Pricing Help

Hi,

I am struggling with setting prices.

The minimum stay year round is 3 days at $600.

When doing some price testing via the "Rate Tester," I entered dates (3 nights total) with Arrival Oct 30 and Departure on Nov 2. Because the arrival and departure dates span two different months (seasons), the 3 day/$600 rule isn't being applied.

I have "If Multiple Overlapping, Use" to "Most Expensive"

Here is a link to image: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzcSKYYRi4JbNEZWNV9uTXpuRGM

If someone wants to login to my account and have a look, I'm up for that!

Thanks for the help.

P.S. Are there examples pricing methods somewhere?

If its a min 3 nights rule, you can do it this way::
- Go into the property Rules section and set Total Nights Between 3 and <blank> under "Length Restrictions". That rule will apply the min nights validation you want. Rate settings don't make a requirement on the booking, instead they are used to determine which rate is applicable.
- Create rates per night vs. per 3 nights. Since the min nights is handled by the rule above, you don't need to do that in the rate, and per night rates are easier to deal with.

Will that work?

Or are you saying its a minimum of 3 nights and also a minimum booking total of $600, even if the nightly rate is less than $200?

We don't have examples on the pricing yet, because the engine is so configurable, but that is something we're working on. Definitely keep asking questions and we'll get you through to set-up.

That is correct.

i.e.

- Min stay is 3 nights at 200/night.
- 7 night (week) rental is 1000.
- Any length of stay between 3 and 7 nights (4,5 or 6 nights), the nightly rate is pro-rated and graduates to a lessor total nightly rate.
- Lastly, if someone stays longer than 7 nights, the price per night will be $115 or $130 depending on season.

Here is an image of my pricing schema (making heads or tails of it may not make sense unless you also look at seasons .. feel free to login and have a look):

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzcSKYYRi4JbSXhNcDN3cy1uWms

Ahh, OK. So theoretically 3 nights and 4 nights could be the same price.

I'll take a look an come up with a suggestion.

Hmm...there isn't a time when that should occur. Pricing for 4 nights will always be greater than 3. Maybe my brain isn't picking up what you're laying down.

Thank you for looking at it. If you login to the back end, great.

If not, I put the widget on a dummy page to test there as well: http://magicalunderground.com/ownerrez/

Try dates 10/30 thru 11/2 ... that should demonstrate the conundrum...

Hi Paul,

I took at your rates and what you were talking with Chris about. There are a couple things that stand out.

1) On the issue where you are spanning two seasons (October and November) our system is figuring the rates within each season because your settings are "split across". You could select to "use arrival day" or "use departure day" which would keep the rates within one season. If you want rates to "split across" seasons", our rate engine will split the days in question FIRST by season and then attempt to put in the correct rate for each seasonal chunk of days. We have a To-Do on our list to pro-rate based on total number of days instead of the days only within that season.

2) You've said that the nightly rate should be minimum of $200 but I see nightly rates that you've entered that are lower. Go to Settings > Rates and filter the Type column "Night". You'll see two nightly rates for 130 and 115. if your minimums are $200 (at least certain times of the year) then you need a 200 nightly rate in there.

I feel like I'm probably not understanding your intentions very well, so sorry if this reply comes across a little obtuse.

Paul,

I took a look at your account again.

What I think you're trying to do is something like: charge 600 for 3 nights, 700 for 4, 900 for 7, and then the 115 for additional after 7.

Those amounts may not be exactly right, but it's the pattern.

I disabled both your Nightly rates (the 130 and 115). I then checked the "pro-rate" flag on your 3 Night Minimum rate.

So now when you have 1 or 2 days (whether spanning multiple seasons or not) it looks for a nightly rate, doesn't find any, and will use your next biggest rate which is the 3 Night Minimum.

Take a look at that and let me know what you think.

You don't sound obtuse at all! :)

I created a short screen cast that may help explain what I am trying to do. Maybe it's not possible at this juncture?

Here is link to the video: https://youtu.be/R1wMLx_f2tw

I'll leave video up in case someone in the future want to reference this thread.

Cheers,

What I am trying to do written:

-Min 3 nights @ $600
-Beyond 3 nights, a tiered pricing begins up to and including 7 nights
-Anything beyond 7 nights, a flat nightly rate gets applied...lets say $115

Is this topic dead? Not possible? orrrr

I was able to do it on VRBO's pricing tables but wanted to wean off HomeAway/VRBO...

Please let me know, thanks.

Hi Paul, no not dead! Got buried under some other tickets... Let me tell you what I know so far.

The problem is the split-across-season dates that you are using. If you try arrival/departure dates that are in the SAME season, it should be fine. For that, you might need to specify a 3 night, 4 night.... 7 night rate and then the nightly rate (1 night) would kick in for nights above that. That's if "pro-rate" is turned off.

But when you have your arrival/departure dates splitting across two seasons, the rate engine is pricing EACH side of the season individually.

So let's say that a 3 night stay splits across a season with 2 days in the first season and 1 day in the second season. It's looking at the first part and looking for a 2 night rate for that season "section", and then looking for a 1 night rate for the second season section.

I talked to the dev team about this. We already have a To-Do on the roadmap, from someone else, to add a setting that allows you to select whether you want split-across dates to use the total night count when figuring rates or the night count for each section of season. I think that would also fix what you're looking for too.

In the meantime, I would put your rates back to 3 night, 4 night...7 nights and the nightly (1 night) to what you want past that, with pro-rate turned off on all of them. That will do exactly what you want AS ALONG AS the nights don't fall across two seasons. For the rate instances when the season split occurs, you could manually change the charges on that quote or booking.

Another alternative, for the time being, is to set season to NOT split across but use the arrival date or departure date to pick the season for the entire booking. That would also solve it for you.

Does all of that make sense so far?

It does and thanks for the reply.

I'll play around with it a bit more. Cheers...

@Paul: a bunch of updates went out this morning. One of them was a pro-rate setting on rates. You can now fine-tune prorate up/down/both and it now covers ACROSS split season periods. This shouldn't completely fix the problem you had here. Can you do me a favor and test it?

FYI - on that weekly one, set pro-rate to "extra nights" and then set the extra night amount to 115. Then add a weekly rate to the other season, set pro-rate to "extra" and set the extra to 130. In other words, don't worry about a Nighly rate. Just set 115 and 130 as the pro-rate adjustment itself.

Will do! I'll be over the southern border for a day but will try when back.

Thanks

I need help, 

 

When I do a booking inquiry on my website for 3 nights the amount estimated is wrong. My rates are 700 per weekend night, the 650 cleaning fee, and taxes. However it always comes up as 2 nights worth even though I specifically made it 3 nights. Its very irritating and I don't know how to fix it. 

You'd probably be best served by writing in to the Helpdesk with screenshots and specific examples of exactly what is wrong.  You could also take a look at Tools > Rate Calendar to see if that is showing what you expect your settings to be - if it isn't, then the problem may lie in your Spot Rates.