GDS Hotel Search

The GDS hotel search returns live availability from RateHawk. You search a destination and date range, filter the results, then pick a specific room and rate before the hotel can go any further. Prices shown to you already include your agency markup.

Opening the Hotel Search

The search page at Bookings > GDS Search opens on hotel search, the one kind with a connected supplier. Flight, car hire, conference venue and transfer searches show a "not available online yet" notice instead of a form, because no supplier for them is connected; ask the client for the details and book those by hand. To build a hotel into a multi-service booking, start from the booking page:

1. Open GDS Booking from the consultant dashboard (the New GDS Booking quick action does the same thing).
2. In Step 1: Select Services to Book, choose Hotels.
3. Enter the client's initials, surname and email in the client details step. The search step only appears once initials and surname are filled in.
4. Click Search Hotels. The hotel search form opens with a Building Multi-Service Itinerary banner and a Return to Basket button.

Opening /consultant/search?service=hotel directly also works, but a hotel selected that way goes to document generation instead of the basket (see below).

Filling in the Search

1. Type the Destination (City or Hotel Name). The field suggests RateHawk regions as you type; picking a suggestion runs the search against that region id, which gives better results than free text.
2. Choose Check-in and Check-out dates. Both are required — otherwise you get "Please fill in check-in and check-out dates".
3. Set Guests & Rooms. You can add rooms and, per room, the number of adults and each child's age. This per-room configuration is carried through to the booking, so set it correctly here.
4. Set Passport Country. This is the guests' residency and can change which rates the supplier returns.
5. Click Search Hotels. A toast reports how many hotels were found and how long it took.

Working Through the Results

Results appear as cards with a filter sidebar on the left and a List / Map toggle above them. The filters are:

• Hotel name — text match on the property name.
• Price per night — minimum and maximum, in the currency the results are priced in, which the label names. When the results come in more than one currency the price filter is switched off, with a note saying why.
• Minimum stars — Any, or 1 to 5.
• Meals — any plan, breakfast, half board, full board, all inclusive or no meals.
• Free cancellation only — hides non-refundable rates.
• Room type — room, suite, apartment, studio, villa or a bed in a dorm.
• Beds — double, twin, king-size, queen-size or single. A bed the hotel marks “subject to availability” is not promised, so it does not count.
• Bedrooms — at least one, two or three.
• Room features — wheelchair-accessible, non-smoking, a balcony or terrace, or a view.
• Property type — hotel, guesthouse, apartment, B&B, resort and so on; only the types in your results are listed.
• Hotel facilities — parking, internet, pool, business facilities, airport transfer, accessibility and more; a hotel must have every facility you tick. Only the facilities in your results are listed.
• Sort by — price, rating, distance or name.

The meal, cancellation and room filters look at every rate a hotel sells, not only its cheapest: a hotel stays in the results when one of its rates matches, and its card shows the cheapest rate that does. For a very large search (many hundreds of hotels, mostly big cities abroad) the room filters are switched off, with a note saying so; search a smaller area to use them.

Each card shows the hotel name and star rating, address and distance from the centre, the room type, occupancy and bedding, up to six amenity icons, badges for breakfast, meal plan and free cancellation, a review score, the price per night and a stay total. More details expands check-in rules, child and pet policies, parking, internet, deposits and any hotel notices.

Selecting a Room and Rate

The button on each card reads Book Now, or Add to Basket when you arrived from the GDS booking page. Clicking it does not book anything — it opens the Select a room & rate to continue dialog, which loads the hotel's bookable rates. This step cannot be skipped, because only that call returns a rate that can actually be booked.

Each rate row shows the room name, meal arrangement, whether it is refundable (with the free cancellation deadline) or non-refundable, the price, and any taxes and fees that are not included and must be paid at the hotel. Click Select on the rate you want.

• Coming from the GDS booking page, the hotel is added to the basket ("Added to basket!") and you are returned to that page.
• Coming from the search page on its own, you are taken straight to the document generation page for that hotel.

Pricing

Markup is applied to the supplier's per-night rate first, and that marked-up rate is then multiplied by the number of nights and the number of rooms. When you select a specific rate in the dialog, the price is recalculated the same way from that rate. The results header reminds you that Prices include markup.

In the basket each line shows a base price and a subtotal, and the summary below shows Subtotal, Markup, VAT and Total. A hotel is sold at the agency's own price, so VAT is charged on its full marked-up stay price; only a flight, sold on the airline's behalf, carries VAT on the markup alone.

What Holds the Rate

Adding a hotel to the basket holds nothing. The rate is only held when you click Send to Booking Queue on the GDS booking page: that fires the single pre-book for the attempt and stamps a rate-lifetime window of 40 minutes from the pre-book, or the supplier's own expiry if that is sooner.