Despegar.com - Hotels, flights, packages, cars, and more!

# FAQ

1. **How do I get test credentials?**
   
   Your test credentials were created as part of the registration process. You can obtain them at the [home page].

1. **What is the use of Channel-User API-Key, username and password? Are they global or on a per-property basis?**

Both, the API-Key identifies your channel system to us, the username/password/hotel is the authorization a hotel manager has granted to your channel system to access and update data for that specific hotel on behalf of the hotel manager.

See [Access Control] in the Introduction page for more details.
     
1. <a name="bad-credentials"></a>**I'm getting "Bad Credentials" errors. How can I verify my API-Key or a username/password/hotel combination?**

Use the [Test Credentials](/portal/test-credentials) utility.

If the utility tells you your credentials are OK, then double-check your `Authorization` header.

1. **Why I can't see the updates I performed?**

The test environment is a stubbed environment and you won't see any changes applied. The purpose of this environment is to develop your integration so your system can send, receive, and process our API messages.

1. **What is the return when no availability and rates are loaded for the requested date?**

No error will be reported since this is considered a plausible situation. The response will only contain a `Success` element and no information elements.

1. **What is the timezone followed by updates?**

All dates and times are expressed in UTC.

1. **Will I have different credentials for the certification environment?**

Yes, QA credentials will be provided for the certification process.

1. **I completed my integration and my system is successfully working against the test environment. What is the next step?**

After you finish your integration, the next step is certification. 
   
   Once you let us [know about it][contact], we'll prepare a certification environment and a member of our QA team will reach out to you
   with a test sheet detailing a series of operations you must perform. 
   
   The QA team will then analyze and validate the results of those operations and let you know if everything worked
   as expected or some tests need to executed again.
    
1. **What happens after I pass the certification process?**

Your QA credentials will be promoted to the production environment, and your channel system will be immediately available to use to hotels.

1. **I registered my channel manager under the company name, but we would like the commercial name to be used.**

[Contact us][contact] to set a display name for your channel manager.
   
1. **Do you support concurrent updates to the same hotel, room and rate (usually for different dates)?**

We don't support concurrent request (at hotel level) for those operations that update our system. 
   You can send concurrent `OTA_HotelAvailNotifRQ` and `OTA_HotelRatePlanNotifRQ` messages, but not two 
   of those at the same time.
   
1. **Do you have a maximum message size?**
  
   Yes. Please see [Request Limits][request limits] and [Preventing HTTP 429 Errors][preventing 429].
   
1. **Do you impose any limit for bad credentials, e.g. do you start blocking after N amount of requests with invalid credentials, and what is N, or what is the time interval, and what is the penalty?**
   
   We have alarms to detect a credential misused. In case of a possible attack, the system will lock the offending IP / API-Key.

1. <a name="on-new-connection-upload"></a>**A hotel has just set up a new connection and we need to import all the data we have for that hotel.**

With the [current limits][request limits], it is possible to import a year's worth 
   of data in few requests. In fact, it is possible to load a year and half's worth of 
   data in less than 60 requests. You should be able to [shape your traffic][preventing 429]
   and get all your data loaded without issues.

1. **We certified before [Reservation Push][booking handling push] became available. What are the steps to receive reservations via push?**

Get your endpoint ready to receive messages as documented and get in touch with [us][contact].

[home page]: </portal>
  [Access Control]: </portal/documentation/intro#-a-name-access-control-a-access-control>
  [contact]: <mailto:channels@despegar.com>
  [request limits]: </portal/documentation/intro#-a-name-request-limits-a-request-limits>
  [preventing 429]: </portal/documentation/integrating#preventing-http-429-errors>
  [booking handling push]: </portal/documentation/booking-handling-push>