If you have an overbooking but cannot find the guest details in your system, follow these steps to locate the booking and resolve the discrepancy.
Find the missing reservation
Before troubleshooting, double-check that you are viewing the correct date and year on your Front Desk calendar.
Check the Channel Extranet: Log in to the booking site (e.g., Booking.com) directly. Search for the booking using the guest name or dates. We cannot contact the channel for you.
Check Direct Booking: If the booking came from your own website, go to My Apps > Direct Booking > Reservations to find the details.
Identify Mapping Issues: Go to My Apps > Channel Manager > Channels > Configure. Look for rates showing "This room is currently not mapped" or any disabled rates.
Contact the Channel: If you cannot find the booking details, contact the channel directly. Little Hotelier is unable to contact booking channels on your behalf.
Handling "Unallocated" (Blue) Bookings
In Little Hotelier, an overbooking often appears as a blue booking in the Unallocated row of your Front Desk calendar.
What they are: Unallocated bookings are valid, confirmed stays—they are not errors. They count as real bookings and have already reduced your availability. They simply need to be assigned to a physical room.
Rearrange your bookings: Check if guests can stay in the same room for their entire stay. Look for consecutive nights available in one physical room for the unallocated booking.
Create space: Move existing bookings around to create space by dragging and dropping them between rooms on the Front Desk calendar. You can also open a booking and edit the room # field to assign a different room.
Allocate the booking: Once you have created consecutive space, drag and drop the blue booking from the unallocated row into the available room.
Move bookings within the same room type: Look for empty spaces between rooms in that specific room type to see if you can fit the blue booking into an available room.
Check the mapping timeline
⚠️ Important: If you recently enabled or mapped a channel rate, reservations created before you enabled the mapping will not automatically sync (be re-sent) to your system. You must add these reservations manually to Front Desk > Calendar.
To check if timing is the issue:
Find the enabled date: In Channel Manager, click on the channel rate, select Audit, and find the "hotelier timestamp" for when it was enabled.
Compare dates: If the booking’s "date created" is before the audit timestamp, the system cannot push it to your calendar. You must add these guest details manually.
Synchronisation delay: Availability updates can take up to 5 minutes to sync across all channels. If two guests book at the same time on different sites, a double booking may occur.
What causes overbookings?
Overbookings happen because the system cannot update your inventory (availability) for unmapped or disconnected rates.
Mapping issues: If room rates are not mapped or are linked to the incorrect channel rate, the booking cannot be delivered to your Front Desk.
Synchronisation delay: It can take up to 5 minutes for availability to update across all channels. If two guests book at the same time on different sites, a double booking may occur.
Disabled status: If a channel or rate is "Disabled," Little Hotelier stops sending inventory updates. The channel will continue to sell based on the last known data, creating a high overbooking risk.
Missing walk-ins: If manual bookings or "walk-ins" are not added to your calendar immediately, your online availability will remain too high.
Steps to resolve
Locate the missing reservation
If you cannot find the booking in Little Hotelier, you must check the booking source.
Check the channel extranet: Log in to the channel extranet directly.
Search for the booking: Use the guest name or dates to find the reservation and note which rate plan was used.
Handle the missing reservation
Immediate actions:
Manual Entry: Go to Front Desk > Calendar, click the check-in date, and select Add Reservation. Enter the guest details found on the channel extranet.
Reduce Inventory: Manually lower your availability to stop further bookings.
Relocate the Guest: If you are full, contact the channel to manage the guest's relocation.
Fix mapping and setup:
Go to My Apps > Channel Manager > Channels > Configure > map any unmapped rates and fix any channel rates or channels that are disabled.
⚠️ If a channel rate or entire channel is disabled or unmapped, no inventory updates will be sent to the channel, which increases the risk for overbookings. If a channel rate or channel has become disabled due to an error, resolve the error, then re-enable the channel or channel rate.
How to prevent overbookings
Ways you can reduce the risk of overbookings:
Regularly check that your availability is correct.
Ensure all required room rates are mapped to your channels correctly.
If you only have one room left and you know it is likely you’ll get a booking for this room, you could place a stop sell on low-performing channels, and only offer the last room to your high-performing channels.
Monitor and fix any channel rates or channels that may have become disabled.