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How to link rooms to a cottage

Link a cottage (combined unit) with its individual rooms so they share availability — booking either side closes the other. B&B and Property Manager only; works on reservations and manual blocks, not on inventory edits.

Overview

If your property has a cottage that you rent as a whole, and you also sell its rooms one by one, link the rooms to the cottage so they share availability. When a guest books the cottage, all of its linked rooms close. When a guest books one of the rooms, the cottage closes and the other rooms stay on sale.

Example: your Family Cottage can be rented whole, or as Room A and Room B. A booking for the cottage closes Room A and Room B. A booking for Room A closes the cottage, and Room B is still available.

Before you start

  • Your property type is B&B or Property Manager. The Cottage accommodation type is only available for these two.

  • The cottage is set up as its own accommodation, with Accommodation type set to Cottage and exactly one unit. A cottage with more than one unit does not appear in the list of cottages you can link to.

  • Each room you want to link is set up as its own accommodation.

Step by step

  1. Go to Booking engine → Settings and open the Options tab.

  2. Activate Allow linking of a room to a specific cottage and click Save.

  3. Go to Property → Accommodations, click the three-dot menu (⋯) on a room you want to link, and select Edit room.

  4. In the Link to a cottage section, choose the cottage from Select a cottage to link.

  5. Click Save.

  6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 for every room that belongs to the same cottage.

⚠️ Important

The link reacts to reservations and to dates you block on the Calendar. It does not react to changes made on the Inventory page, including Bulk update. If you add availability back to a linked room or cottage there, you can reopen dates that should stay closed and get an overbooking. To close dates on linked accommodations, block them on the Calendar.

FAQs

I don't see the "Link to a cottage" section. What's wrong?

The section only appears once linking is allowed for your property. Go to Booking engine → Settings → Options, activate Allow linking of a room to a specific cottage and save. Then open the room again.

My cottage isn't in the list. Why?

Only accommodations with Accommodation type set to Cottage and exactly one unit appear in the list. Open the cottage with Edit room, check both, and save. If Cottage is not offered as an accommodation type, your property type is not B&B or Property Manager.

Can I link several rooms to the same cottage?

Yes, that's the usual setup. Link each room to the cottage one at a time. Booking any of the rooms closes the cottage; booking the cottage closes all of the rooms.

Open the room with Edit room, choose the empty option (---) in Select a cottage to link, and save. The room and the cottage stop sharing availability.

I changed an accommodation type and the link stopped working. What do I do?

The link only works while the cottage's Accommodation type is Cottage. Set it back to Cottage and save. Then open each room with Edit room and check that the cottage is still selected in Link to a cottage; choose it again and save if it isn't.

Why doesn't Bulk update respect the link?

Changes on the Inventory page, including Bulk update, set availability directly and do not follow the link. If you add availability to a linked room there, you can reopen dates that the cottage booking had closed. Block dates on the Calendar for linked accommodations instead.

After a cancellation, availability didn't go back to what I expected. Why?

When a booking is cancelled, availability goes back to the last value set for those dates. If you had changed availability by hand on the Inventory page, that is the value that comes back. Check the dates on the Inventory page and adjust them if needed.

I already had bookings before linking. Are they covered?

No. The link applies to reservations and blocks made after you set it up. Check the Calendar for dates where the cottage and its rooms were both booked before, and resolve any overlap.

Why can't I drag and drop a linked room on the Calendar?

Drag and drop is turned off for linked rooms so the link stays intact. To move a booking, open it with See booking details, click the three-dot menu and select Switch accommodation. See How to switch rooms on a reservation.

I sell the cottage and its rooms on Booking.com. Anything to watch out for?

Yes. Create the cottage and the rooms as separate properties on Booking.com, each with its own property ID. If they are listed under the same property, a guest can book the cottage and a room in the same session, before availability updates.

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