Min nights questions

1) does VRBO intelligently recognize when remaining available nights are inconsistent with the min nights settings? For instance, if I set 3 night minimum on fridays and saturdays but end up with an orphan night, will VRBO override the min nights and still allow it to be booked?

Example: Wed/Thur are booked; Fri is open; Sat/Sun/Mon are booked (but Fri still has the original 3 night min set)

2) Is it possible using spot rates in OR to only update min nights, without affecting the rates? Since this year I've gotten my winter season rates set early I've gotten some fri/sat nights only bookings in January which have me rethinking whether to put 3 night minimums on these going forward. This early in the season I don't need to be super flexible, I want to attract longer bookings.

VRBO will NOT recognize that. If you set min nights to 3, and there are only 1 or 2 nights available, guests will not be able to book these.
The good news is that you can update min nights on the fly using https://bit.ly/SV-PriceLabs.

I can't answer the second question, I'm just not sure. But if you're using PL to set your minimum nights, I'm not sure why you wouldn't want it to update your spot rate pricing as well. Since I started using PL (when it integrated with OR a the beginning of this year), I've been using both of these features at my five properties, and it's increased my bookings by about 10-15% and revenue by 25%.

There is a min gap nights rule you can set on the property in OwnerRez. If you set that it will reduce the minimum to the length of the gap -- for example if you have 4 night min rule and a 2 night min in gaps rule... if you have a 3 night gap it'll get 3 min nights. 2 night gap will have 2 min nights. And a 1 night gap would not be bookable because your min nights in gaps is 2.

That min nights in gaps rule is the only rule that overrides the spot rate min nights.

There isn't a way to do spot rates on min nights only, but that's an interesting idea. Either update the settings in PL if you're using them. Or do a season in OwnerRez -- you can have a season without rates for min nights, and then spot rates with rates only (no min set).

Can u elaborate about gaps? I thought gap rules were just for quotes to tell inquirer not to leave gaps between bookings when inquiring. I did not think it actually reduced min stay to number of gap nights remaining?

Gap logic is pretty sweet. You an specify gap min nights that override regular min nights. And that will push across to VRBO and AIrbnb in our rate push to where we set min nights there (both by API and in the Channel Bridge push). This is super important because it allows you to "fill the holes" in the calendar without compromising your normal min night preferences.

Basically if a gap min night is set, the system will allow any set of nights that is less than the normal minimum to be booked as long as it doesn't violate the gap minimum.

For instance your regular min nights is 3. However, someone booked and now you have a gap of 2 nights between the bookings. Ordinarily, it would be tough luck - no way to book those gap nights because the 3 night rule would kick in every time a guest tried.

However, if you set your gap night minimum to 2, the system will allow those 2 nights to book. Or you could set you gap min to 1 and even 1 night can be booked.

You can couple this with a 1 night surcharge if you want so that the guest can book one night (if it's a gap) but also get charged a 1 night special cleaning fee or something.

The big thing here is pushing this to VRBO and Air. That allows the calendar to keep changing on their side so that guests can book gaps they otherwise would not have been able to.

And the key here is that there are two different gap rules:

a) Relax minimum nights in gaps (what Paul outlined)
b) Deny bookings if they would create a gap of a certain size (what @BlueMtnCabins was referencing)

Im sorry - Im not getting what I should be setting up in the system.
Do I set gaps to 1?
Say I have a 1-2 or 3 night gap - setting gap to 1 would allow any to be booked -correct ??

Renata

Are you working with the disallow gaps setting? OR the allow min nights in gaps setting?