Booking.com Onboarding — Partner Guide

This guide covers what's specific to Booking.com when you onboard it through NextPax. It assumes you already understand how the onboarding wizard works in general — see the Generic partner guide first.

The Booking.com-specific parts are: Partner Setup (your Booking.com contract), Channel Settings (including Payments by Booking.com), Policy (the guided cancellation-policy builder), and Promotions.

Before you start — finish Account Setup first. As with every channel, the wizard's first step, Account Setup, must be fully completed before anything else unlocks. See Generic §7.1. Everything below assumes Account Setup is already complete.

Standard onboarding flow — see the Generic partner guide §2.

This step arranges your Booking.com contract. It opens with the standard existing/new question (see Generic §3) and continues per your answer:

3.1 I already have a contract

Choose "I already have a contract" to pull your existing Booking.com contract into NextPax. Enter either the email address Booking.com has on file for your contract or your numeric Legal Entity ID, then click Find my contract. NextPax looks it up with Booking.com and fills in your contract details automatically; when they come back, you'll see a read-only summary (company, legal entity name, contact, address, and the countries the contract covers). If the ID you entered looks like it's used by another account, you'll see a warning, but the lookup still proceeds — double-check you entered your own Legal Entity ID.

If access needs to be granted. Sometimes Booking.com replies that the account already exists but isn't yet linked to you — you'll see a Request access option. Click it; NextPax shows a link that opens Booking.com, where you log in to your account and authorise the connection. Once you've authorised it, come back and click I've authorised — retrieve my contract to finish the lookup.

3.2 I need a new contract

Choose "I need a new contract" to have Booking.com draw up a fresh contract for you. A short legal-entity form appears. To save typing, click Prefill from Account Setup — it fills the empty fields from the details you already entered (company name, address, language, and the countries where your properties are located). Review and complete:

• Legal contact email — Booking.com emails the contract to this address.
• Legal contact name and phone.
• Company / legal entity name.
• Preferred language — the language Booking.com uses for the contract email.
• Contract countries — the countries your properties are in; the contract must cover all of them.

When the form is complete, click Request contract.

If Booking.com says the account already exists. When you request a new contract, Booking.com may reply that a partner account already exists for these details, or that the provider isn't connected to it yet. In that case you don't create a new contract — you request access to the existing account, exactly as in §3.1. Don't be surprised by it; you'll see one of these messages:

"Partner account with this email already exists. You can request access to the existing partner account."

"Provider is not connected to the Accommodation Partner. You can request access to the existing partner account."

When you see either message, follow the Request access steps in §3.1.

3.3 ⭐ What happens after you request a contract — read this

⚠️ Needs verification. The behaviour described in this section has not been confirmed against the current system — verify it works this way before publishing.

This is the single most common point of confusion, so please read it carefully.

After you click Request contract, Booking.com emails the contract to your legal contact. A person on Booking.com's side then signs it. The status here does NOT update by itself when the contract is signed. Even if you sign immediately, NextPax will keep showing Awaiting signature until you come back and look it up again.

What to do: once the contract has been signed on Booking.com's side, return to this step and run a lookup again (use "I already have a contract" with your email or Legal Entity ID, or refresh the step). That refresh is what flips your status from Awaiting signature to Connected.

You don't have to wait around — continue with the other onboarding steps while the contract is being signed, and refresh Partner Setup before you go live.

The contract email didn't arrive? Booking.com sends it to the legal contact email from the request form. Check the address (and spam); if it's wrong, start a new request with the correct email.

3.4 The two states

Partner Setup shows two states for Booking.com:

• Awaiting signature — your contract has been requested, but Booking.com hasn't reported it as signed yet. Remember: it won't flip on its own (§3.3).
• Connected — your contract is signed and active; the standard green banner confirms it (Generic §3).

Standard settings step — groups, required vs optional, partial save: see Generic §4. Booking.com particulars:

• Payments by Booking.com is the main Booking.com-specific group. Most payment fields are optional — but turning Payments by Booking.com on makes the related payout and collection fields required together: payout method, netting, frequency, collection strategy, and the onboarding-continuation choice. Turn it off and you can leave them blank.
• Your Legal Entity ID is not re-asked here — it was already handled in Partner Setup (§3).

The Booking.com Policy step uses the guided builder with the standard questions (free-cancellation period → deadline → charge — see Generic §5). The Booking.com particular: the builder narrows your answers down to one of Booking.com's standard cancellation policies and shows you which one will apply. Save to set it as your default — once a default policy is set, the step is complete.

Booking.com supports promotions as part of onboarding. In this step you can set up the promotion types Booking.com offers to help your properties stand out.

Account Setup, Rate Plans, Messaging, Enable channel and Enable properties work the standard way — see the Generic partner guide §7. One Booking.com particular:

• Assign your rate plan to Booking.com explicitly. Plans set to "All channels" do not cover Booking.com — when creating the rate plan (Generic §7.2), pick Booking.com in the Channels field.