Question about setting rates, "seasons," priorities.

Hi! I am a little confused about how to set up rates so that people get more accurate quotes from me. I have a fairly complicated rate schedule.

I set my rates by the week or the month depending on the time of the year, and I just completed setting and inputting these rates for the next year. I also offer special rates off season for people renting 3-6 months, or 6 months or greater. But right now I only have the week and monthly rates plugged in to OwnerRez. I ask people to contact me for the 3 and 6 month rates because I can't figure out how to set that up. Those deals only apply to certain months of the year (our off season April-Dec.)

I see where I can seet prioritization in the back end, but I don't understand what number to plug in there. Would I plug in a 2, for instance, if a monthly rate takes priority over a weekly rate? So a 2 for monthly and a 1 for weekly? And if I set the 3 and 6 month rates, I'd give them higher numbers? I'm a little confused about that.

If you have any suggestions for how I can set up and prioritize the 3 and 6 month rates, I'd appreciate it. I'm concerned now that if they plugged in a three month or six month request, the quote would be a lot higher than it should be.

One more thing, in February and March I have two week minimums, and the vacations must break in the middle of the month. In other words, I can't have someone rent the middle two weeks of the month because then I'd be hung out for one week at the beginning and end of the month, and I would not be able to rent those easily. I've done the two week blocks for the past two years and it's worked out perfectly. Some people take the whole month, but if people only want two weeks, they can choose the first two or last two. My issue is this: How do I set it up so that they get an unavailable email back with a custom message that February and March are first two weeks, second two weeks only?

Thanks for the help. My head is spinning a little bit with all of this.

Yep, that's basically how priority works. The higher numbers have higher priority. I like doing multiples of 5 or 10 so there is space to easily rearrange.

Also keep in mind that longer rates that fully cover the period will be chosen over shorter ones if the priority is the same (or blank). So if you have a 7 day quote, a week rate will take precedence over a night rate, but for a 4 day quote the night rate would take precedence. You can also set proration to apply to more days than the rate vs. going both ways, so you could make a 60 day rate that applied to 65 or 70 days.

All this is to say if you add 3 and 6 months it *should* just do the right thing -- of course, use the rate tester or quick quote to make sure it does what you expect.

If you give me the exact rates and dates I can set up a test here to see what happens.

For the arrival/departure break, I see what you're trying to do there, but how do you define it exactly? What's "the middle of the month"? The 15th? The second Sunday of the month?

Right now we have the capability to define arrival and departure days by day of week, so that wouldn't quite fit what you're looking for, although setting Saturday-Saturday would help a bit.

Kind of related. Not sure I understand how splits work. for example, I have "labor day" defined as its own period with higher rate. The subsequent days are regular priced. I DO give "cleaning fee discount" on non holiday low season periods. But I do not want to give them on any 7 night rentals that include holiday. yet, here it is:

Rent – 5 nights (8/31 - 9/4) during Labor Day Holiday at $289.00 per Night: $1,445.00 (OK)
Rent – 2 nights (9/5, 9/6) during Low season - Fall at Weekday Night rate at $195.00 per Weekday Night: $390.00 (OK)
Surcharge – Cleaning Fee based on $150.00 per stay: $150.00 (OK)
Surcharge – WAIVE Cleaning Fee (weekly) based on $150.00 per stay: -$150.00 ( this should not be happening because 7 night rental includes a Labor day Holiday, and only "Low season fall" is eligible for this discount).

Am I setting priorities wrong?

The rate splits are working as desired, right? Split across seasons, rate each season at the correct rate.

I think the problem here is the surcharge and discount. Surcharges and discounts are applied once for all matching seasons. In this case, its matching the surcharge because that's in all seasons, and it's also matching the discount because that's matching for fall season. The number of days criteria match the entire booking, not just the days inside the season.

It sounds like you want a more specific criteria matching where the number of days criteria is only matched against seasons allowed on the surcharge, not all seasons on the booking.

Would that solve the issue here?

Thanks, Chris, I think you've answered my question about prioritization, and regarding the arrival/departure breaks for those high season months, I can just take care of those by talking to the incoming guests, or I can program in a pop up message on the page using Rapidweaver. I'm almost sold out again for next season at the one cottage where this was the biggest issue anyway. ;-)

BTW, I'm loving OwnerRez. Haven't been "under the hood" in a while and you have really added so many valuable features. I'm still catching up.

I guess I cannot figure out the setting that would give a discount UNLESS it is a holiday. It looks like if at least one of the periods is discount-eligible ( has a checkmark), the system will apply discount even though the other (holiday)period is not discount-eligible (does not have a checkmark). Oh well, I hope I can catch this before it happens.

I'll have to think about a way to do it. I may just consider the two week periods as separate "seasons" and go that way. Maybe there would be a setting such that, if they try to deviate from these dates, for instance, even adding a third week, that they get a popup window message that the property is only either available by the month or by those two set two-week periods, and that they should call the owner for more information. I'd of course also put this information on all the web pages where I list the details about the cottages.

I've had a lot of success selling out completely for the past two seasons by creating the equal two week periods in Feb. and March. Many people are happy to have the option of a shorter stay because so many owners down here in our area can only legally rent by the month.

Thanks again!