Guides
Where the money hides, explained.
Straight answers on finding and recovering what you are owed. No fluff, no gate.
How do you audit Expedia and Booking.com commission charges?Auditing OTA commission means matching every commission the OTA charged to a real, completed stay in your PMS, then flagging commission on cancellations, wrong rates, commission taken on taxes and fees, and duplicate charges. You compare two sources: the OTA commission statement and your property management system.Read the guideHow much OTA commission are independent hotels overcharged?There is no measured public benchmark for OTA commission overcharging. An industry illustration puts leakage around 1% to 2% of the commission you pay (Hotel Yearbook), not of revenue. The real figure depends on cancellation volume and channel mix, and only a reconciliation against your PMS reveals it.Read the guideHow do you read an OTA commission statement?An OTA commission statement lists each reservation the platform billed you for, the stay dates, the amount it based commission on, the commission rate, and the total charged. To read it for errors, match each line to a real, completed stay in your PMS and confirm the rate and the base amount are correct.Read the guideHow does OTA commission work for independent hotels?An OTA charges commission as a percentage of the reservation, deducted from what it remits to you or invoiced back to you. The rate is set in your agreement, but what it applies to, room revenue only or the full charge including taxes and fees, and whether it survives a cancellation, is where properties lose money they do not notice.Read the guideWhat causes OTA commission overcharges?OTA commission overcharges come from a few recurring causes: commission charged on cancelled or no-show stays, a rate billed above your negotiated percentage, commission taken on taxes and fees instead of room revenue only, and the same reservation billed twice. Each is small per booking and easy to miss across a full statement.Read the guideHow do you dispute an OTA commission charge?To dispute an OTA commission charge, identify the specific reservation and why the charge breaks your agreement, document it against the OTA's own statement and your PMS record, and raise it through the channel's partner support with the reservation reference. The stronger the documentation, the faster it resolves.Read the guide