Bookings and the calendar

Where the price comes from

The rate plan sets the price. Who may change it is a separate question with a deliberate answer.

The nightly rate is not typed. It is looked up: room type, rate plan, and the date being sold. That is what makes a rate report mean anything.

The new booking form, showing the three things that decide the price and the quote they produce.

Do this

Rate plan — the price follows the plan. Change the plan and the quote changes.
Per night — leave it blank to take the rate sheet's price. The grey number is what the sheet would charge. Type over it only to negotiate, and it is recorded against your name.
Before GST or with GST — say which the number you typed is. A guest is quoted with tax; a corporate rate is usually agreed without.
The quote — night by night, tax shown, the total at the foot. This is what the guest is told. If it is empty, the rate sheet does not reach those dates: see *Rates run out*.

Three things can set a price, in order of authority:

A rate contract — a company or agent with a negotiated rate. It wins, and the desk cannot type over it. The refusal reads "the rate comes from the contract" or similar.
A channel — a booking that arrived from an OTA carries the price it was sold at. Changing it here would put the hotel and the channel out of step.
The rate plan for those dates, which is the ordinary case.

Overriding a rate is possible where authority allows it, and it always asks for a reason from the rate-override list. The reason is not bureaucracy: the rate override report is how a hotel finds out that a receptionist has been discounting all season.

If a booking will not price at all — no rate found rather than a rate refused — the rate sheet does not reach those dates. That is Rates run out, and it is an administrator's job, not the desk's.

Who may change it, and until when

For a booking the hotel took itself: anybody at the desk, until the guest checks out, and the new rate is for the whole stay — nights already billed are corrected on the bill. After check-out, an administrator, and it is a credit or debit note on the closed invoice. An OTA booking, never. The full rule is under Changing the rate on a booking.

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. Taking a group at your own deskA 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. 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. 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.