Actions on a block
Editing a block
Navigating to a block
Picking reservations
Group settings
Delete a group
A group booking offers the same features as a multi-unit booking - and more! In addition, you can block inventory first, and later pick from those blocks to create the reservations. This is useful when you get a request for a bigger event. Then you can block some rooms or conference spaces for the time, without knowing all the other details. Only when the block is confirmed, it reduces the availability.
From the blocks screen, you can manage the blocks for a specific group booking. Blocks are displayed in a calendar where you can see how many units are blocked each day. Canceled blocks are filtered out by default, but they can be displayed by changing the filter. Blocks for overnight (e.g. single rooms) and day-use (e.g. meeting rooms) are shown together and they are respectively color-coded in blue and yellow.
In the example above Dana Schmitz already confirmed two Meeting Rooms for one day, and 7 single rooms from Nov 12th to Nov 14th for the E-Sports Event. She still holds an unconfirmed option of 15 double rooms, that are unlikely to be confirmed (the second row), so you decided not to remove them from the public availability to still be able to sell them on other channels. The Meeting Rooms for Nov 13th are already picked, and on the first row you can see that 5 people picked from the contingent of 7 blocked single rooms.
Creating a block
When creating a block you can display the availability calendar to help you figure out if there are enough rooms available. Once you selected the date range, you can search for offers. The price offered is the average of the daily rate for the specified period; you can change that if you negotiated a different rate. Then you can block the same number of units for the specified date range or, you can block a different number of units for each day.
When creating a block, you might also want to ignore some restrictions on rate plans. You can do so, by showing unavailable offers and booking them. In such case, the validation messages will be ignored.
Actions on a block
The following actions are available on a block:
- Go to beginning lets you easily set the calendar to the start date of the selected block.
- Edit lets you modify the dates, the number of blocked units and the gross daily rate. The dates and the number of blocked units cannot be reduced below what has already been picked.
- Confirm sets the status of the block to Definite and ensures the inventory is taken out of the public availability. It can happen that there is not enough availability left when you confirm a block. Then you have to reduce the number of blocked units, to make it fit.
- Release sets the status to Tentative. Now the inventory is back to public availability. Tentative is also the status a new block has. You can only release a block, if nothing has been picked up yet.
- Pickup allows you to create reservations related to this block up to the limit of blocked units.
- Wash releases all not yet picked units from a block. It does not change the block's status. Useful when you shorten picked reservations and would like to set units free.
- Cancel will set the status of the block to Canceled and return the inventory back to the public availability. You can only cancel a block if no reservations have been picked up yet or all related reservations for this block are also canceled.
- Delete removes the whole block. This is only possible if there was never a reservation picked up for this block.
Navigate to the start of a block
You can easily set the calendar to the start of a block with the Go to beginning action.
Editing a block
Similarly to how you create blocks, you can edit an existing block. You can change the date range, the daily price and the number of blocked units for each day.
Picking reservations
Once the blocks are confirmed, you can start picking reservations. When picking a reservation you can change the arrival and departure as long as they are in the blocked time range. Regarding the primary guest details, you can either enter the basic details, or search for a recurring guest. All the other details can be specified after the reservation has been picked.
Group Reservations
In the reservation list, you can see all reservations related to this group booking with access to all the reservations actions, so you can easily process the group.
Group settings
You can specify the name for the group booking. If you have multiple properties nearby and need to accommodate some guests in another of your properties, then you can define in which properties you want to block inventory for this group. The group will then be visible in each of the selected properties.
Delete a group
To delete a group you need to delete all the blocks from this group first. You can only do this if the block you created before was cancelled. After you cancel the block, you can delete the block, then you can delete the group completely. By the way: the group will disappear from your overview when your selected date is after the stay period of the blocks of that group.