Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about OTA Systems — from commission auditing to recovery timelines and getting started.
General
OTA Systems is a commission audit and recovery platform built for independent hotels and small chains. It continuously monitors your Expedia, Booking.com, and other OTA reservations against 200+ commission rules, automatically identifies overcharges, and recovers erroneous fees — including no-show commissions, waived cancellation charges, early departure adjustments, and virtual-card discrepancies. The average property recovers $127K per year.
OTA Systems supports all major online travel agencies including Expedia (and its family of brands — Hotels.com, Vrbo, Orbitz, Travelocity), Booking.com, Agoda, Trip.com, HRS, Hotelbeds, and many regional OTAs. We continuously expand our rule library as OTA policies evolve and new channels emerge.
Manual reconciliation means someone on your team cross-references invoices, reservation records, and payment statements line by line — a slow, error-prone process that misses edge cases. OTA Systems automates the entire workflow with 200+ built-in commission rules, catches charges that are nearly impossible to spot manually (such as virtual-card gaps and misapplied cancellation policies), and files reclaims before OTA deadlines expire.
Commission Recovery
OTA Systems ingests your reservation data and OTA invoices, then cross-references every charge against the applicable commission rules for that channel and rate plan. When a discrepancy is found — whether it is a no-show charged at full commission, a waived cancellation still billed, or a virtual-card shortfall — the system flags it and generates a reclaim case with full supporting documentation ready for submission.
Most OTAs require commission disputes to be filed within the first few days of the following month. Expedia, for example, enforces a 4th-of-the-month cutoff for the prior month's charges. OTA Systems tracks these deadlines automatically and ensures all valid reclaims are prepared and submitted before they expire — so you never lose money simply because a dispute window closed.
The platform catches a wide range of overcharges: no-show commissions where the guest never arrived, commissions on waived or reduced cancellation fees, early departure adjustments where the guest checked out before the full stay, virtual-card payment gaps where the amount received did not match the commission charged, rate parity violations, duplicate billings, and tax-inclusive commission miscalculations.
Operations
The operations console gives your team a single dashboard to monitor performance across every OTA channel in real time. You can see reservation volume, commission rates, revenue trends, and dispute status per channel — all in one place. Alerts notify you of anomalies like sudden commission spikes or unusual cancellation patterns, so you can act before they become costly.
Yes. The analytics module provides granular per-channel reporting including gross bookings, net revenue after commissions, effective commission rate, cancellation rate, no-show rate, average daily rate, and recovery amounts. You can compare channels side by side to understand which OTAs deliver the best net revenue and where your commission leakage is highest.
Absolutely. Every report, audit log, and reclaim summary can be exported as CSV for use in your accounting software, spreadsheets, or ownership reporting. You can also schedule automated exports on a weekly or monthly cadence so your finance team always has fresh data without logging in.
Pricing & Plans
OTA Systems is $99 per property per month. This includes full access to commission auditing, automated reclaim filing, the operations console, and AI revenue intelligence. There are no setup fees, no per-room charges, and no hidden costs. For portfolios of 10+ properties, contact us for volume pricing.
Yes. Every new property gets a 14-day free trial with full access to all features — commission auditing, reclaim generation, the operations console, and AI revenue intelligence. No credit card required to start. Most properties see their first recovered charges identified within the trial period.
No. OTA Systems charges a flat $99/property/month with no per-claim fees, no success fees, and no percentage-based charges on recovered amounts. Every dollar recovered goes straight to your bottom line. Given the average recovery of $127K per year, the platform typically pays for itself within 14 days.
Technical & Security
Setup takes about 15 minutes per channel. You provide read-only API credentials or extranet access for each OTA, and OTA Systems begins ingesting your reservation and invoice data automatically. Our onboarding team walks you through the process step by step and verifies the connection is working before you go live.
API connections are the fastest and most reliable way to use OTA Systems, but they are not required. You can also upload OTA invoices and reservation reports as CSV or Excel files. The platform will parse and audit them the same way. Many properties start with manual uploads and move to API connections once they see the value.
OTA Systems uses platform-supported authentication where available, role-based permissions, and access-controlled credential handling for connected audit workflows.
Still Have Questions?
Our team is happy to walk you through OTA Systems and answer anything specific to your property and commission recovery goals.