A hotel reconfirmation process is a second check, a few days before arrival, that the hotel still holds the booking exactly as you sold it: the names, dates, rooms, board and requests, under the confirmation number printed on your voucher. Your policy decides how many days before. You record who at the hotel said yes, and when, and you act the same day if they cannot find the booking.
A confirmation is a moment. A reconfirmation checks that the moment survived.
Why a confirmed booking still needs reconfirming
Between confirmation and arrival, a lot can go wrong without anyone telling you.
- The hotel overbooked. Hotels sell past capacity on the expectation that some guests will not show. When everyone shows, someone is moved to another hotel. A booking that is complete, correct and recently reconfirmed gives the hotel fewer reasons to pick yours.
- The booking was never keyed in, or was keyed in wrong. Your email went to a general inbox, a rooming list was printed and filed, or one room of three was entered.
- It sits under another name. Booked through a wholesaler, it is held under their reference, not yours. Booked from an allotment after the release date, it may never have been confirmed at all. See allotments, release periods and stop-sales.
- The names are wrong. First name and surname swapped, a married name the passport does not carry, a child entered as an adult.
- Your own change never arrived. The client added a night, a traveller dropped out, a twin became a double, and the hotel still has the old version.
- The requests were forgotten. Connecting rooms, an early check-in, an accessible room, a late arrival.
Every one of these is cheap to fix five days out and expensive at the desk at midnight. That is the whole case for reconfirming.
When to reconfirm: your policy, by kind of booking
There is no single right number of days. Too early, and the hotel has not built its arrivals list yet. Too late, and there is no time to find another room. Pick a default and decide where you make exceptions.
| Situation | When many desks ask | Why |
|---|---|---|
| An ordinary stay booked weeks ahead | A few days before arrival | Close enough that the hotel's arrivals are planned, early enough to rebook |
| Peak dates, a city-wide event, a hotel known to overbook | Earlier, and again the day before | The risk is higher and alternatives disappear fast |
| A group on a rooming list | Before the hotel's rooming-list deadline, then again before arrival | Names and room types change late in groups |
| Booked inside your usual window | At once, as part of confirming it | There is no later moment |
| Still on request, waitlisted or held provisionally | Not a reconfirmation yet: chase the answer or the hold date | It was never confirmed. See on request or instant confirmation |
| A late arrival, a VIP, an accessible room | The day before as well | The request is the part most likely to be lost |
| A hotel the traveller booked themselves | Not yours to reconfirm | Put it on the itinerary; leave the booking to them |
These are starting points, not rules. Your contracts, your hotels and your clients decide the number.
What to confirm, line by line
Ask for each item, not "is the booking OK?". A hotel will say yes to that question while holding the wrong dates.
| Check | What you are looking for |
|---|---|
| Lead guest and every name | Spelled as on the passport, in the right order |
| Check-in and check-out dates | Both dates and the number of nights, not just arrival |
| Rooms and room type | The number of rooms and the type you sold, room by room |
| The party in each room | Adults, children and the children's ages |
| Board | The meal plan in words, not only a code |
| Requests | Beds, smoking, floor, connecting, accessible, early check-in or late check-out. Ask which are guaranteed and which are only noted |
| Arrival time | A late arrival, so the room is not released as a no-show |
| Who pays | Prepaid by you, extras by the guest, so the desk does not ask for a card for the whole stay |
| The hotel's confirmation number | Per room, where the hotel confirms rooms separately. Write it down again if it changed |
They are the facts a front desk needs to accept your voucher: see what a hotel voucher must show.
Record who confirmed it, and when
A tick that says "reconfirmed" is not evidence. Write down four things every time:
- Who: the name of the person at the hotel.
- When: the date, on your own calendar.
- How: the hotel's own answer on a link, an email, or a phone call.
- The number: the confirmation number they gave, even if it is the same.
You will need it at check-in when the desk disagrees, with the client who asks what you did, and for the next shift, who should not have to ask again.
When the hotel cannot find the booking
Work in this order.
- Search their way. Give the hotel's own confirmation number first, then your reference, the wholesaler's reference if you booked through one, the lead guest's surname, the first name tried as a surname, and the arrival date.
- Send what they confirmed. Their original confirmation, the hotel's copy of your voucher, the rooming list.
- Ask them to enter it as it was sold, and to give you a new confirmation number in writing.
- If they have no room, ask what they offer: an equivalent room, or a room at another hotel. Your contract with them says who pays for that. Decide with your client before they travel, not at the desk.
- Update every paper. The new number on the voucher, the voucher issued again, the traveller told.
- Find the cause. One lost booking is an accident. The same hotel twice in a season is a conversation for whoever holds the contract.
A voucher the desk can check by itself also shortens step 1: see voucher QR verification.
A week's reconfirmations, worked through
Say your policy is to reconfirm five days before arrival, and next week eight stays arrive at six hotels.
| Arrives | Stay | What came back | What your desk did |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Hotel A, 2 rooms | Reconfirmed on the link the day it was asked | Nothing |
| Monday | Hotel B, 1 room | Reconfirmed | Nothing |
| Tuesday | Hotel A, 1 room, another trip | Its own ask, because it is a different trip. Reconfirmed | Nothing |
| Wednesday | Hotel D, 1 room | No answer. A reminder went three days before; reconfirmed the next morning | Nothing |
| Wednesday | Hotel C, 3 rooms, a family | "Something has changed": the hotel has three adults in room 2 | Sent the hotel's copy with the children's ages; the hotel corrected it; recorded as reconfirmed |
| Thursday | Hotel E, 2 rooms | Never asked: no email address for the hotel | Phoned, recorded as reconfirmed, noted the name of the person they spoke to |
| Friday | Hotel B, 1 room | Not asked to reconfirm: the client added a night after the hotel confirmed | Sent the change instead; the hotel acknowledged the extra night |
| Saturday | Hotel F, 2 rooms | "Something has changed": no booking under that name | Found under the first name as surname; new confirmation number typed on both rooms; voucher issued again |
Four of the eight needed no work. The other four needed a person, with days to spare: the routine goes by itself, and the desk's time goes to the exceptions.
How iTravel Vouchers runs it
Each room is its own reservation. On a trip, the Hotel desk lists every room of every stay as R1, R2 and so on, with its party and meal plan. A room moves through the trade's statuses: not asked yet, requested, on request, waitlisted, confirmed, amended (to confirm again) and cancelled. A move that is not one is refused and named back. Each room keeps its own confirmation number and the day it was confirmed, on your calendar, plus its requests (beds, smoking, floor, connecting, accessible, early check-in, late check-out) and the room number. "Copy for the hotel" gives the room as the hotel is asked for it, in the language you write to that hotel. Changing only a room's status leaves an issued voucher current; a new confirmation number or a new request marks it as changed since issued.
Ask suppliers to reconfirm a set number of days before. In Settings → Notifications you choose 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 or 14 days, or leave it off, which is where it starts. Each morning, every confirmed service starting within that many of your days, not only hotels, that was never reconfirmed or asked, and whose supplier or master record has an email address, is asked once: one link per trip and supplier, in the supplier's language, with no login. The supplier types their name and either reconfirms ("Everything stands as booked") or tells you what has changed. A supplier who does not answer is reminded on the same link at the lead times you set, and the reminders stop when they answer.
A changed booking gets an amendment, not a reconfirmation. If you changed a booking after the supplier confirmed it, the trip offers you an amendment that shows them what changed, and the reconfirmation ask skips it. That applies to bookings confirmed by phone too, compared with the last supplier copy you issued.
Answers by phone are recorded by hand. "Supplier's answer by phone or email" records a hold until a date, a waiting list, or a reconfirmation, on the trip's history with who on your team recorded it. A reconfirmation is accepted only on a confirmed booking.
The trip warns you, and never blocks. Its checks flag a service confirmed with no confirmation number, a hold ending within three days or already ended, a waitlisted service within 14 days, and, when you ask for reconfirmations, a confirmed service inside your window that nobody has reconfirmed. More on the product: travel voucher software. When a confirmation number changes and the voucher is issued again, the traveller's trip page on their phone shows it as updated.
A reconfirmation checklist
- [ ] Write down your default: how many days before arrival, and the exceptions (peak dates, groups, late arrivals).
- [ ] Make sure every hotel has a reservations email address on file, or a person who phones it.
- [ ] Reconfirm each item, not "the booking": names, dates, rooms, party, board, requests, arrival time, who pays, the number.
- [ ] Record who at the hotel said yes, when, how, and the number they gave.
- [ ] Send a change as a change, never as a reconfirmation of the old booking.
- [ ] Chase holds and waiting lists by their own dates; they are not confirmations yet.
- [ ] When the hotel cannot find it, search their way first, then send what they confirmed.
- [ ] After any new number, issue the voucher again and tell the traveller.
- [ ] Keep a short list of hotels that lost a booking this season, and raise it at contract time.
