- Preparations
- What to sell?
- Accounting and policies
- Distribution
- Copy rate plans
- Delete rate plans
Rate plans are the most complex part of setting up your hotel. This guide will walk you through the creation step-by-step.
Preparations
- Set up unit groups
- Define cancellation policies, or use the predefined flexible and non-refundable policies
- If you want to package services with your rate plan: Set up services
- Translations for the descriptions and names. Those will be displayed on the internet booking engine and other guest facing apps. They should be formulated in a way that allows the guests to understand the rate conditions.
What to sell?
In the Unit group and time slices section, you can define what you want to sell. Which unit group, during which time, and bundled with which services.
For unit groups with a maximum occupancy greater than one person you need to specify the surcharges for each person. You can define surcharges as absolute values or as percent and they can be positive or negative. Please be aware that surcharges are always calculated on top of the base price for a single person occupancy. You have to calculate the supplement for any further adults:
- Surcharge for 2 adults: 20 EUR
- Surcharge for 3 adults: 20 EUR (2nd adult) + 20 EUR (3rd adult) = 40 EUR
- Surcharge for 4 adults: 20 EUR (2nd adult) + 20 EUR (3rd adult) + 20 EUR (4th adult) = 60 EUR
The time slice definitions are automatically created for you, and you can choose between over-night, which will be from check-in to check-out time, or day-use, which is from check-out to check-in time.
For included services, you can decide whether the price is included in the rate or is added to the rate. The default service price can be overwritten. This allows you to specify a service only once, but include it with different prices in different rate plans.
Also, if you are including an age-categorized service (service that is delivered to a particular age category), then this service would only be booked on a reservation when the reservation has a guest with that age category.
For example, the service DINNER FOR CHILD in the below example would only be booked when the reservation has at least 1 child.
What is the difference between the two Pricing Modes Included and Additional?
Selecting the pricing mode Included:
- Apaleo will split off the defined service price from the rate, that you will set for this rate plan at a later point. Hence the rate will be reduced by the amount of the included service(s). Therefore always ensure that the rate is calculated in the way: Room rate + extras, otherwise you are reducing your room revenue.
- Example: Room rate 100 Euro per night + Breakfast price 15 Euro/person = Total price: 115 Euro.
- The guest's invoice will list the total amount of the "package", not listing the price(s) of the included service(s):
Selecting the pricing mode Additional:
- Apaleo will add on the defined service price to the rate, that you will set for this rate plan at a later point. Hence the price for the stay consists of the rate plus the amount(s) of the additional service(s).
- The guest's invoice will each item like this:
Accounting and Policies
apaleo gives you the flexibility to define the revenue account and VAT type for your rate plans. For special cases like long-stay or meeting rooms, you can select a different revenue category if necessary. Please check with your accountant if you are unsure what to do.
In case you have to change the VAT amount, e.g. your country enables a temporary VAT change, then you can do it through the accounting configuration. Simply set the new starting date for the changed VAT amount and apaleo will use the new VAT rate:
You can also configure if all reservations for this rate plan should be exempt from paying city taxes. Again, useful for long-stay, or corporate rate plans.
Learn more: supported guarantee types, cancellation policies, city tax.
Distribution
Minimum and maximum advanced booking let you specify, when this rate plan can be booked. Use this to model early-booking or last-minute discounted rates, or as a general restriction. If the default check-in time for your property is 5pm and you specify 1 hour minimum advanced booking, then the last booking for this rate plan can be made on the day of arrival, at 4pm.
With the late booking until time you can restrict until when you want to receive bookings on the day of arrival. The specified time has to be between the check-in and check-out times of the time slice definition for the rate plan.
Set booking periods to define when this rate plan is open for sale. Outside of the defined booking periods, this rate plan will not be visible to bookers. In the example below the guests will be able to book this rate plan from April 8th to June 20th for any stay dates between May 20th and June 25th. That means, if a guest checks availability on the 1st April for the 31st May, they cannot see the rate. However, if a guest checks availability on the 8th April for the 31st May, they can see and book the rate.
Adding a corporate / promo code hides this rate plan when requesting offers. The rate plan is only visible to users knowing this code. If you request offers and specify a code, you will get offers for this code. Use it to model corporate rates, promotions or special rates for your most loyal guests.
Select one or more channels this rate plan should appear on. You can change this at any time, and add or remove channels depending on the occupancy of your hotel.
Copy rate plans
To speed up the creation of rate plans you can copy them. Let's say you already set up a flexible rate plan for your single rooms and want to sell the double room with the same conditions, but just a higher supplement for the price. Now you can go to the rate plan list, find the flexible rate plan for the single room and duplicate it. The create rate plan form will then already be pre-filled and you only need to define a new rate code, select the double room as unit group to sell and adjust the pricing rule.
Delete rate plans
A rate plan can be deleted, as long as it was never used. That means as long as the rate plan was not used for a reservation it can be taken out of the system.