A. Overview
VOILÀ is the world’s number one loyalty program that unites a network of hundreds of select independent hotels comprising dozens global hotel brands. VOILÀ’s points-based frequency guest program provides recognition benefits and room redemption opportunities at participating network hotels. But unlike big chain programs, VOILÀ enables independent hotel groups to maintain their branding and unique qualities. VOILÀ’s global presence allows members to earn and redeem points across a wide variety of hotels and redemption partners in the VOILÀ global network.
As with most points-based hotel loyalty programs, VOILÀ members earn points based on a set business rules as they spend revenue on qualifying charges at participating hotels. This qualifying revenue includes rooms’ revenue, F&B or any other miscellaneous spending at the hotel (as determined by each participating hotel).
In order to award VOILÀ points promptly to members, all qualifying transactions related to VOILÀ members should be extracted and sent to the VOILÀ loyalty platform each day. The extracted data containing the acceptable transactions are stored in the hotel’s PMS as a text file (.txt) on a daily basis (preferably after the night audit) and is then transferred, via Secure FTP (SFTP), to the VOILÀ loyalty platform and queued for processing by the VOILÀ transaction processor.
B. Submitting PMS Files for Processing:
Every new PMS file received by the VOILÀ loyalty platform is queued for processing. The extracted transaction data file should contain all reservations and spending records that have VOILÀ Membership Number’s associated after each guest has checked out. This text file creation should run on a daily basis (preferably after the night audit). The output file should be a ”TAB” delimited ”.txt” files with the below fields. There should be no column headers or page footers. The file should contain the below folio field information
| Fields | Field information | Sample if available | Sample if not available |
| Membership number | Optional – Field to be implemented Refer to Section C. a) |
5119990033760 | [BLANK] |
| Confirmation | Required | 34389 | 34389 |
| First Name | Required | Peter | Peter |
| Last Name | Required | Gorla | Gorla |
| Check In | Required | 2016-1-1 | 2016-1-1 |
| Check Out | Required | 2016-1-10 | 2016-1-10 |
| Room Spends | Required – Room rates without taxes | 200 | 200 |
| Misc Spends | Required – F&B without taxes | 50 | 50 |
| Rate Code | Required | BAR | BAR |
| Required | example@mail.com | example@mail.com | |
| Eligibility | VOILÀ will generate | [BLANK] | [BLANK] |
| Room No | Optional | 321 | [BLANK] |
| Room Type | Optional | TWBD | [BLANK] |
| Adults | Optional | 2 | [BLANK] |
| Children | Optional | 0 | [BLANK] |
| Booking Source | Optional | WEB | [BLANK] |
| Address 1 | Optional | 1201 Dove Street | [BLANK] |
| Address 2 | Optional | Suite 370 | [BLANK] |
| City | Optional | Newport Beach | [BLANK] |
| State | Optional | CA | [BLANK] |
| Country | Optional | USA | [BLANK] |
| Tel | Optional | +1 (949) 260-9538 | [BLANK] |
| Language | Optional | EN | [BLANK] |
| Gender | Optional | M | [BLANK] |
| Birth Date | Optional | 1970-1-1 | [BLANK] |
| Staff Code | Optional – Field to be implemented Refer to Section C. B) OR export the login that has enrolled the guest |
JSMITH | [BLANK] |
C. Setting up the VOILÀ Rewards Membership and Staff ID field
The ideal format would include the following fields as they allow the hotel to track records on the guests’ profiles.
a) The VOILÀ Membership Number
A VOILÀ Membership Number UI input field is essential to enroll a new member in to the loyalty program. Hotel employees (for example a front desk clerk) must insert the VOILÀ Membership Number in the membership field to associate the VOILÀ Membership Number with each guest’s folio. This field for the VOILÀ Membership Number should be 13 numeric characters long. The appendix section provides further documentation related to a checksum for the VOILÀ Membership Number UI field, to validate the inputted VOILÀ Membership Number against the checksum (i.e. a MOD 7 Check Digit). Use of the checksum is recommended, but not required.
The VOILÀ Rewards Membership Number UI input field has to be added to all guest related data entry screens, for example:
- Reservation Screen
- Guest profile screen
b) The Staff ID
The Staff ID allows each hotel staff member to get “credit” for enrolling a member in the program. Hotel and hotel group managers use this data in a variety of ways to manage their business (and performance of their people). But also, via the VOILÀ Staff Incentive Program, VOILÀ provides an investment back to the program by giving VOILÀ points, as awards, to staff members when they successfully enroll guests as members.
The staff ID field is required to be on the reservation screen only. In the example below, we will use one of the many extra fields available in Opera for inserting the membership number or staff code (for staff incentive program):
OR export the login that has enrolled the guest.
D.Submitting PMS Files for Processing:
a) Rules and the Eligibility Field
The eligibility field is a field with which the VOILÀ loyalty platform uses to determine whether a stay qualifies to earn VOILÀ points. The hotel needs to select which rate codes (or stay types) are considered eligible for the loyalty program. The eligibility field provides a parameter which allows configuring the loyalty program according to certain business needs.
Example:
| Rate Codes* | Eligibility ID | Rate Codes* | Eligibility ID | |
| OPEN-A, RACK-A, RACK-C, BARFRB, SHARE… | YES / Y / yes | WATP, ATI, WBON, JETS, OTA, BOOKING, EXPEDIA | OTA/ NO | |
| *Specifies specific rate codes that are eligible. | *Specifies rate codes that are not eligible. | |||
The Eligibility Field may require some additional configuration or development depending on the vendor PMS, where the vendor has to group and configure rate codes into rate categories called “YES” and “OTA”. For example, eligible rate codes titled OPEN-A, RACK-A, RACK-C, BARFRB should be grouped into a rate category called “YES”. When making a reservation, the reservations agent could select a rate code and its corresponding rate category is captured as the eligibility field value.
OR when not available, the hotel will send a list to VOILÀ mentioning the rates codes eligibility so VOILÀ can configure the system.
E. File Format and Transfers
The txt file name should be relevant to the property code and based on the date it was generated. The text file should be named as follows: ”hotelcode-yyyymmdd.txt” For example: 151251-20111214.txt (hotel code will be provided by VOILÀ to the PMS vendor).
The text files generated daily from the PMS system should be transferred to our secure or sFTP folder or using a data transfer utility if applicable. Additional support or assistance will be provided to the client on how to set up and configure the daily file transfers.