Notifications about pricing

In protel Air, you can variably design your rates. Depending on room types, occupancy, seasonal periods, and used capacity, rate models which have been individually tailored for your hotel can be managed. The rates will be generated in protel Air's System Data. This is where you can generate the rate codes and the virtual rate codes which are based on them. Two ingenious tools are available to vary and manage the rates appropriately: Rate availability and protel Air's Daily Rates.

(Base) Rate Codes

The rate codes make up the basic structure of your pricing. The installation occurs in the rate-system data, where you can determine the actual room rate and its composition. Here, details such as seasonal rate maintenance as well as packages and arrangements can be configured with the respective rules.

Virtual rate codes

Virtual rate codes inherit the rate structure of their base rate codes, however, they are changed for a certain percentage or fixed amount. This way you can apply complex pricing strategies which are based on only a few base rate codes.

Rate availability

Rate availability enables you to manage which rate codes are to be offered in which time and in which amount. If occupancy is high, you can close more affordable rates, whereas if occupancy is low, you can offer more promotions and packages. With the aid of Strategies and Restriction Values, your rate structure can be automatically matched with the hotel's occupancy.

Strategies can be set for base rate codes, for virtual rate codes, or collectively for all rate codes. However, it is important to remember that virtual rate codes can inherit the strategies of your base rate codes. This can be individually set for each virtual rate code.

Only one strategy which changes the pricing can be created per price. In other words, a strategy which increases the rate, e.g., by €10.00, cannot be combined with a strategy that increases the price by an additional 50%! As soon as the first price altering strategy has taken effect, no other price altering strategies will be taken into consideration. A combination with MLOS or Close strategies, on the other hand, do not pose any problems.

Daily Rates

In the Daily Rates module, you can vary your rate codes with just a few clicks, regardless of an already set rate strategy. The Daily Rates module enables you to increase or decrease certain rate codes, room types, and the occupancy by a fixed amount or with a percentage on a day to day basis. Daily Rates can only be set for base rate codes. If a strategy has been set for the base rate, the daily rate will take effect AFTER the strategy calculation (example: 100 € base rate + 50 € strategy value + 5 € Daily Rates value gives you a final price of 155 €). The virtual rate is calculated on the basis of the preceding result. In this case, the calculation of the final rate depends on whether or not the virtual rate code inherits the strategy of the basis rate code - see examples in section "Rate calculation WITH Daily Rates".

NOTE: The protel Air Daily Rates need to be activated by means of a special XSetup. If you would like to implement protel Air Daily Rates in your hotel, please contact the protel Cloud Support Team.

IMPORTANT: The sequence used for rate calculation

If you would like to set several rate variations and strategies for a rate code, it is important to know the logic used by protel Air to calculate the rates.

1. Base rate - the rate code is the basis of each fixed rate.

2. Rate availability - if strategies are set for a rate in the rate availability, then this rate is valid. There can only be ONE strategy which modifies the rate.

3. Daily Rates - finally, Daily Rates will be examined to see if additional charges, deductions, or a fixed price has been set for a rate code. Rates and rate modifications in the Daily Rates Module will be added to the preceding rate calculation. This means a rate that has been modified by a rate strategy can be readjusted by means of the Daily Rates Function. Virtual rates, however, will remain untouched.

4. Virtual rate codes - with virtual rate codes, the calculation of the rate depends on whether or not the virtual rate code has inherited the strategy of the basis rate code. Rate strategies can also be set for virtual rate codes.

Online rates

The availability and the rates of your online rate codes will be synchronized with the connected booking portals by means of the IDS interface. Even the rates that you are offering on your website by means of the protel Air WBE, correspond to the rules set in the Front Office.

This is how you manage your online rates

A. Displaying the rate in the booking enquiry

You can easily check the currently calculated online rates by means of the reservation enquiry:

1. Start the reservation enquiry by means of the Reservation > Reservation enquiry.

2. Start a Sample enquiry by entering all of the corresponding parameters (arrival / departure, etc.); then click on the [Check availability] button.

3. Take a look at the rates displayed in the dialog box for your online rate codes. These are the rates that are displayed in both the booking portal and your Website (WBE).

4. Vary your entries (various time periods, length of stays, occupancies, etc.) to check all of the varying rates.

Should you discover discrepancies, check the rate strategy (or strategies) and settings set for the rate code in the Daily Rates Module.

B: Displaying the rate in the booking portal / in WBE

If you want to play it safe, execute a sample reservation in in a connected booking portal and/or your WBE.

Compare the rates with those in the reservation enquiry. Please be sure to select the same parameters (time period, number of persons, etc.) when matching the enquiries!

Information about pricing when using an IDS interface

Rate calculation samples

Rate Calculation without Daily Rates

Starting point:

Depending on whether the strategy is set for all rate codes, only for the base rate, or only for the virtual rate code, the rate calculation will deviate accordingly.

Strategy + € 100.00 set for all rate codes

Is a strategy set for all rate codes (i.e., for base rate codes and virtual rate codes), the rates will be calculated as shown in our example:

Strategy + € 100.00 set for base rate code

If a strategy is only set for the base rate, the rates will be calculated as shown in our example:

What would happen if we were to also set a restriction value for a virtual rate code?

For example, if we were to modify the virtual rate code in our example with an additional strategy, it would not have any effect because the virtual rate inherits the restriction values of the base rate code.

Strategy + € 100.00 set for virtual rate code

If a restriction value is only set for the virtual rate code, the rates will be calculated as shown in our example:

Rate calculation WITH Daily Rates

Starting point:

Depending on whether the restriction value is set for all rate codes, only for the base rate code, or only for the virtual rate code, the rate calculation will deviate accordingly.

Strategy + € 100.00 set for all rate codes

Strategy + € 100.00 set for base rate code

What would happen if we were to also set a restriction value for a virtual rate code?

For example, if we were to modify the virtual rate code in our example with an additional restriction value, it would not have any effect because the virtual rate inherits the restriction values of the base rate code.

Strategy + € 100.00 set for virtual rate code