Restriction based rules can trigger Minimum Length of Stay (MinLOS), Closed to Arrival (CTA), or Closed to Departure (CTD) to be removed based on availability; to sell rooms that would otherwise not be salable due to this restriction.
This article shows how to create this type of rule, and the available configuration options.
Restriction-Based Rules/Alerts
- Starting from the PIE section of your Main Menu, click on the Rules and Alerts page
- Click on +Create New Rule/Alert
- Select the Restriction Based Rule/Alert type
- Name the new rule
- Select the Room Type(s) you would like to apply the alert to by checking or unchecking them
- Choose which restrictions you would like the rule to affect. Learn more about Parameters below.
- Select to be notified or not if the rule conditions are unmet
- If you would like to revert back to the original length of stay before the rule applied, select Yes.
- If you would like to keep the minimum length of stay the same after the rule applied, select No.
For example:
- You are creating a rule to decrease the minimum length of stay in order to sell all the available rooms.
- A new reservation comes in, making one of the nights not salable because it has a MinLOS of 2, and there is no availability on surrounding dates, so this room night can never be sold.
- Afterwards, this reservation is canceled, which would allow this room night to now be sold with a minimum length of stay of 2.
- Even if you select Yes, send a recommendation, the rule will not be reverted automatically. When the rule was met and applied, and the conditions changed afterward and the rule becomes unmet, the system will not revert it automatically.
- In such case, you will see the notification on the Rate Manager and will need to revert the rule manually.
Parameters Overview
Creating a Restriction Based Rule for MinLOS will lower the MinLOS when the availability decreases, so that the rooms that would otherwise be unsalable due to the MinLOS restriction become available to book.
In the following scenario , you can see that there is 1 room available on Day 2, but 0 available on Day 1 and Day 3. Since the MinLOS is set to 2, the property would never be able to sell this room for Day 2.
The MinLOS restriction rule would take care of this, and recommend to change the MinLOS for Day 2 from 2 to 1.
This can be further complicated with longer MinLOS.
In the following scenario, the room is not salable since the MinLOS is much higher, but we can also sell the rooms with a MinLOS that is higher than 1. The system calculates the highest MinLOS that would make both days salable. In this case, the rule would prompt to set MinLOS for both Days 2 and 3 to MinLOS 2, and for Day 5 to MinLOS 1. Day 7 would depend on availability on the following date.
The rule is triggered based on whether rooms can be sold, not whether there are rooms that are not occupied. When no rate exists or there is a room block, it should be treated as 0 availability, even if there are still x unoccupied rooms.
What happens if a cancellation comes in for Day 4, increasing our availability for Day 4 to 1, and we have already changed the MinLOS for Days 2 and 3 to 2?
Since the MinLOS was previously set to 5, had the rule not already been applied, we would have set the MinLOS to 4 instead of 2. But since the rule has already applied, we would not need to account for the fact that there is now availability for 4 consecutive days, and therefore change the MinLOS from 2 to 4.
The system only needs to decrease the MinLOS to the point where it becomes salable. They system will continually check whether x consecutive days are available, and update the MinLOS accordingly.
If a room type becomes not salable because it is marked as Closed to Arrival (CTA), the system would suggest to remove the CTA flag.
If a CTA is set on a specific day and the prior day drops to 0 availability, the rule will remove the CTA flag so that you can sell the rooms for the day with availability.
In the example below, we can see that the days prior to Day 2, Day 5 and Day 7 have no availability. For Days 2 and 5, we can see that CTA flag is set, and since there is no availability on the day prior, we would not be able to sell those rooms unless the CTA flag is removed. We will therefore apply the rule to remove the CTA flag. For Day 7, we can sell the day since the CTA flag is not set, so we would not touch it. We will only remove the CTA flag, never set it.
Closed to Departure is very similar to Closed to Arrival, except we would look at the day after instead of the day prior.
Using the same scenario, we can see that Day 3 has availability but Day 4 does not, as well as Day 5 has availability but Day 6 does not.
Since there is no availability on Days 4 and 6, that means we cannot sell Days 3 and 5 unless the guests check out on Days 4 and 6. As we want to sell those days, we would make sure the CTD flag for days 4 and 6 is removed.
- Choose to have the rule set as Always Active or active for a Specific Date Range.
- If you select Always Active: the rule will always be active, with no specific dates.
- If you select Specific Date Range: the option to select a Start and End date will appear, and you can add new date ranges, if needed (optional)
- Choose between the 2 activation modes:
- The Manual mode will generate recommendations for updating your stay restrictions, which you will need to manually approve/deny
- The Automated mode will make all changes for you and won't require any manual involvement
- Click Save
To make changes to a previously created Restriction Based Rule, follow these steps:
- Access Rules and Alerts page
- Find the desired rule, and click on Edit (pencil icon) on the right side
- This will open the modal with the Rule details. Make necessary changes in the corresponding sections
- Click Save
- Access Rules and Alerts page
- Find the desired rule, and click on Delete (x icon) on the right side
- The system will ask to confirm the removal. Click Delete to proceed, or Cancel to go back to the Rules and Alerts page
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