Relocation Specials Function
Overview
Sometimes Rental Car Companies may have some vehicles that they need to relocate from one location to another, these relocations normally have to occur within a specified time frame.
The Relocation Specials function allows Rental Car Companies to setup relocation special deals within Rental Car Manager (RCM) and have them available for booking on their websites. This will allow them to have customers move the vehicles for them rather than having to relocate the vehicles themselves.
Set up of Specials
When creating a relocation special offer, you may want to specify a particular vehicle that is available for a relocation, or simply a particular vehicle category that is available.
To setup a relocation special navigate to the Web Relocation Special page (Web Site Interface >> Web Relocation >> Web Relocation Special) and click on the "Add Web Relocation Special" link, shown below. More detailed information about this form can be found in the following article Relocation Special Records
Important Notes About Relocation Specials
- If a Vehicle Registration has been assigned to the relocation record, the subsequent booking will be created as an Allocated booking where it is allocated to the specific vehicle.
The booking will also be flagged as a "Do Not Move" booking, which means that the vehicle allocated to the booking will not be able to be changed. - If no Vehicle Registration has been assigned to the relocation record, the relocation booking will created as a confirmed unallocated booking.
If the System Parameter 'Save After Hours bookings as On Request for Web API' is set to yes, and the relocation booking being requested has an after hour pickup, the relocation booking will not be allowed. - Any Holiday fees, After hours fees and Mandatory fees that have been set up within RCM will still be automatically applied to Relocation Special bookings where it is appropriate. Any Relocation fees that would ordinarily apply to a relocation booking (as set up under the Web Relocations screen) will not be applied to a Relocation Special booking.
A different relocation fee may be applied to the booking depending on whether there is one assigned to the relocation special record. - When a relocation booking is created via the API (an online booking), it will initially be saved as quote. It will be updated to a booking only when a payment or a Credit Card is saved.
- The relocation booking special will be held for 30 min during the booking process, after 30 min the quotes will be removed from relocation special record.
- Once a relocation booking has been successfully created, the relocation special record will be updated to show the booking that has been created.
Website Integration
You will need to integrate the Relocation Specials that have been set up within RCM into your website using the Web API. This Relocation Special function can be separate to your normal web booking module that you have running on your website. Please note these updated methods are only available to v3.2 of the API.
There will be 4 steps to the relocation special process when using the Web API to integrate it onto your website:
- Listing the available relocation specials
- Once a relocation special has been chosen, listing all of the mandatory, optional and insurance options for the relocation booking.
- Making the booking
- Saving the payment/credit card
Each of these are discussed in more detail in this article, Relocation Specials Process
Listing Relocation Specials
There is an API method called "relocationspecials". This method will return a listing of all of the available relocation specials that have been setup inside RCM.
It will return records where the current date/time is less than the pickup end date.
This method will allow for the listing of all available relocation specials on your website. From this listing the customer can choose a relocation special to turn into a booking.
Listing fees, extras and other options for Relocation Booking
Once the customer has chosen a Relocation special, you are able to use the "Step3" method in the API to get a listing of all mandatory and optional fees that are available for the booking.
This requires a call to "Step3" passing in a new parameter called RelocationSpecialID.
You can use the information in the returning datasets to display to the customer to allow them to progress along in their booking request process.
Creating the Relocation Booking
The process of making the relocation booking will work in the same manner as a normal booking coming through the Web API with a call to the "booking" method.
A new parameter will need to be added to the booking method for RelocationSpecialID.
Saving Payment/Credit Card
If your RCM system has been setup to make it is requirement that a credit card or a payment needs to be recorded for a Relocation Booking, then a call to either the "VaultEntry" or "SavePayment" methods will need to be performed to finish the booking. This is the same logic as when the Web API is used to create a booking through the Web Booking steps.
Updating Bookings inside RCM
You are able to update any relocation special bookings within RCM exactly the same way as any other booking. The only two things to take into account are as follow:
- If a Relocation Special booking is updated inside RCM, if the changes do not allow the booking to fall within the rules setup for the Relocation Special, the update will not be allowed.
- If the Relocation Special chosen when creating the booking had a Vehicle Rego associaetd with it, the relocation booking would have been allocated to the vehicle. This booking will marked as a "do not move" booking. This means you will not be able to change the vehicle against this booking unless you first remove this flag from the booking.
Important Articles
Related Articles
Relocation Specials Function
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