You should be aware of the fact that Google requires you to always push them the updated pricing information of your website. In case a price available on Google differs from what you actually have on your website for some rooms and dates, this redirection will be flagged as a "price mismatch" issue under your Hotel account.

Of course the same thing works for the availability, but our Channel Manager will take care of keeping Google synced automatically for any modification to your availability. Do not forget that this a full-API integration, and so it's the same as having the availability up to date on other booking channels like Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia etc..

Keeping the price matching score to "excellent" without ever showing or causing any price discrepancies is fundamental. It's our own responsibility to keep the price matching score to "excellent" for all hotels/properties connected with our Channel Manager, and in case of too many mismatches, your account will be automatically taken offline and the badge "Official Website Rate" for the Free Booking Links will no longer be visible on Google to your guests until a full refresh of pricing information will be submitted.

There is something else you should be aware of: as of February 2022, the Google Travel platform is NOT accepting rates configured with the LOS pricing model. LOS stands for "Length of Stay", and this pricing model is quite easy to be identified in your configuration, because the costs per night applied for your rooms are not proportional after N nights of stay. A classic example of LOS rates is €100 per night, €90 per night after 7 nights of stay.

Google Travel will soon support this pricing model, but at the moment there is no official date for this new feature. Therefore, what to do at the moment if your room rates apply LOS discounts? Our Channel Manager will not accept your LOS rates transmitted through the LOS Pricing Model, or this would just cause price discrepancies, as they cannot recognize (at the moment) this form of pricing structure. In fact, if your room rates have been defined through LOS rules, by launching the Bulk Action - Rates Upload from Vik Channel Manager, you will get an error explaining this pricing requirement situation.

These are the temporary solutions if you wish to work with Google Hotel at the moment:

1. Get rid of the LOS rules from your website with Vik Booking, by using the page Rates Table and by entering only proportional rates per night for all your rooms and rate plans. At this point, create a new Special Price from Vik Booking for the whole year, enable the "Promotion" option, and make sure to select the channel "Google Hotel". Also, make sure to specify a value for the setting "Force minimum length of stay". In our above example, you want this setting to be set to 7 nights. Lastly, define the desired discount amount as a fixed or percent value, and click the Save button (please notice that the "Value Overrides" feature of Vik Booking is not supported either, and so that should not be used). This temporary work-around is the best solution to keep offering long-stay discounts on your website and remain compliant with the current Google Hotel pricing requirements. You basically tell Google that this is a promotion, even if promotions should not apply all year long.
2. Keep the LOS rates only on some rooms and not on all of them. Get rid of the LOS rates from some rooms, and from the page Hotel - Synchronize Rooms, make sure to "map" only the rooms not using LOS rates.
3. Wait for Google to implement this feature and for the moment you should sacrifice longer stays without offering any discounts not even through your website. Using a separate rate plan would not be possible, as those are all mapped with Google, and it would be silly to ask the guests if they want to spend more or less. So this just isn't feasible.

Of course, those who are used to work with OBP rules (Occupancy Based Pricing) will have no problems at all, as this pricing model is fully supported by Google Hotel.

However, you also should be aware of the fact that Promotions with filters for the minimum stay, last-minute timing or the days in advance greater than 1, must be submitted also to Google by selecting it from the apposite channels list.

We will be posting new updates here as soon as this feature will be available with Google.