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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?

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.

Good question! We don't have a separate rate sheet yet, but we're working on it.

In the meantime, you can go to the rates section and filter it by property to see everything that applies to a property. For example:
... click the "All Seasons v" value under Property and check one or more properties to filter the list just to that property.

We don't have a full doc on those, but the defaults are usually good -- let me know if you've got any additional questions here.

Bedroom restrictions is for properties that have different rates based on the number of bedrooms for a booking, using the bedroom table in the rates section. If you don't have a property where guests can book individual bedrooms, you can leave it blank and ignore it.

Creation restrictions lets you define your lead time for bookings. In other words, when someone makes a booking or inquiry, how far in the future does it have to be for you to be able to get cleaned and accept it. The default (1 day) means for any given day we won't accept same day bookings, only next day bookings. If you set it to 0, we will accept same day bookings. If you want more lead time, you can increase the value -- a week would be 7 nights, etc.

Where can I see a rates table for each of my properties so I can tell if I've entered them correctly? Thanks!

Is there somewhere on the website that describes what some of the rules mean, specifically room restrictions and creation restrictions? I'm not sure how to respond to those. Thanks!

Awesome!! Thank you!!

two thumbs up!

Sorting by period is now available on both seasons and rates.

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

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.

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.

This will be very helpful. Thanks so much, Chris!

Thank you. :)

The widgets give warnings as soon as the guest clicks the Book Now or Send Inquiry button. We don't do it inline as data is entered as guests will often adjust things, and also because the rules are very variable depending on dates, so they need to be executed separately for each set of dates.

When they click the button, three steps happen:

1 - input validation is done (email entered, etc). Errors are displayed if they exist.
2 - if input validation passes, run the rules engine based on property and season rules. Rule errors are displayed if they exist.
3 - if both validations pass, the inquiry or booking process is started.

For example, on your widget, you'll see the following: http://imgur.com/a/Gpus3 if you were to submit with those values.

Hi,

On Book Now/Inquiry forms, will the widgets give immediate feedback/warning to customer when they enter parameters outside that which the property is setup for?

i.e.

- Space only allows for 6 people and min 3 night stay per the Property Settings/Rules.
- Customer enters 11 total people and/or 2 nights

Will they get immediate feedback error on the widget form?

Here is a video example of what I am talking about: https://youtu.be/0fMXOfWIeqc

That's a good point. It's a bit complex because there are specific dates and seasonal dates types, but I think we could sort by the date including year and it would work.

I've got a hotfix in testing to allow you to sort by dates -- that should be up today or tomorrow.

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...

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.

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

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.

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?

Chris,
I'd like to know the reasoning behind having the seasons sorted alphabetically. I have somewhat complicated year-round rates and it would be helpful if I could sort the seasons by the calendar dates. Maybe I'm missing something that would make it easier to enter my 2017 rates?
Thanks!

Think I have figured a method...scratch that.

::closed::

Hi,

I am hoping to create discount rule(s) based on duration of stay.

i.e.

1. customer stays 4 nights, a discount of 10% per stay is given
2. customer stays 5 nights, a discount of 12% per stay is given
3. etcetera

What I am seeing happen is that if a customer stays, in this example 5 nights, both discounts are being applied equaling 22% discount.

Is there a way to eliminate more than one discount being applied per booking? Or, is there something obvious that I am missing?

Thanks,

Thanks much. :)

Perfect...thanks.

You can change that in the Seasons and Rates sections under Settings. The setup interview populates those sections with an initial set based on that "how rates will be applied" question, but you can change that by changing the rates and seasons.

Seasons define sets of dates (specific takes start/end date or seasonal which repeats every year). Once you set up some seasons, you can then go over to rates and enter rates which are applicable to certain seasons and properties.

When quoting, the rate engine will search all applicable rates by property and season and pick the correct rate(s) based on criteria and priority.

The rate tester (available under the tools menu) is useful here to see what rates and resulting quote you will get.

Rules allows you to define rules for the property that we validate on inquiry/quote/booking, like max number of adults, whether pets are allowed, min number of nights etc. It is also where you set payment rules like how much to charge for the first payment, when the second payment is, and how much the security deposit will be.

The description, amenities, and photos tabs are currently for two things:
- reference for larger groups with enough properties that they may have to look up whether a given property has a certain amenity or size
- our new hosted sites feature (currently in beta), where we will be able to host your site directly

The rules tab is important to configure, the description, amenities, photos not so much unless you're interested in hosted sites.

Hi,

When I initially setup a rental property, the system gave 3 options asking on how rates would be applied:

1. same year over year
2. vary depending on dates but will REMAIN constant year over year, or
3. vary depending on dates but will CHANGE year over year.

I would like to experiment between the 3 but from what I am seeing, there is no option to change that initial selection.

Is there a way to change that selection? If there is, please provide link or information...thanks!