Guests ended up booking via email, because they couldn’t get a clear picture of availabilities, especially repeat guests who quickly wanted to see their favorite cottages available over a period of time. After a deep dive into the Mews Booking Engine API, we discovered a way to build a custom hotel booking engine that looks and feels like Airbnb, lives on one page and still syncs everything back to Mews.
In this post I’ll share what I learned, why the standard widget isn’t always enough, and how a custom solution can transform the booking experience for both new and repeat guests. You’ll also get a taste of my process and learn how we can work together if you decide to make the leap.
Why the Standard Mews Booking Widget Isn’t Always Enough
Mews offers a booking widget as part of the Pro plan. It’s a JavaScript snippet you embed in your site and it “just works.” This is ideal if you want an integrated solution into your site that doesn’t require to open external pages and is customized with your guests inputs (dates, number of guests). For some hotels that might be fine: the widget loads and your guests can make a reservation without leaving your domain. But many of my clients feel limited by it.
Here’s why:
- Minimal design flexibility. The widget’s layout and styling are mostly fixed. It never fully matches your brand colours, typography or layout. You’re stuck with the look Mews gives you.
- Multiple steps and page reloads. Guests must click through several screens to see availability. There’s no way to present everything on one page; the process feels outdated compared to modern OTA sites.
- Generic user experience and limited customization. It doesn’t feel like Airbnb or Booking. There are no intuitive filters for room type, amenities (like pet friendly, or number of beds) or price, and it can’t display a calendar and availability side by side. It’s not super customizable.
If you care about *direct and repeat bookings, guest experience but also creating a lean tech stack for you that also boost conversions, these limitations quickly become frustrating. That’s where the Mews Booking Engine API comes in.
What Is the Mews Booking Engine API?
The Mews Booking Engine API is a web API that allows developers to build their own booking engine while still connecting directly to Mews. Instead of embedding a preset widget, you can pull live availability, rates and hotel configuration into your own front end application and create a booking interface from scratch.
This option is available to Enterprise plan customers and opens up exciting possibilities that simply aren’t achievable with the widget:
- One page booking flow. Guests can browse rooms, filter by amenities and select dates and refresh these dates without navigating away from a single page. No more “back” buttons or reloads.
- Custom front end. You’re free to design the interface with your brand guidelines and have fun. For example, you can get inspired by airbnb, or do something more unique: adding maps, filters specific to your hotels, and calendar views adapted to your guest needs.
- Real time data from Mews. The API exposes endpoints for availability blocks, rates and reservations. When a guest enters dates, your engine calls Mews to get the latest availability and displays it instantly. Reservation data flows back to Mews automatically. So basically, your results are dynamic, and always aligned with information in MEWs (your source of truth!)
- Self sustaining system. Once set up, Mews remains the single source of truth. Availability and rates are managed in your PMS and reflected on your site in real time. You avoid syncing issues and manual updates.
- Better for new and repeat guests. First time visitors enjoy a modern, intuitive booking flow. Repeat guests appreciate the consistency and are more likely to book direct because your engine feels like an extension of your brand.
A new widget you control
The beauty of this approach is that you’re effectively building your own widget. Instead of pasting Mews’ default script and hoping it works with your layout, you develop a slim snippet that you can drop anywhere. Once the engine is built, you simply embed it into your website. Whether that site is on Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, WordPress or any other CMS, you can dedicate a whole page to the engine (like a “Book Now” page) or insert it into an existing room page or even your home page. If you’re in the process of redesigning or creating a brand-new site, the engine becomes part of that project rather than an afterthought. There’s no crazy tech stack required: just a modern CMS and the API endpoint, and you’re in control.
In short, the API gives you the building blocks to create a hotel booking engine that feels like Airbnb yet still benefits from the reliability and payment handling of Mews.
How a Custom Mews Booking Engine Works
Building a custom booking engine may sound daunting, but the process is straightforward when you break it into steps. Here’s how it works behind the scenes:
- We make sure you are signed up for MEWs Enterprise plan, and we register your app into MEWs (basically telling them that we will use their API with your data).
- We create a custom-coded widget based on your MEWs data, and we design a front-end that just match your hotel experience, with your filters, and your branding. It’s functional, and it showcases your live availabilities, rates and so on. We test and iterate with MEWs API, but we’re not live yet!
- We’re ready to integrate this new widget into your website, or into a new one!
With this setup, you’re not tied to a rigid widget. You control the flow, the layout and the features. And once the system is live, it runs on its own.
Enrich your booking flow with data from your CMS
While Mews stores all of your core inventory and rates, you can extend the booking experience with information stored outside of Mews. Suppose you want to promote rooms with a fire pit, highlight pet friendly cottages or add tags like “lake view” or “pool access.” Because you control the front end and the data sources, you can pull these attributes from your website’s CMS or any external system you manage. Modern website builders like Webflow, and Wix let you store custom fields such as room IDs, city IDs and amenity tags that can be passed to the booking engine. When a guest clicks on a room, your custom engine can send these identifiers to Mews so the booking widget opens pre-filtered. This approach lets you combine Mews’ live availability with bespoke data that enhances the search experience and helps guests find exactly what they’re looking for, without adding complexity to your PMS setup.
Who Should Consider a Custom Hotel Booking Engine?
A custom booking engine isn’t right for everyone, but it can be a game changer if you:
- Feel constrained by the Mews widget and want more design flexibility.
- Desire a modern, one page booking flow similar to Airbnb or Booking.com.
- Want to personalize the booking journey with filters, and intuitive calendars and improve conversions.
- Care about brand consistency and want your booking engine to match your site’s look and feel.
- Need a low maintenance/lean solution that pulls data directly from your PMS and doesn’t require manual updates (no need to update descriptions everywhere).
- Hope to increase direct bookings and encourage repeat guests to use your booking engine.
If that sounds like you, the Mews Booking Engine API could be the missing piece in your tech stack.
My Services: From MEWs powered direct booking website to Custom Engine Build
I help independent hospitality businesses create booking experiences that convert. Depending on your plan and needs, there are two ways we can work together:
- Create an integrated direct booking website with the Mews Booking Widget (Pro plan). If you’re on the Pro plan and want to keep things simple but still integrated, we can build a clean first website using MEWs Booking Widget.
- Building a Custom Hotel Booking Engine (Enterprise plan). For Enterprise plan customers, I design and develop a full booking engine powered by the Mews Booking Engine API. This includes a one page booking flow, availability calendars, filters, and more. The final product looks like a modern airbnb-like but runs on your domain and feeds reservations directly into Mews.
This is custom so if you have something even more tailored in mind, or have more questions: get in touch and let’s talk about your project. I’ll help you decide whether a custom engine is right for you and outline a plan that fits your budget and timeline.