Stop paying OTA commission on stays that never happened: hotel OTA commission reconciliation
Every OTA invoice is a claim, not a fact. OTA Commission 360° matches each commission line to the stay that actually happened and to the terms you signed.
Quick answer: OTA Commission 360° is x·quic's OTA commission audit. It checks every reservation 72 hours after check-out, matches each commission line on the OTA invoice to the actual folio and your contracted terms, and claws back commission billed on cancelled, shortened, no-show and fraudulent stays or at the wrong rate. It runs every billing cycle, not once a quarter.
Who has this problem
Any hotel that takes OTA business where the guest pays the hotel and the OTA invoices commission afterward. That is most flagged and independent properties selling through Booking.com and Expedia. The invoice reflects the OTA's view of a reservation, and a booking is not a stay. Guests cancel inside the window, no-show, shorten, modify or get relocated, and the commission logic does not always follow.
When the statement arrives, paying it feels safe. Checking hundreds or thousands of lines against the PMS by hand is not realistic, so the variance gets booked as a cost of doing business. Spot-checking does not fix it either: the bulk of the variance sails through, and invoices that are never questioned are never corrected.
Where the money leaks
- Cancelled-stay commissions. The reservation cancelled within terms, but the line is still on the statement.
- No-show commissions. The guest never arrived and no revenue posted, yet commission is billed.
- Shortened stays. Commission follows the nights booked, not the nights stayed.
- Rate-basis errors. Commission calculated on a pre-discount or pre-tax figure it should not include, or at a percentage that does not match your agreement.
- Duplicate or modified bookings. A changed reservation generates a second commissionable record.
- Fraudulent reservations. The booking was fake and the stay never happened, but the commission lands on the invoice and gets paid like any other line.
Whether the statement comes from Expedia, Booking.com or another channel, the fix is the same: match the OTA line to the folio outcome in your PMS. That matching is the whole job, and it is the part nobody on property has time to do for every booking.
What x·quic checks and compares
For each OTA reservation, x·quic lines up three records: the commission line on the OTA invoice, the reservation record and the realized folio. It then tests the result against your contracted terms.
- Did the stay happen, and for how many nights?
- What revenue actually posted to the folio?
- Is the commission rate and the revenue it applies to the one in your agreement?
- Does the same booking appear more than once?
Every line that fails is flagged with the documentation attached, so the dispute rests on the hotel's own records.
How it works
- Grant read-only access. Connect your systems read-only. Setup takes minutes, with no new software for your team and no change to front-desk workflow.
- Run the 1-year audit. x·quic reconciles a full year of your past OTA statements and shows what was overbilled, in your own numbers, before you commit to anything.
- Dispute and claw back. Overbilled commissions are disputed with supporting documentation. Once the channel knows you reconcile, the pattern of error tends to drop.
- Keep auditing and report. Every reservation is audited 72 hours after check-out, every cycle. Recoveries show in your dashboard by channel and period, with a full audit trail and audit-ready exports.
Systems it works with
Channels: Booking.com, Expedia, Priceline / Agoda, Trip.com, Hopper and Despegar. Property management systems: Opera and Opera Cloud, OnQ, Choice Advantage, HotelKey, Cloudbeds, SynXis Property Hub, StayNTouch, SkyTouch, Infor, Jonas Chorum, Maestro, INNsight, Visual Matrix, WebRezPro, RoomKey, RoomMaster, AutoClerk, FOSSE and Anand Systems. If your PMS is not listed, x·quic can still connect.
Proof: The Watergate Hotel
Since early 2023, x·quic has found overcharged OTA commissions and uncollected virtual cards at The Watergate Hotel in Washington. The property has recovered over $100,000, including commissions billed on fraudulent bookings that would otherwise have been paid like any other line. Chief Financial Officer Jay Nelliot: "xquic makes sure that we don't pay the OTAs any commissions on these reservations. They really have our back." Read the Watergate Hotel story.
Commission is one of six places revenue leaks. Hotels typically lose 3–12% of revenue to leakage, depending on the property, and virtual cards are the other side of the same OTA reservation, reconciled by Virtual Card 360°.
Related guides
- OTA commission overbilling: how cancelled and no-show stays inflate your invoices
- The true cost of OTA bookings (beyond commission)
- OTA fraudulent bookings and hotel payment fraud
- What the night audit misses
Frequently asked questions
What is an OTA commission audit?
It is a line-by-line check of each OTA commission charge against the reservation record, the realized folio in your PMS and your contracted terms. The output is a list of commissions billed on cancelled, shortened, no-show or fraudulent stays, at the wrong rate, or twice, each with the documentation needed to dispute it.
How often does x·quic audit OTA commissions?
Continuously. OTA Commission 360° audits every reservation 72 hours after check-out and runs every billing cycle, not once a quarter. The free 1-year audit also goes back over a full year of your past statements, so you see what was already overbilled before you commit to anything.
Does this work for both Expedia and Booking.com commissions?
Yes. x·quic works with Booking.com, Expedia, Priceline / Agoda, Trip.com, Hopper and Despegar. The method is the same for every channel: match each commission line to the stay that actually happened and to the terms in your agreement, then dispute anything that does not match with documentation attached.
Can x·quic recover commission on fraudulent bookings?
Yes. When a reservation turns out to be fraudulent, the commission often stays on the invoice unless someone connects it to the specific line and disputes it. The Watergate Hotel recovered over $100,000 with x·quic, including commissions billed on fraudulent bookings.
How is OTA Commission 360° priced?
Two ways. On the Basic plan you pay a share of what x·quic recovers on OTA commissions and virtual cards, with no monthly fee: nothing recovered, nothing owed. On the Subscription plan, one flat monthly fee covers all six products and commission recovery is at 0% of savings, so you keep 100% of it.
Find the commissions you never owed.
Your Free 1-Year Profit Audit matches every OTA commission line from the past year to the stay that actually happened, on your own data. Read-only access, no cost, no commitment, nothing to install.
