How to connect your own domain name to Booking Engine using the pointing method
In this help article, you will learn how to connect your own domain name to Booking Engine via the pointing method. For that to work, make sure that your Booking Engine is up and running. If it’s not, see how to set up your Booking Engine here.
Important: We are going to explain the whole process of connecting your own domain name to Booking Engine using the one.com interface as an example. In case you have some other domain host, look for respective tabs and settings in your actual domain host account.
Step 1. Update the DNS records in your domain host account
First, you must update your domain's DNS records in your domain host account (usually the company you bought your domain from). Here is an example of how you to do that:
- Log into your domain host.
Open a new tab in your browser. Go to your domain host's site and log in. - Find your domain settings page.
Go to the domain's page on your domain host's site. Find your domain and go to the settings panel (pic 1). - Find your DNS Records.
In your domain settings, find the area where you manage or edit DNS server records. - Replace your DNS record.
- delete your current main A record @.your-hotel-website.com A xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx in the DNS settings;
- add a new CNAME record like this - @.your-hotel-website.com CNAME hotelfriend.com.
- Wait for your domain to propagate.
It may take up to 48 hours for your domain's new DNS records to propagate.
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Pic 1. Control Panel → Services → DNS Settings (Example: https://one.com) |
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On your domain host's site, replace your current record (if it already exists), or add a new one (pic 2) like so: engine.your-hotel-website.com CNAME hotelfriend.com where engine.your-hotel-website.com - your domain name which you want to use for the Booking Engine. hotelfriend.com. - record value (the dot at the end is essential for some domain host sites). |
Pic 2. Add a new DNS record (Example: https://one.com ) |
Important: There must be no A records with this domain! Otherwise, this will not work.
In this particular example, we're using a subdomain name engine.your-hotel-website.com, and not an actual domain name of your website, which we specified earlier as - your-hotel-website.com.
In case you want to use your actual domain with our Booking Engine, you must point it to our domain:
The @, in this case, is used as a pointer to the main domain.
Different domain host sites may use different rules to specify the main domain. In some cases, there’s no need to fill the hostname field, as shown in pic 2. In others - you must use @.
And sometimes you may want to use www, which is actually another subdomain. Just like the engine in our example.
If you’re still having problems with adding the correct DNS record using the pointing method please ask your domain host site’s support team to assist you.
To do so, you may use our template to send the right request to their support team:
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To whom it may concern at {name of domain host (e.g., GoDaddy)}, My name is {your name}, and I purchased the following domain from you: {your domain URL (e.g. your-hotel-website.com )}. I use a Booking Engine service on https://hotelfriend.com and want to connect my domain via pointing. Please update the DNS records in my account to these records: A Record: there must be no A records for { engine.your-hotel-website.com }. If there is, please, delete them. CNAME Record: {engine.your-hotel-website.com CNAME hotelfriend.com. }. Thanks. |
Step 2. Activate the Booking Engine in the HotelFriend portal
- Login to your personal hotel page on our portal website (app.hotelfriend.com).
- Click the “I did all necessary steps, bind the domain” button.
Go to the left side Dashboard → (External Sales) Booking Engine → Activate Booking Engine (if not activated) → tab Setup → Domain URL → put your subdomain name (engine.your-domain-name.com) in the text field and hit “Save”.
In case you don’t have access to our portal but want to activate the Booking Engine, please ask your manager to add a domain as shown above OR ask to grant access to the portal.
After you’ve done this, we’ll need to set things up from our side.
Please, e-mail us at engine-sup@hotelfriend.com (or inform your personal manager) and specify the full name of the domain you've created and pointed to our website.
