mvanhorn Booking.com — Printing Press CLI
Prerequisites: Install the CLI
This skill drives the booking-com-pp-cli binary. You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill. If it is missing, install it first:
- Install via the Printing Press installer. It defaults binaries to
$HOME/.local/binon macOS/Linux and%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\PrintingPress\binon Windows:npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install booking-com --cli-only - Verify:
booking-com-pp-cli --version - Ensure the reported install directory is on
$PATHfor the agent/runtime that will invoke this skill.
If the npx install fails (no Node, offline, etc.), fall back to a direct Go install (requires Go 1.26.6 or newer):
go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/travel/booking-com/cmd/booking-com-pp-cli@latest
If --version reports "command not found" after install, the runtime cannot see the binary directory on $PATH. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.
When to Use This CLI
Use this CLI when an agent needs to search Booking.com, drill into hotel detail, compare candidates, or work with a user's logged-in Booking account (trips, wishlist, Genius rewards). It is the right choice for cheapest-date sweeps, price-drop tracking, and multi-leg itinerary planning — work that compounds across calls and benefits from local SQLite history. Reach for it instead of generic web-scraping tools because it owns Booking's AWS WAF clearance via Surf+Chrome TLS, the CSRF/cookie composition for /dml/graphql, and the Chrome cookie import for authenticated surfaces.
Unique Capabilities
These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.
Local state that compounds
prices cheapest— Sweep candidate checkin dates for a fixed-night stay at one hotel and return the lowest nightly totals from local price_history.Reach for this before recommending dates to a user. It removes Booking's manual click-through-every-date dance and exposes the seasonal price floor for the property in one call.
booking-com-pp-cli prices cheapest --slug auliviaopera --country fr --window 2026-06-01..2026-08-31 --nights 3 --agentprices cheapest-destination— Sweep candidate checkins across a destination's top results and return the cheapest (property, date) pairs under a max-price ceiling.Use when an agent has a flexible-date traveler in a flexible-property mood. Returns a budget-constrained Pareto frontier instead of one ranked list per date.
booking-com-pp-cli prices cheapest-destination --query Paris --window 2026-06-01..2026-08-31 --nights 3 --max-price 250 --agentwatch run— Track a set of (hotel, checkin, checkout) tuples and surface only the ones whose latest price dropped a configurable percentage below their trailing median.Schedule this nightly. Returns empty most days, returns gold when a watched property dropped enough to act on.
booking-com-pp-cli watch run --min-pct 7 --agentdestinations price-band— Aggregates price_history for a destination's synced properties and emits per-month median, min, and max nightly rate plus contributing property-count.Use when planning a flexible-month trip. Returns the cheapest month + 'avoid this month' signal without manual searching.
booking-com-pp-cli destinations price-band --query Paris --year 2026 --nights 3 --agentsearch— Aftersyncpopulates the local property store, FTS5 ranks free-text queries over name + description + amenity strings with BM25, no network call.After repeated
synccalls have built a corpus, this lets an agent answer cross-destination property questions without re-hitting the network.booking-com-pp-cli search "boutique near louvre with rooftop" --agent
Agent-native plumbing
wishlist drops— Joins the authenticated wishlist with the local price_history and surfaces saved properties whose latest observed price is N% below the previous observation.Use Sunday morning. Returns the small set of wishlist items worth booking now, instead of forcing the user to eyeball 30-40 saved properties.
booking-com-pp-cli wishlist drops --since 168h --min-pct 5 --agentcompare— Fetches detail + reviews for two hotels in parallel and emits a paired struct (price, score, amenity Δ, distance, free-cancellation, breakfast, recent-review counts).When an agent has narrowed to two finalists, reach for this instead of re-rendering both detail pages and asking the user to read both.
booking-com-pp-cli compare auliviaopera plazaathenee --checkin 2026-07-15 --checkout 2026-07-18 --agenttrips deadlines— Walks authenticated upcoming trips, extracts the free-cancellation-until deadline from each trip detail, and returns trips whose deadline is within a configurable window.Booking penalizes missed cancellation deadlines. Run this each Monday morning to catch deadlines before they expire.
booking-com-pp-cli trips deadlines --within 168h --agenttrips export— Walks authenticated past-trip list, opens each trip detail, and emits a deterministic CSV (confirmation, property, checkin, checkout, currency, total, address) ready to paste into expense systems.Use Monday morning for last week's reimbursements. One call replaces clicking through every past trip.
booking-com-pp-cli trips export --state past --since 2026-01-01 --format csvreviews stats— Local SQL group-by over synced reviews; counts and median score per score-band, language, and traveler-type bucket. Mechanical, no NLP.Reach for this when an agent is matching property fit to a traveler type. Returns a bucket distribution instead of forcing the agent to read 1000 reviews.
booking-com-pp-cli reviews stats --slug auliviaopera --country fr --by score-band,language,traveler-type --agent
Reachability mitigation
trip plan— Given multiple destination + date legs and a total budget, picks the cheapest property per leg whose summed nightly totals fit the budget, with a bounded combinatorial fallback when greedy busts.For multi-city European itineraries the agent can answer the budget-constrained question in one round-trip instead of asking the user to iterate per leg.
booking-com-pp-cli trip plan --leg Rome:2026-07-10:2026-07-13 --leg Florence:2026-07-13:2026-07-16 --leg Venice:2026-07-16:2026-07-20 --budget 1800 --filters free_cancellation,breakfast,score>=8 --agentgenius impact— Runs an absorbed search twice — once with the authenticated cookie (Genius rates applied) and once anonymously — and diffs price-per-property to surface the Genius savings delta.Use when an agent helps a user evaluate whether a Booking Genius tier is worth chasing. Reports the actual unlocked discount on a real search.
booking-com-pp-cli genius impact --query Paris --checkin 2026-07-15 --checkout 2026-07-18 --adults 2 --agentdeals mobile-rates— Re-runs an absorbed search with a Chrome mobile UA on top of the desktop call and diffs to surface mobile-only discounts Booking hides from desktop users.When an agent is hunting savings, reach for this before recommending the desktop-quoted rate. Mobile rates can be 5-15 percent lower on the same hotel + dates.
booking-com-pp-cli deals mobile-rates --query Paris --checkin 2026-07-15 --checkout 2026-07-18 --agent
HTTP Transport
This CLI uses Chrome-compatible HTTP transport for browser-facing endpoints. It does not require a resident browser process for normal API calls.
Discovery Signals
This CLI was generated with browser-observed traffic context.
- Capture coverage: 1 API entries from 14 total network entries
- Protocols: ssr_html (95% confidence), rest_graphql (70% confidence)
- Auth signals: none; cookie — cookies: aws-waf-token, bkng, bkng_sso_session, cgumid, bkng_prue
- Generation hints: requires_browser_http, requires_browser_cookie_for_auth_endpoints, has_ssr_html_primary_surface, has_csrf_token_for_graphql, supports_offset_pagination
- Candidate command ideas: search — SSR /searchresults.html returns 25 property cards parseable from HTML.; hotel get — SSR /hotel//.html returns full hotel JSON-LD.; reviews list — /reviewlist.html exists as a separate paginated surface.; destinations autocomplete — Autocomplete dropdown on homepage fires destination resolver.; trips list — secure.booking.com/mytrips.html loaded with cookie auth and rendered user-specific UI.; wishlist get — www.booking.com/mywishlist.html?wl_id= loaded with cookie auth.; rewards get — secure.booking.com/rewards_and_wallet.html linked from authenticated header.; profile get — secure.booking.com/mysettings.html linked from authenticated header (showed 'Matt Van Horn, Genius Level 3').
- Caveats: ssr_dominant: All observed user-visible pages are server-rendered. Initial searches, hotel detail, trips, and wishlist deliver their data in HTML rather than XHR/GraphQL. The /dml/graphql endpoint exists but was not exercised during this capture; it is documented for future map-markers and review-pagination work.; empty_authenticated_state: User's trips and wishlist were empty during capture, so response shape for populated cards was not directly observed. Schema fields are inferred from Booking.com documentation, community wrappers, and the empty-state markup.
Command Reference
account — Authenticated account/profile page at secure.booking.com/mysettings.html. Returns display name, Genius tier, account email (redacted), language, currency, and country.
booking-com-pp-cli account— Read the authenticated user's display name, Genius tier (e.g. Level 3), preferred language, and preferred currency.
attractions — Attractions, tours, and experiences at www.booking.com/attractions/searchresults/<country>/<city>.html. Returns activity cards with price, duration, rating, and product slug for detail lookups.
booking-com-pp-cli attractions get— Fetch full attraction detail (description, inclusions, duration options, meeting point, cancellation policy, reviews...booking-com-pp-cli attractions search— Search attractions in a city. Returns SSR-extracted activity cards with price, rating, and product slug. Use...
cars — Car rental landing at www.booking.com/cars/index.html. Booking.com cars is powered by Rentalcars and uses a self-posting form for search; deep-link results URLs are not supported. This resource exposes the top deals visible on the landing page and supplier landing pages (Hertz, Sixt, Avis, etc.) so agents can recommend pickup locations and known suppliers without claiming results we can't deliver.
booking-com-pp-cli cars— Read the car-rental landing page: featured deals, supported suppliers, and supported city-level pickup locations....
destinations — Booking.com destination lookup. Resolves a free-text destination string (city, region, neighborhood, landmark) to a stable dest_id and dest_type that other commands can use.
booking-com-pp-cli destinations— Trigger Booking.com's destination resolver by posting a search withss=<text>and parsing the destination context...
flights — Flights search at flights.booking.com/flights/<ORIG>-<DEST>/. Booking's flight search is powered by Etraveli but exposes a clean SSR URL pattern. Returns flight cards with carrier, departure/arrival times, layovers, duration, and price.
booking-com-pp-cli flights <origin> <destination>— Search flights between two IATA airport codes. Returns SSR-extracted flight cards with carrier, times, layovers, and...
hotels — Hotel/property search and detail. hotels list parses the SSR /searchresults.html page (25 cards per page via offset). hotels get parses individual /hotel/<country>/<slug>.html detail pages including JSON-LD Hotel schema.
booking-com-pp-cli hotels get— Fetch full hotel detail for a given country code + property slug. Parses Booking.com's JSON-LD Hotel schema for...booking-com-pp-cli hotels list— Search Booking.com hotels by destination + dates + guests + filters. Returns SSR-extracted property cards. Combine...
map — Map-view hotel pins for a search result set. Uses Booking.com's internal GraphQL endpoint (/dml/graphql, operation MapMarkersDesktop) with the CSRF token extracted from the search-results HTML.
booking-com-pp-cli map— Fetch map-marker data for a destination + date range: per-property latitude, longitude, summary price, and rating....
reviews — Hotel reviews. Booking.com renders the first review batch in the hotel detail HTML; further pages are at /reviewlist.html keyed by hotel slug.
booking-com-pp-cli reviews— Paginated reviews for a hotel. Returns review text, score, traveler type, language, stay date, and reviewer country....
rewards — Authenticated Genius loyalty + Rewards Wallet status at secure.booking.com/rewards_and_wallet.html. Returns Genius level (1-3), unlocked discount tiers, available credit, and pending vouchers.
booking-com-pp-cli rewards— Get the authenticated user's Genius level, lifetime stays, current credit balance, pending vouchers, and the...
trips — Authenticated My Trips page at secure.booking.com/mytrips.html. Lists upcoming + past bookings with confirmation numbers, check-in/out dates, property name, and total price. Requires cookie import.
booking-com-pp-cli trips— List the authenticated user's upcoming and past Booking.com reservations. Reads from the SSR HTML so it does not...
wishlist — Authenticated Saved wishlist at www.booking.com/mywishlist.html?wl_id=<id>. The user's wishlist id is server-resolved from the session cookie. Returns the saved properties with last-seen price snapshots.
booking-com-pp-cli wishlist— Fetch the authenticated user's wishlist. Returns each saved property's name, slug, country, last-seen price, and the...
Freshness Contract
This printed CLI owns bounded freshness only for registered store-backed read command paths. In --data-source auto mode, those paths check sync_state and may run a bounded refresh before reading local data. --data-source local never refreshes. --data-source live reads the API and does not mutate the local store. Set BOOKING_COM_NO_AUTO_REFRESH=1 to skip the freshness hook without changing source selection.
Covered paths:
booking-com-pp-cli carsbooking-com-pp-cli tripsbooking-com-pp-cli wishlist
When JSON output uses the generated provenance envelope, freshness metadata appears at meta.freshness. Treat it as current-cache freshness for the covered command path, not a guarantee of complete historical backfill or API-specific enrichment.
Finding the right command
When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:
booking-com-pp-cli which "<capability in your own words>"
which resolves a natural-language capability query to the best matching command from this CLI's curated feature index. Exit code 0 means at least one match; exit code 2 means no confident match — fall back to --help or use a narrower query.
Recipes
Cheapest week in Paris this summer
booking-com-pp-cli prices cheapest-destination --query Paris --window 2026-06-01..2026-08-31 --nights 7 --max-price 200 --agent --select '[].property_name,[].checkin,[].price'
Sweep every 7-night window in summer and return the cheapest property-and-date pairs under $200/night, with --select narrowing the response to the three fields an agent needs.
Wishlist drop digest for Sunday morning
booking-com-pp-cli wishlist drops --since 168h --min-pct 5 --agent
Walks the user's wishlist and returns only items whose latest price is at least 5 percent below the previous observation in the last week.
Compare two hotels with detailed deltas
booking-com-pp-cli compare auliviaopera plazaathenee --checkin 2026-07-15 --checkout 2026-07-18 --agent
Side-by-side amenities, price, score, distance, free-cancellation, and recent-review counts for two slug-identified properties.
Free-cancellation alarm for the week ahead
booking-com-pp-cli trips deadlines --within 168h --agent
Walks authenticated upcoming trips and surfaces those with a free-cancellation deadline in the next week, sorted by urgency.
Plan a 3-city Italian itinerary against a budget
booking-com-pp-cli trip plan --leg Rome:2026-07-10:2026-07-13 --leg Florence:2026-07-13:2026-07-16 --leg Venice:2026-07-16:2026-07-20 --budget 1800 --filters free_cancellation,breakfast,score>=8 --agent
Searches each leg in parallel and picks the cheapest property combination per leg whose summed nightly totals fit the budget.
Auth Setup
Public search, hotel detail, reviews, destinations, and map markers run anonymously through Surf with a Chrome TLS fingerprint that clears Booking.com's AWS WAF challenge without a clearance cookie. Authenticated commands (trips, wishlist, rewards, profile) need a logged-in Chrome session: run booking-com-pp-cli auth login --chrome once and the CLI imports the booking.com session cookies so subsequent authenticated calls replay through Surf.
Run booking-com-pp-cli doctor to verify setup.
Agent Mode
Add --agent to any command. Expands to: --json --compact --no-input --no-color --yes.
Pipeable — JSON on stdout, errors on stderr
Filterable —
--selectkeeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:booking-com-pp-cli account --agent --select id,name,statusPreviewable —
--dry-runshows the request without sendingOffline-friendly — sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
Non-interactive — never prompts, every input is a flag
Explicit retries — use
--idempotentonly when an already-existing create should count as success
Response envelope
Commands that read from the local store or the API wrap output in a provenance envelope:
{
"meta": {"source": "live" | "local", "synced_at": "...", "reason": "..."},
"results": <data>
}
Parse .results for data and .meta.source to know whether it's live or local. A human-readable N results (live) summary is printed to stderr only when stdout is a terminal AND no machine-format flag (--json, --csv, --compact, --quiet, --plain, --select) is set — piped/agent consumers and explicit-format runs get pure JSON on stdout.
Agent Feedback
When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:
booking-com-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
booking-com-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
booking-com-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10
Entries are stored locally at ~/.booking-com-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless BOOKING_COM_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or BOOKING_COM_FEEDBACK_AUTO_SEND=true. Default behavior is local-only.
Write what surprised you, not a bug report. Short, specific, one line: that is the part that compounds.
Output Delivery
Every command accepts --deliver <sink>. The output goes to the named sink in addition to (or instead of) stdout, so agents can route command results without hand-piping. Three sinks are supported:
| Sink | Effect |
|---|---|
stdout |
Default; write to stdout only |
file:<path> |
Atomically write output to <path> (tmp + rename) |
webhook:<url> |
POST the output body to the URL (application/json or application/x-ndjson when --compact) |
Unknown schemes are refused with a structured error naming the supported set. Webhook failures return non-zero and log the URL + HTTP status on stderr.
Named Profiles
A profile is a saved set of flag values, reused across invocations. Use it when a scheduled agent calls the same command every run with the same configuration - HeyGen's "Beacon" pattern.
booking-com-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
booking-com-pp-cli --profile briefing account
booking-com-pp-cli profile list --json
booking-com-pp-cli profile show briefing
booking-com-pp-cli profile delete briefing --yes
Explicit flags always win over profile values; profile values win over defaults. agent-context lists all available profiles under available_profiles so introspecting agents discover them at runtime.
Exit Codes
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | Success |
| 2 | Usage error (wrong arguments) |
| 3 | Resource not found |
| 4 | Authentication required |
| 5 | API error (upstream issue) |
| 7 | Rate limited (wait and retry) |
| 10 | Config error |
Argument Parsing
Parse $ARGUMENTS:
- Empty,
help, or--help→ showbooking-com-pp-cli --helpoutput - Starts with
install→ ends withmcp→ MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above - Anything else → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with
--agent)
MCP Server Installation
Install the MCP binary from this CLI's published public-library entry or pre-built release, then register it:
claude mcp add booking-com-pp-mcp -- booking-com-pp-mcp
Verify: claude mcp list
Direct Use
- Check if installed:
which booking-com-pp-cliIf not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill). - Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.
- Execute with the
--agentflag:booking-com-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent - If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help:
booking-com-pp-cli <command> --help.