Bed banks (also written bedbanks) supply tour operators, travel agents, online travel agencies and other wholesalers through trade portals and APIs. Well-known examples include Hotelbeds and WebBeds. They give travel businesses access to very large numbers of hotels without contracting each one, at net rates the seller can mark up and combine with flights and transfers.

How travel businesses use them

An agent pricing a twin-centre trip might take two hotels from a bed bank at net rates, add a mark-up and sell them with flights as a package. The bed bank is a supplier, not normally the organiser: the business that combines the room with a flight is the organiser under the Package Travel Regulations, and the bed bank’s own payment and cancellation deadlines still apply to that business.

Watch out for

• Bed bank rates are often packaging or opaque rates, meant only for sale inside a package or to closed user groups. Publishing them as stand-alone room prices can break the supply contract.

• “Bed bank”, “wholesaler” and “accommodation supplier” are used loosely. A destination management company (DMC) is a different, destination-based business.