Setting Preferred and Restricted Vendors
- Malissa Olofernes
- Meredith Russell
Setting up preferred and/or restricted vendors allow you to customize your site’s search results by vendor.
Benefits and Need to Know
Deem supports vendor preferences for airlines, car rental companies, and hotel chains. After creating a preference, you must add it to a preference set, and then assign that preference set to a user group in the Service Rules. Vendor preferences and preference sets copy over from a cloned site.
Important: Preferred and restricted vendors you set here are also subject to travel policy selections; see Travel Policies.
Vendor preferences can include one or a combination of preferred vendors, restricted vendors, and/or excluded vendors. A vendor preference can apply only one or more locations, or set it globally. You can weight preferred vendors by one of three preference levels. Excluded vendors are not returned at all in search results. Restricted vendors are displayed but are ranked and/or displayed differently from other vendors.
Setting Vendor Preferences
To set up a vendor preference for air, car, or hotel chains:
From the Partner Dashboard home page, click the Settings link to the right of the site you want to update.
On your Partner Dashboard, click the Services tab.
Under the Travel heading, click Vendors.
Under Vendor Preferences, click either Airline Preferences, Car Rental Preferences, or Hotel Chain Preferences as appropriate. The remaining steps are similar for all types of preference.
After the list of preferences, click the link to Add A New type of Preference.
On the Add page, in General Settings, complete the following:
To activate the preference, ensure the checkbox to the left of Activate Preference is selected.
Enter a name for the preference in the Name field.
Optionally, if you want the preference to be valid only for a certain date range, select that range from the Preference Start Date and Preference End Date dropdown lists or calendars.
To set geographic preferences, in Location Preferences, select one of the following:
Select Apply globally (regardless of location) if you do not want the preference to apply only in specific locations.
Select Apply to specific locations if you want to apply the preference or restriction only within a specific location, such as if you have a negotiated rate with a supplier that applies only within a specific location or route. If you select this option, the page displays additional options:
For car rental vendors, select either:
by airport codes and then either enter one or more airport codes/s (use a semicolon ; to separate multiple entries), or click the Airport Code link to search for airports by city
by states or by countries and then select from the option list (Ctrl-click to select multiple)
For hotel chains, select either
by place names (note that validation occurs only on saving, so by states or by countries is the recommended option)
by states or by countries and then select from the option list (Ctrl-click to select multiple)
For airlines, select either or both From Location and To Location and then set preferences by departure and/or destination locations:
by airport codes and then either enter one or more airport codes/s, or click the Airport Code link to search for airports by city. Use a semicolon ; to separate multiple airport codes. Entries here are not case-sensitive.
by states or by countries and then select from the option list (Ctrl-click to select multiple)
If you want to apply a preference for only From or To, select anywhere for the option you don’t want to set.
If you want the preference to apply both ways of the chosen From and To location settings, select Yes for Bi-directional.
If you want to apply a preference to connecting location/s, select Through Location and select or enter location/s as above.
To set one or more preferred vendors, in the Preferred type of vendor section, make the following selections (this section is optional, but you must select at least one either preferred or restricted vendor for the preference):
In each field, enter the IATA code of one or more vendors to return those vendors in order of preference, from Most Preferred (top ranked) to Highly Preferred (next ranked) to Preferred (returned after first two preferred vendors).
For car rental companies, you can also enter a location code to apply the preference at only that location.
You can enter vendor codes in one or all of these fields. Entries here are not case-sensitive.
You can enter multiple vendors in any field; use a comma to separate the values, as in DL, UA, SW
If you want end users to be able to view these vendor preferences, select Yes for Flag the Preferred Vendors as Preferred. Deem will display a symbol next to the preferred airlines during booking, which users can hover over to see the preferred status of these vendors.
If you want to exclude or restrict the display of one or more vendors, In the Restricted type of vendor section, make the following selections (this section is optional, but you must select at least one preferred or restricted vendor for the preference):
Vendor to be excluded: Enter one or more IATA codes for the vendor/s to exclude from search results. Use a comma to separate multiple codes.
If you want Deem to display specific vendor/s after all other vendors, enter those code/s in Vendors to be displayed last.
For airlines and car rentals only, if you want Deem to display specific vendor/s apart from vendors returning similar prices, enter those code/s in Vendors to be displayed after similarly priced vendors.
For airlines only:
To display specific airline/s to the far-right of other airlines regardless of price, enter those code/s in Display these restricted airlines to the far-right of the airline carousel.
To display all airlines in the above fields (except excluded airlines) to the far-right of other airlines, check the box next to Or apply to all demoted airlines.
To remove the logo of any restricted vendors in the above fields, select Yes next to Remove logo of restricted vendors. For hotels, you can also select Yes to Remove pictures and video of restricted hotels.
After making all selections, click the Save button at the bottom of the page.
If you want to specify additional vendors, or vendors in other locations, repeat the steps above.
When finished, move to the next section below.
The example screen below shows an airline preference setup for British Airways when the client has negotiated rates between Australia, Denmark, Germany, and the United Kingdom in both directions, with no preference for a connecting location.
Adding Vendor Preferences to a Preference Set
Next you need to add your preference to a preference set. Preference sets also copy from cloned sites.
On your Partner Dashboard, click the Services tab.
Under the Travel heading, click Vendors.
Under Vendor Preference Sets, select the appropriate Type of Preference Sets. The remaining steps are similar for all types of preference sets.
If you need to create a new preference set:
Click the Add A New type of Preference Set link.
Enter a Preference Set Name.
Click the Save button.
On the Preference Set page, click the name of the preference set to add the preference to.
Click the Add Preference button at the bottom of the page.
Select the radio button next to the name of the preference you want to add to this set.
If you want to add another preference to this set, click OK & Add Another.
After adding all preferences, click OK.
Click Save.
When finished, move to the next section below.
Adding Preference Sets to Service Rules
Once your set is complete, if it is not already assigned to a service rule, you will need to add it to the Service Rules to apply it to user groups.
On your Partner Dashboard, click the Rules tab.
Under the Travel heading, click Service Rules.
Click the Edit link next to the user group to which you want to assign the preference set.
Under Vendor Preferences, select one preference set from one or more of the Airline Preference Set, Rental Car Preference Set, or Hotel Chain Preference Set dropdown lists as needed. (If you want to apply multiple preferences, you need to add those preferences to a preference set per the section above.)
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.
When finished, commit all changes (click the # changes not applied link at the top-right and click Commit).