Restriction management can cause trouble if you are not aware of the way they work in SabeeApp and how they are synchronised to the different sales channels. In this article we are summarising them for you:
Minimum lengths of stay
Also called as minimum nights stay, minimum stay, min nights stay or MLOS restriction is one of the most commonly used restriction tool to encourage guests to book more nights for their reservation. This may have two types but it is important to differentiate them from each other as they have different effect on the reservations length.
Types:
1. Minimum nights on arrival: In case of MLOS on arrival sales channels are only checking the check-in date of the reservation if it has this type of restriction or not. The same minimum night restrictions will not be taken in consideration for the rest of the days of the reservation.
For example: Your plan is to make your guests book the weekends from Thursday to Sunday so you place a 3 night minimum stay on Thursdays. In this case if the guest decides to book with Thursday arrival then they have to book Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, so the minimum stay restriction was correctly set up. However if your guest decides to book with Wednesday arrival which does not have any restriction, they are free to book with any departure day, for example Friday or Saturday. This will mix up your sales plan to have weekend reservations with Sunday departure date.
2. Minimum nights on stay: In case of MLOS on stay, the sales channels are checking not only the arrival date of the reservation, but all the other dates if it has a minimum night of stay restriction activated.
Sticking with the previous example, you would like to make your guests book the weekends from Thursday to Sunday so you place a 3 night minimum stay on Thursdays. In case your guests book with arrival date of Thursday they will have to book Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Also, if they would like to book with Wednesday arrival, the sales channels are checking if there is any min night restriction placed until the departure date and the reservation can be finalised according to Thursdays 3 nights minimum stay restriction. This way, instead of a 1 or 2 night reservation, you will have a 4 night long reservation.
SabeeApp is currently supporting the Minimum nights on arrival type in case of the OTAs and synchronises this restriction to the connected sales channel (if possible) according to the on arrival methodology.
In case of SabeeApp's Internet Booking Engine the restrictions work differently. The Booking Engine is checking not only the arrival date, but also the dates of the reservation and will not let the guests book if their reservation is shorter than the minimum stay restriction during their stay. For example you set up minimum 5 nights restriction from 05.11. to 9.11. then try to book from 4.11. to 07.11. then the reservation will not be possible as there is a 5 nights minimum during the stay. But if you reserve from 01.11. to 06.11. then the booking will be possible as the reservation is at least 5 nights long.
You have the possibility to set up these restrictions under each rate plan, with the Set restrictions tool. You can learn more about this by clicking on this help article.
After setting up minimum stay restriction for a rate plan, you can see them under each room type's pricing table.
Sales channel exemptions where the minimum stay restrictions cannot be synched: szállás.hu
CTA / CTD restrictions
CTA / CTD restrictions are tools to limit arrival / departure. CTA stands for Close to Arrival and CTA stands for Close to Departure. These restrictions are frequently used by ski resorts or properties where the reception is only available for certain days to check-in/out guests.
Both CTA and CTD restrictions can be set up per room type and will affect all rate plans which is available for reservation on that rate.
In SabeeApp you can set up CTA / CTD restrictions from Prices / CTA/CTD menu. Learn more about how to set up these restrictions by clicking on this help article.
Each room type in the menu will have its own table with CTA and CTD lines in it. If a field is marked with red, that means the restriction is active for that date.
Sales channel exemptions where the CTA / CTD restrictions cannot be synched: szállás.hu, Hostelworld, Jet2Holidays, TatilSepeti, Tomas Hotel.
Close / open rate plan restriction
Closing down a rate plan for the sales can be a good tool in case you would like to have only some of your rates selling on different dates and/or sales channels. For example if you have Standard and Nonrefundable rates, and you would like to make sure that your winter holiday season is fully covered and there will be only guaranteed reservations, then you can close down the sales for the Standard rate.
Also if you have separate rate plans connected to the separate channels, then you can set up a temporary closure on the OTAs so you can sell off all your rooms on your Internet Booking Engine.
Rate plan closure can be set up in SabeeApp for each rate plan separately from the Prices / Rate plans menu using the Close / open rates tool.
If you would like to review which rate is selling and which one is closed, then you can check out the Prices / Open/close rate plan menu. Each room type will have its own table with all the rate plans listed under each other. If you see that for some dates the field is red, that means that the sales is closed.
If you would like to learn more about the close / open rate plan tool, please check out this help article.
Sales channel exemptions where the rate plan closure restrictions cannot be synched: szállás.hu, Jet2Holidays.
Close sales for current day
It is possible to close down the sales for today's date on all the sales channels including the OTAs and the Internet Booking Engine. This will ensure that there are no last minute bookings arriving for the current day arrival.
It is controlled by SabeeApp based on the availability, so we will apply 0 availability if you activate this tool on all sales channels for the connected room types.
For the OTAs you can activate this from the Distribution / Channel manager / CM Dashboard menu. You will have to inactivate the Close/Open Sales for current day slider.
If you would like to activate the close sales for current day restriction for the Internet Booking Engine, please open Distribution / Internet Booking Engine / Basic menu and then go to the Same day reservation tab. Here just mark the checkbox to disable bookings with today's arrival.
As this restriction is availability based, it will be synced to all sales channels. The most important thing regarding this feature is that currently you cannot automate from which time on the current day you don't want to receive bookings.
If you would like to set up based from some time on the current day, please set it up in the channel's extranet (if possible).
IMPORTANT!
If you see that some of the restrictions cannot be synched to some of the channels, it is either because the channel does not support the restriction or it does not enable it for channel managers to manage it. In these cases, please make sure to double check the extranet of the channel to set up the restriction (if possible).