This article covers important information regarding room types, room rates, and rate plans, in addition to using multi-property rate plans.
Rooms and rates concepts
To effectively manage your rooms and rates on Multi-Property, you must first understand what room types, rate plans, and room rates are, as well as the different actions that can be performed through Multi-Property and your property-level channel managers.
Room types
A room type represents a type of accommodation that your property offers.
➕ Some examples are "Double room", "Apartment with sea view", and "Suite".
Room types cannot be created in the Multi-Property platform; it must be done at the property level in each property’s channel manager.
Rate plans
A rate plan represents the commercial offering of an accommodation and any restraints.
➕ Some examples are "Breakfast included", "Non refundable", and "Corporate rate - Tier 1".
Rate plans can be created on Multi-Property or on a property’s channel manager. Therefore, there are two levels of rate plans:
Multi-Property rate plans — created on Multi-Property, these rate plans can be assigned to multiple properties so that they’re created and updated automatically at the property level.
Property-level rate plans — these are created on a corresponding property’s channel manager or through property assignment in Multi-Property.
💡 When a property-level rate plan is not linked to a multi-property rate plan, you can import it to link the rate plan and control the property-level rate plan from Multi-Property.
Room rates
A room rate represents one unit of accommodation that can be sold (that is, one saleable unit). Created when a room type is assigned to a rate plan, it contains the restrictions and inclusions that are defined in a rate plan and a room type.
➕ Some examples are "Single room - Breakfast included", and "Suite - Holiday deal".
Room rates can be mapped with integrations* and distributed through channels.
*The word ‘integration’ refers to property management systems (PMS), central reservations systems (CRS), and revenue management systems (RMS).
Using multi-property rate plans
The power of Multi-Property rate management is the ability to take lots of similar rate plans from various properties and link them to a single multi-property rate plan. Any configuration changes made to the multi-property rate plan will then be applied to all linked property-level rate plans automatically (unless they have overrides applied).
Our multi-property rate plans enable you to conduct audits, detect configuration issues, confirm decisions, and make crucial changes on a broad scale, therefore saving you time and hassle.
Planning a structure
To make the most of Multi-Property, look for similar rate plans in your property portfolio and group them into multi-property rate plans. If you already have rate plans created in your properties, importing them to link them to a multi-property rate plan will allow you to manage them at the group level.
Not overusing overrides
Property rate plans that are linked to a multi-property rate plan can still be customised individually by using property-level overrides. This can be useful when an exception to the rules of the rate plan is needed.
However, overrides should be avoided when possible: when a multi-property rate plan is edited, the edits don’t affect the overridden fields in the property rate plan, so if overrides are used frequently, they can not only decrease the usefulness of multi-property rate plans, but also increase the amount of configuration that must be performed at the property level.
Derived room rates
It might be beneficial to configure the derivation settings of rate plans in bulk to make managing a large number of rates more efficient — however this depends on if one or more integrations* are being used to manage pricing. Fortunately, Multi-Property can manage derived room rates and configure their derivation settings in bulk.
⚠️ Check with your integration provider to find out what rate configuration you should use. If your integration sends rates, you may need to keep some of your rates set to manual.
Relation to room types
Whereas the distribution and rate management features focus on making rate plan configuration settings in bulk, room type settings — such as the number of included occupants — are configured once and then automatically merged with rate plan settings whenever new room rates are created. This ensures that the room rates inherit data from their linked room type and rate plan, helping you keep room type settings consistent across all of your properties.