Using the Hotel Help

This online help provides three basic kinds of information about the JSON APIs: Guides, API references, and workflow diagrams.

Guides

Each functional area of managing travel with the JSON APIs has a Guide. Guides cover basic concepts and usage information. In addition to the functional guide, any API with a lengthy request and response has its own guide as well. Most API guides include layout diagrams illustrating the basic structure of that API's request and response.

API References

For every API, an API Reference provides object-level details including supported formats and values. API references always include:

  • method and endpoint
  • any query parameters
  • reference tables for the request and response
  • request and response examples

Workflows

Many of the JSON APIs are linked together in workflows. For example, you must send a search request before you can create a reservation. The workflow diagrams provide a high-level overview of the hotel API call workflow.

Notes and Warnings

Each page for a Guide, API Reference, and Workflow uses a standard format to present the same types of information consistently across the help.

Notes like this are called out with a green sidebar.

and

Information that can help prevent an unexpected result or error message is called out with a red sidebar.

Search Tips

If you've checked the guide and the API reference for an API and/or its functional area without finding what you need, try a search at the top of any page.

All supported JSON objects are documented in the help. To search for technical details in the API reference, enter the exact object name; e.g., PropertyKey instead of property key.

For terms, use quotation marks as needed. For example, "passive segment" returns results with the phrase passive segment. However, passive segment without quotation marks returns all pages that have both words (passive and segment) anywhere in the page.

The search is not case-sensitive, and you can enter partial words using at least four characters. Words with variant endings are returned in results. For example, a search for book returns topics with book, booking, and booked.

The search supports the following symbols and Boolean operators, which are not case-sensitive:

  • AND or plus (+) or ampersand (&) narrows the search to only topics that contain all of the words in the same topic but not necessarily together as a phrase.

  • OR a pipe (|) broadens the results by retrieving topics that contain any of the words it separates.

  • NOT a caret (^) finds topics that contain one term but not the other.