Under Rules: Setting to change minimum nights if there is a gap

I have a 28 day minimum because I'm going after corporate housing which is generally 3 month stays. I set up length restriction for one my apartments 204 to 28 day minimum with a 2 night minimum during gaps. My understanding is if two nice monthly booking are made...and they create a gap that is less than 28 days between the two bookings...then according to this rule...I could still get bookings with now...a 2 night minimum. Software says: "Night During Gaps: At least 2 required". This is how I want it. However I checked by going to Tools>Rate Calendar...and when highlighting the gap (in this case there was a gap of 8 nights between two monthly bookings)....the software indicated that there is an 8 night minimum. Where is the rule change? The 2 night minimum during gaps?

Gap rules will reduce the minimum number of nights require TO the gap until it hits your minimum. So if there's a gap between the 28-day bookings, it will use that gap as the new required minimum until it drops below 2 at which point it will no longer allows bookings. You're basically telling the system to let the min. night rules drop lower below your normal minimum so that the gap can be booked until it hits a point you're no longer comfortable with.

Gap rules are supposed to reduce the minimum # of nights required WITHIN a gap correct? So I have a 28 day minimum on an apartment. But I set up at TWO (2) night minimum during gaps. The problem is withing that gap...when verifying the minimum...the rules still say there is a 28 night minimum...which is incorrect...during gaps...the minimum is set to two (2) night minimum.

If you look at my listing starting: "309 Lg. Studio Center of San Pedro"...using Rate Tester....if you input the listing "309 Lg. Studio Center of San Pedro"....enter Arrival Dates "May 5, 2020"....Departure Dates "May 8,202"...Listing Site "Direct Online"...2 Adults...it will return an error that "This property requires a minimum of 20 nights". 20 nights is the gap in this case...between two long term bookings. However if you look in the RULES of this listing ...I have a TWO (2) night minimum required during gaps.

So if there is a gap between two, 28 day long term rentals...I want to be able to lessen the minimum requirement from 28 days to 2 days....during the gaps...so i Can fill/occupy the apartment during those gaps.

Currently it wont let me as noted in the example. Its now saying those dates are a violation/error....and guest needs to rent a minimum of 20 days in this example. I want 2 night minimum during gaps.

I have also been dealing with this. I appreciate the effort to push as many nights as possible, but in my case, when my minimum nights is 5, the gap is 3 nights, and my minimum nights in gap is 2, it is still forcing a 3 night booking. Almost wish I could define " if gap is x to y nights, make gap minimum z."

Yep, that's a good idea -- a second option to put in a min instead of using the gap length. We'll chew on it and see how it can factor in.

Reducing min to the gap length makes sense a lot of times but sometimes it'd be nice to relax it. Might also have to ignore the "disallow gaps" setting in a gap too -- that could cause time to be unbookable as well.

Thanks for chiming in Lydia...so we are saying the exact same thing. My question is...what is that whole..."Nights during gaps" under the rules section? I was under the impression that this is the area where we put the minimum # of nights when their is a Gap. So does that function not work properly? Or is that rule for something else? I'm still unclear what the bottom line is here regarding this topic.

Hey there, San Pedro! I also did not understand it. My impression was if I have a gap it will drop the requirement to my minimum nights in gap figure. I've tested it and that is NOT what it does.

I was thinking it would be nice if we could have something similar to the "Booking Fields" found in the setup for trigger email. Like:

"When Gap is Equal to or Greater Than XXX Days, Minimum Gap Nights Equal XXX" (as long as the number in minimum gap nights is actually applied, unlike the way it works now).

Or maybe "When Gap is Between XXX and XXX Days, Minimum Gap Nights Equal XXX"

And having the ability to set more than one parameter would be fabulous!

I'm sure Chris and Ken and Paul just love these ideas from a non-programmer! :)

It'd be great if we could define the gap length between bookings and minimum nights for this gap. I'd like to be able to have 2-night bookings for 3-night gaps because it's not really very probable to have a booking that will fill up the exact gap. So we should be able to choose this parameter.

But, you already can do that - it's in the Property Rules under Minimum Night Restrictions - During Gaps.

As far as I know, if I set the Property Rules under Minimum Night Restrictions - During Gaps to 2 then it'll look for 2 night gaps between bookings. It'll not let a 2 night booking into a 3 night gap because what you're defining at this setting is minimum number of nights allowed in gaps but there is nowhere to define what "gap" means (how many nights between two bookings are considered as a gap).

For the purposes of minimum night gap rules, those are targeting gaps where the available nights are less than the minimum nights for the period. The point of the minimum night gap rules is to make gaps bookable that otherwise wouldn't be bookable because of the min night rules by reducing the number of nights.

So if you have a 3 night gap and your min nights are 2 during that period, or 3, then a gap night rule will do nothing because the gap is not shorter than the minimum nights.

But if you have a 3 night gap and a 4 night min, then a 2 nights in gaps rule would reduce the minimum nights during that period. If you set the rule to use the length of the gap, at least 2, then you'd end up with a 3 night min because that is the length of the gap. Or if you wanted to override min nights to 2 regardless of the length of the gap, then it would end up with 2 in that case.

But either way, if you had, say, a 5 or 10 night gap in that 4 night min period, then the min nights in gaps would never apply because the min rule is not more than the gap length.

We don't currently have something like @Lydia mentioned where you can say "for a gap of this length, use that min" -- instead it's automatic based on what min you set and the gap being shorter than the min nights rule would otherwise be in that period.

Thank you for the reply. If you added one more field where we can define what the gap is (e.g. 3 days, 4 days, 5 days) so we can choose to receive a 2 night booking for a 3-night gap (where our standard minimum night is 3) it'd be great. We could optimise and get more bookings in this way.

"for a gap of this length, use that min" - sort of several settings could be too tricky for you guys but the above suggestion might require a small effort and provide big win for us.

Do you have longer mins, where in gaps you don't want to give a 2 night min? If so, I see what you're saying there.

If two nights in gaps is fine, do a rule of "During Gaps, use this minimum instead: 2 nights" and it'll apply what you're wanting.

OK let me clarify more. Normally our minimum stay is 2 nights but in summer in the season we set this to 3 in the following settings:

Length Restrictions
Minimum Nights 3
Minimum Gap Nights 2

So this setting makes it possible to get a 2 night booking for a 2 night gap but I can't get a 2 night booking for a 3 night gap.

So under the property rules what number I need to enter in the following setting to achieve what I want?
2?
During Gaps
Use this minimum instead...

Thank you in advance...

Exactly!

If you set the gap rule to "allow a booking that fills the entire gap, at least 2 nights" -- then min nights will be decreased to allow 2 night bookings in 2 night gaps (but not 3 night gaps).

If you set the gap rule to "use this minimum instead: 2 nights" then min nights will be decreased to allow 2 night bookings in 2 or 3 night gaps.

OK thank you for this. I've configured the property 275476 in this way and there is a gap of 3 nights between 14-17 August, however, still doesn't accept 2 night bookings for this period.

Could you help me? Feel free to send a direct email if it's better.

Thanks a lot again.

Ahhhhh, I'm going to have to eat some crow here. You're right -- because the gap is exactly 3, which is not less than the minimum of 3, the instead rule still doesn't kick in. It would kick in if the min was 4, the gap was 3, and then reduce it to 2. But since the gap is 3 which is the same as the min of 3, the rule doesn't kick in.

We'll look into adding a rules option for that.

Thank you very much! Look forward to this being implemented...