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Bookings and the calendar

Taking a group at your own desk

A party needing rooms of more than one kind — a wedding, an offsite, a tour — is taken from the calendar as ONE group: a line per room type, one contact, one code over all of it.

Press Group booking on the calendar, or right-click any day on the chart and choose Book a group. It is the same door the central reservation system uses, at your own hotel, and it needs no permission beyond the one that lets you take an ordinary booking.

The form

The top of it is the party: its name — what you will look for afterwards, "Sharma Wedding", "Infosys Offsite" — the contact the booking is put under, how it came in, and optionally the company it is billed to and a release date after which rooms nobody has claimed go back on sale.

Beneath it is a line per room type and rate plan, with what is free on your dates and what one room costs. Type how many of each kind the party needs; a line left at 0 is not taken. Each line has its own arrival, departure and occupancy, so a wedding where the family comes a day early is two lines, not two bookings.

A room type is one stock of rooms. The free count is said once, at the head of the type, and the plans under it share that number: what you put on one plan, the other plans of that type lose.

What you get

One group, and one ordinary booking per room under it. Each room keeps its own guest, its own bill and its own check-in, because one of nine rooms leaving a day early should not disturb the other eight. The group's code (G1, G2 …) is on every room, and the group is found, billed, released and cancelled as one.

Rooms are allotted where they can be. Any that could not get a room number are on the strip beside the chart, waiting for one — allot them before the party arrives.

What it refuses

A refusal unmakes the whole party, not the line that caused it: a group is never left half taken. Fix the line it names and send it again.

More in Bookings and the calendar

Reading the calendarRooms down the side, dates across the top, and four things worth knowing about the colours. Blocking a room from the chartRight-click a room, say why, from which night to which, and who is blocking it. The channel is told; the chart draws it; a booking into it is refused. Making a bookingNew booking, or click an empty square on the chart. What each field is for. A booking the desk may hold and a manager confirmsAn OTA booking, or one billed to a company or an agent, is held by the desk for 30 minutes — or confirmed there and then with a manager's own login. Bookings that have no room yetEvery live booking with no room number, from any source, is drawn on the chart and listed beside it — and dragged onto a room. Who is paying for a bookingOn a booking typed by hand, the payer — guest, company, travel agent or OTA — can be corrected. The bill moves with it. Where the price comes fromThe rate plan sets the price. Who may change it is a separate question with a deliberate answer. Changing the rate on a bookingAnybody at the desk may name the rate until the guest checks out; after that only an administrator, and it is a tax note. An OTA rate is never changed here. Changing a bookingDates, room, guest and rate can all be amended. Some changes are refused, and some can be overridden. Cancelling, and no-showsBoth need a reason from the list, and both leave the record standing. Holding a room, and the guest pay linkA time-boxed hold with a link the guest can pay on. It releases itself if they do not. Putting a stay in another guest's nameOnly an administrator. Any status, before or after check-out. The booking and its bills carry the new guest; the invoice number, the charges and the tax do not move. A room with more people than it sleepsMoving a party of four into a room that sleeps three is allowed: the picker warns, asks once, does it, and records who said yes. Day use: a room sold for the day, not the nightA guest who arrives in the morning and leaves in the evening and never sleeps in the room. It reserves nothing, holds no room until the desk hands over a key, and the same room can serve two day guests and still take its overnight guest. Booking the same stay againBook again copies a stay for a returning guest, and tells you what the price would be now. Group bookingsMany rooms under one name, created together and cancellable together. Moving a guest to another roomDrag the bar on the chart, or use Move room. It asks for a reason and refuses for good ones. UpgradesMove a guest up a grade, priced or complimentary, with the reason recorded. Messaging a guestTemplates render the message; a person sends it. Nothing goes out on its own.