a Price has changed panel appears first. Compare the original and new price, then click Accept new price & continue or Decline.
2. Fill in Guest names. Every adult in every room needs a first and last name; children do not, because their ages are already part of the booked rate. Room 1 guest 1 is pre-filled from the traveller details where available.
3. Complete the Lead guest contact email and phone. Both are required, and the phone must contain at least five digits.
4. Click Confirm & Book with RateHawk. The page submits the booking and then polls the supplier for the result roughly every 4 seconds for up to about three minutes, showing the steps Submitting booking, Processing with supplier, Confirming reservation and Booking complete.

On success you see Booking confirmed with RateHawk with the Supplier Reference, the Partner Order ID, a confirmation number where the supplier provides one, and a voucher download link. Behind the scenes the booking record is created, the request is marked Completed, the client's authorised payment is captured, and the client-facing (marked-up) voucher is issued.

When something goes wrong

• The supplier booking failed outright. The client's hold is released and they are asked to re-authorise before any retry. No money is taken.
• The outcome is not final yet (timeouts, network problems). The hold is left untouched deliberately — re-open the finalisation page later and it resolves the real outcome with the supplier rather than booking again.
• Booking confirmed but saving it locally failed. The error panel shows the supplier reference and a Retry saving booking button. The supplier order exists; never re-book. If the retry fails again, contact support with the supplier reference.
• Capture or voucher issues. A banner tells you if the client payment could not be captured (it is retried automatically) or the client voucher could not be issued (re-issue it from the documents screen).

Requests without GDS data

A request with no supplier data is badged Consultant Assisted and follows a four-step manual workflow instead: ① Create Quotation, ② Create Invoice, ③ Create Voucher, ④ Mark Complete. The first three can be skipped, and steps ② onwards are locked until a supplier payment request has been approved — the same gate as the GDS path. Progress is saved on the request, so you can leave and come back.