Why Your OTA Listings Get Suspended (And How to Fix It)
One email from Booking.com or Expedia can ruin your week—"Your listing has been suspended." For more than 70% of small hotels that rely on OTAs for bookings, this message means instant revenue loss and potential damage to your reputation (according to Statista data).
The good news is that most suspensions are preventable if you are aware of them beforehand and know how to fix them. Come to this guide, and you will be in the right place. We'll help you know the top reasons OTAs suspend listings and—more importantly—how modern property management systems (PMS) can help you avoid these costly mistakes while keeping your bookings flowing smoothly.
Top 5 Reasons Your OTA Listings Get Suspended
Do you know why your OTA listings get suspended? Understanding why suspensions happen is the first step to preventing them from happening again. Here are the most common scenarios you will probably encounter:
Rate Parity Violations
The Problem: If you are offering lower prices on your website than what's listed on OTAs, it will violate most platforms' terms of service. Getting prices on all platforms the same is usually what they require.
How PMS Helps: If you are using a PMS, it will streamline all your work and operations. Automated rate synchronization ensures that your prices remain consistent everywhere—no matter whether it's on your website or on OTA channels like Booking.com, Expedia, or all other channels, they update simultaneously.
Overbookings from Poor Sync
The Problem: When your PMS doesn't sync quickly with OTAs, rooms get sold multiple times. It usually causes overbookings or your listing will be suspended.
How PMS Helps: Real-time two-way inventory sync means that when a room is booked on any platform, it's immediately marked as sold everywhere. That's the magic of using PMS to streamline your operation and no need to worry about manual checks.
Fake or Duplicate Listings
The Problem: Accidentally creating multiple listings for the same property triggers OTA fraud alerts. Usually, you don't find it out yourself unless the system or OTA channel warns it. With the PMS, you can avoid that from happening.
How PMS Helps: Centralized property management maintains one accurate listing that distributes to all channels. By using a central hub like PMS to operate, you will find all the info in one place.
Policy Violations
The Problem: Different cancellation or check-in policies across platforms confuse guests and anger OTAs. If the policies are not the same, your guest may have an unpleasant experience.
How PMS Helps: Uniform policy enforcement applies identical rules to all your distribution channels. Again, using a central hub to manage all the detail work will reduce errors significantly.
Poor Guest Reviews
The Problem: Consistent low ratings or unresolved complaints signal poor service to OTAs. You need to manually check OTA platforms again and again and deal with them one by one.
How PMS Helps: Reviews are synced the first time. So you know what's happening in the first place before they escalate. Integrated review monitoring lets you address issues before they escalate.
Step-by-Step Guide to Fix a Suspended Listing
If you've received a suspension notice, follow these steps to get your listing back online:
- Identify the Reason
Carefully review the suspension email—OTAs always specify the violation. If there's a need, contact the support team directly to know about the details and know about the reason and solution quickly. - Correct the Issue
- Figure out if this is a rate parity violation or any other reason. Adjust prices across all platforms.
- If this is a policy mismatch, standardize your rules across channels and carefully check them before you submit.
- If it's an overbooking issue, verify your sync settings and test it out to make sure it's not happening again.
- Submit Reinstatement Request
Include screenshots to the OTA to prove you've fixed the issue. OTAs want to see:- Updated rate plans
- Corrected policies
- Evidence of resolved guest complaints
- Follow Up in 48 Hours
If you haven't heard back within two business days, the best way would be to follow up with the issue immediately. If it happens during peak season, it's often more urgent than you could imagine.
How a PMS Prevents OTA Suspensions
How can PMS prevent suspension from happening? It acts as your safety net against suspensions through the following features.
Automated Rate & Availability Synchronization
Say goodbye to manual updates or recording on spreadsheets. Easily change a rate or close a date in your PMS, and every connected OTA updates within seconds.
Built-in Channel Manager
Advanced API connection to OTA channels like Booking.com, Expedia, Agoda, Airbnb, and Trip.com eliminates the sync delays that cause problems. The quality of the API connection is usually the core standard of a good PMS.
Rate Parity Monitoring
Setting alerts in PMS will notify you before price discrepancies violate OTA agreements. You can also view all price settings for all channels at the same time in a centralized place. Quite convenient!
Centralized Policy Management
You can just set the policies once in the PMS, usually, it's when you set the settings for the PMS when you take it for the first time, and they automatically apply everywhere—no more accidental mismatches.
Review Management Tools
Since everything is centralized, you can monitor feedbacks across different channels from just one dashboard, catching issues before they trigger OTA penalties. You can also compare them between different channels to see slight differences for your insight and thus perform better operations for your business in the future.
5 Best Practices to Keep Listings Active
Monthly Audits
Use your PMS reports to verify all listings to ensure that they show accurate availability and rates. This should be done on a regular basis.
Resist Manual Overrides
Don't stick to manual changes any more unless you need it. It often leads to mistakes and, thus, suspensions. You can trust your automated systems.
Fast Response Times
Slow responses hurt your ranking. By using a PMS, since it syncs all info in the first place, it means that you can also receive guest messages quickly. By using a PC or App, you can answer guest messages within a short period and know their needs.
Staff Training
Not everyone is born knowing how to use technology. You need to train your staff to make sure they are using it properly. Ensure everyone understands OTA compliance rules and PMS workflows.
Heed PMS Alerts
Pay attention to the warnings in the PMS system. If there are any alerts or notices to show that there are any sync failures or rate issues, you need to act immediately.
When to Upgrade Your Tech Stack
Pay attention to this checklist that shows that your current system isn't cutting it:
- When you are still using spreadsheets for inventory management.
- If you are noticing sync errors happen more frequently (maybe every week) than before, or you are expanding your business and currently the system may not be able to satisfy this boosting demand.
- Multiple policy violations occur from time to time. This may come from multiple OTA platforms.
- Adding new OTAs may become quite expensive. Usually, it's more expensive than changing to a new one.
Modern cloud-based PMS solutions make these problems solvable with affordable, all-in-one solutions. Currently, all-in-one solutions are becoming quite common in the market.
Conclusion & Next Steps
OTA suspensions are not inevitable. From this guide, we provide solutions and selection criteria for you to learn about. And it's not costly! As we've seen, most come from preventable issues that a robust PMS solves automatically. Your daily operation will come to the next level if you adopt one. And apart from the points mentioned above, you can even explore with a PMS than you probably could imagine.
Here's how you can get advanced with your management soon:
- Review your last OTA performance report for warning signs. Pay attention to overbookings and alerts.
- Test a modern PMS out. Usually, they come with a free trial. You can experience it's features first and potentially compare between different ones.
By implementing these strategies, you'll spend less time worrying about suspensions and more time welcoming happy guests, which means not only easier operation but also more bookings.