What is a bedbank? Hotelbeds, WebBeds and MG Bedbank explained for B&Bs

A bedbank is a wholesaler of hotel rooms. It buys rooms at a net rate and resells them to travel agents, tour operators and smaller booking sites, often as part of a package with a flight or car hire. Well-known names are Hotelbeds, WebBeds and MG Bedbank. So the guest never books "with the bedbank": they book with a travel agent or site that gets its inventory from the bedbank. If you searched for "MG Bedbank XML" or "Hotelbeds XML", that is the technical side: availability, rates and bookings travel over an XML or API connection, and for a small property that almost always runs through the channel manager.

Below: how a bedbank works, the terms you will meet in the contract, and whether it is worth it for a B&B or small boutique hotel.

How does a bedbank work?

A booking site such as Booking.com sells your room directly to the guest and keeps a commission. A bedbank sits one step further down the chain:

1. You send availability and a rate to the bedbank.
2. The bedbank adds its own margin to that rate and offers your room to its customers: travel agents, tour operators, travel organisers and smaller online travel agencies.
3. That reseller sells the room to the guest, on its own or in a package.
4. The booking reaches you as a booking from the bedbank, with the guest's name and the room they chose.

The key difference from an ordinary booking site: with a net rate, the price you send is the price you get. The bedbank decides what the end customer pays. Some bedbanks work with commission instead of net rates, so check your contract to see which it is.

Payment works differently too. Usually the guest does not pay you; the bedbank does, either against an invoice you send after the stay or by virtual credit card. How and when is in the contract.

Terms you will meet in the contract

• Net rate: what you receive per night. The bedbank adds its margin on top.
• Allotment: a fixed number of rooms you hold for the bedbank. If they are not booked, they return to your own sales after the release period.
• Release period: how many days before arrival unsold allotment rooms come back to you. With a 7-day release, the bedbank can keep selling until a week before arrival.
• Free sale: the bedbank sells as long as you show availability, without a fixed allotment. With a channel manager this is the usual setup.
• Stop sale: you close sales for certain dates even though rooms are still available.
• Board: codes such as RO (room only), BB (bed and breakfast) or HB (half board). Make sure they match what you actually offer.

Is a bedbank right for a B&B?

The honest answer: sometimes, often not. It depends on your number of rooms and your guests.

What it can bring you:

• Guests from markets you do not reach yourself, such as foreign travel agents or tour operators running round trips.
• Extra occupancy in low season or midweek.
• Groups and business travellers who book through an agency.

Where it pinches:

• Volume. Bedbanks are built around hotels with enough rooms and steady inventory. With three or four rooms you are a small channel for them, and for you it is little extra business for the effort.
• Price pressure. A net rate has to be low enough for both the bedbank and the reseller to add a margin. Such a rate sometimes appears on a public site, below the price on your own booking site. That undercuts your direct bookings. More on why in rate parity.
• Contact with the guest. You often get fewer details than with a direct booking, and the guest does not always know your house rules. A good confirmation with your check-in times and practical info matters even more.
• Conditions. The cancellation terms in the contract can differ from those on your other channels.

What to check before you sign

• Net rate or commission? And will you send the same rate as to Booking.com, where commission is already built in? Then the bedbank earns on a price that was already high for you, and your room is more expensive there than elsewhere.
• Who sells your room, and how? Ask whether your rate is only sold in packages, where the room price is not shown separately, or also as a standalone room on open sites.
• Payment terms and method. After the stay, monthly, by virtual card? Hold it against your own cash flow.
• Cancellations and no-shows. What do you receive if the guest cancels or does not turn up?
• Allotment or free sale. With few rooms you do not want a fixed allotment blocking other sales.
• Invoicing. You are invoicing a company, often abroad. An overnight stay in Belgium carries Belgian VAT even then: see reverse-charge VAT on an invoice for an overnight stay, and check with your accountant.

Bedbanks in BedFlow PMS

BedFlow PMS connects through the Channex channel manager with, among others, Hotelbeds, WebBeds, MG Bedbank, HyperGuest, TravelgateX and DidaTravel. As with any channel, you first need an agreement with the bedbank itself. Once that is in place, availability and rates sync automatically, and bedbank bookings land in the same calendar as your bookings from Booking.com, Airbnb and your own site. That way you never sell a room twice. All channels are listed on the integrations page, and how to build the price per channel is in the rate management guide.

Not sure a bedbank adds anything? Start with the channels that bring the most to a small property, see how many booking sites to list your B&B on, and only add a bedbank once you have rooms left over in certain periods, season after season.

Want to see your channels run together in one calendar? Try BedFlow PMS free for 30 days, no card details needed.