Do you use a channel manager

I am thinking of using a channel manager service to avoid any duplicate bookings.
Has anyone used them and do you have any recommendations please?

What on earth is a channel manager?

As far as I know a channel manager is a piece of software that coordinates bookings from different sources i.e. bookingdotcom, airbnb etc, and those that you take yourself, to help avoid letting the same rental property twice for the same period.

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Do you have so many gîtes that it can’t be done with a simple spreadsheet? Or even a piece of paper/calendar for each one? To me using an app is yet another thing that can get out of sync, get corrupted, get deleted…

the thing is Jane, it is not about having lots of rooms or gitezs, it is simply that if you are selling even just one room on two automated sites - say booking & expedia, it is possible that overnight both of these agencies take a booking for the same room on the same night and you have a problem;
An automated channel manager would prevent this

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I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention a ‘rival’ forum on here but I’ve seen discussions about channel managing software on Lay my Hat. It is something I’ll consider when we finally move and have already done some research about different providers.

We just use our own diary and keep it updated, but we have the just one gite so that is not too onerous.

We have stopped using Homeaway as it has now turned itself into an online travel agent and takes a huge fee from our clients, keeps the rental until the clients arrive and then charges us 3%
for the privilege of paying us.

I bet lots of people manage… I’d just be terrified of the scenario where we let a room or a gite and then find that an OTA has done the same. Ideally we’d want people to book direct, to reduce fees and commission paid to others, but recognise that we might have to sign up to multiple platforms until we are established. I’m trying to create as much interest as possible before we move so that at least some of our first season is filled with (paying) friends and acquaintances. We’ve even started doing a table d’hôte supper club here in sunny Yorkshire to get some practice!

Avoid Expedia.

They are like an octopus, they have many tentacles, here in France they operate as Abritel.

you are quite right Jane. I had a guy turn up last week with a print out of his reservation.
I know nothing about it, had not been informed.
His reservation with us was made through ‘Hotels.com’.
We are not registered with them - but I checked and found they are part of Expedia !
But Jane, this is not a reason to avoid them surely ?
regards
geoff