Hotelbeds Hotel Booking API by Hotelbeds (HBX Group)

# Fix list: Hotelbeds Hotel Booking API

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hotelbeds, the October 2026 research run, assessed 1 October 2026. Grade F, 36.7 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on Hotelbeds Hotel Booking API: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Reliability, 33 out of 100, up to 13.4 more on the total

Why it scored 33: The docs link a public Pingdom report (stats.pingdom.com/lxdqh5mwxj3w) as the API status page. It's an uptime monitor with a 7-day overview that renders client-side, not an incident page (10 of 20). No readable incident history (5). The evaluation quota is published, 50 requests a day, and production quotas aren't (8 of 15). Going over the quota returns a 403 rather than a 429, and we found no backoff or retry guidance; the API terms warn that excessive requests can get an account suspended (0). No SLA published (0). The Booking API is generally available (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 2. Security & auth, 38 out of 100, up to 10.9 more on the total

Why it scored 38: Api-key header plus an `X-Signature` SHA-256 over key, secret and Unix seconds, issued from the developer dashboard. No scopes found (20). Evaluation, certification and production are separate environments, and cancellation has a simulate mode (8 of 20). Hotel content includes descriptions written by third parties, with no injection guidance (5 of 15). No per-call log or audit view documented (3 of 15). developer.hotelbeds.com/.well-known/security.txt returned 404 on 30 September and we found no disclosure policy or certification on the developer portal (2 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 3. Payments & pricing, 20 out of 100, up to 10 more on the total

Why it scored 20: No x402, MPP or L402 (0). No published price list; live rates are under a commercial contract (0). Registration gives a free evaluation key with no card (20). A person registers in a browser and passes certification with Hotelbeds staff before going live (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 4. Agent ergonomics, 41 out of 100, up to 9.6 more on the total

Why it scored 41: Availability takes stay dates and occupancy, and the Content and Cache APIs keep static hotel data out of the live calls, which cuts payloads. We didn't confirm field selection (15 of 25). Pagination not confirmed on the pages we read (8 of 20). No documented error codes found (5 of 20). Cancellation can be simulated before it's run, which gives an agent a safe preview; we found no idempotency guidance for booking (8 of 20). Every call needs a fresh SHA-256 signature, and there are no official SDKs (5 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 5. Maintenance & community, 3 out of 100, up to 8.5 more on the total

Why it scored 3: No changelog, release notes or dated API change found on the documentation index or the Booking API page, so we can't date the last change (0). No dated entries in the last 90 days (0). Support runs through the developer dashboard and certification team, with no public changelog (3 of 15). No official SDKs (0). No package to judge (0). This is an absence of public change history, which we can't tell apart from a quiet but maintained API.

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## 6. Schema & documentation, 57 out of 100, up to 7 more on the total

Why it scored 57: The getting-started page points to Swagger specifications and Postman collections for the Booking and Content APIs. We didn't download the spec, so we give most but not all of the line (20 of 25). No llms.txt or Markdown docs for agents (0). The Booking API pages explain the flow (availability, CheckRate when a rate needs rechecking, then bookings) and say BookingAPI prices are final (14 of 20). Typed parameters per the Swagger reference, not inspected (10 of 15). Postman examples; no error-code section on the pages we read (8 of 15). The version sits in the path (/hotel-api/1.0) and we found no changelog or release notes on the documentation index or the Booking API page (5 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 7. Transparency & trust, 54 out of 100, up to 4 more on the total

Made of editorial 28, provenance 80.

Why it scored 54: Closed service with public API terms of use, governed by Spanish law with the courts of Palma de Mallorca (15 of 30). The group privacy policy names HBX International Group PLC, London, as controller; the API terms make all information under the agreement confidential, and we found no DPA or retention periods for API data (10 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices (0). No subprocessor list or data locations found (3 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Changelog: not found (0 of 10)
- security.txt: not found (0 of 10)

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- Whether Hotelbeds publishes release notes anywhere outside the developer portal pages we read
- Whether the Swagger specs can be downloaded without signing in
- Production quotas and any SLA under the commercial contract
- unchecked: HBX Group's security certifications and disclosure policy

## Weaknesses

- 50 requests a day on evaluation, and the 51st returns a 403
- Live bookings need certification and a commercial contract, with no published prices
- No changelog, release notes or deprecation notices found
- Status page is a Pingdom uptime report with no incident history
- No SDKs, llms.txt, documented error codes or MCP server

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Compute `X-Signature` fresh per request from key, secret and the current epoch seconds, in that order
- Budget the 50 daily evaluation calls; cache hotel content and only call availability for real dates
- Run CheckRate on a rate before booking when the availability response says it needs rechecking
- Read a 403 on the test host as the daily quota first, not a bad key
- Simulate a cancellation before running it

## What the review panel asked for

- Publish production quotas (2 reviews)
- Publish an indicative net-rate card

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.