Here are some of the most common terms you'll encounter while building your travel business that you may not yet be familiar with.

FIT - Frequent Individual Traveler- an acronym that states you are selling to individual travellers and not groups.

Merchant Agreement - an agreement between a lodging property and the online travel business.

Free-Sell - contractual right to sell a room or rooms without having to check or call the lodging property for availability.

Allocation - contractual right to sell a certain # of rooms and or room types.

Wholesale - contractual right to resell your rooms to 3rd parties, like travel agencies, travel agents.

Blackouts - dates that hotel has opted not to allow you to contract.

Stop/Sell - a date prior to arrival date where you must stop selling inventory and or a messaging system from the hotel that tells you to stop selling your inventory.

Group/Block - 5-10 rooms reserved or blocked.

Pre-Buy/Guaranteed Rooms - guarantee a number of room nights per month, quarter, year.

Hybrid Pre-Buy with Option - guarantee a number of room nights per month, quarter, year with the option to add more into the future.

Packaging Pricing Agreement - package the rooms and do not sell room only.

Opaque Pricing Agreement - sell room only but you do not disclose the property. (Priceline, Hotwire).