Step 5: Price and availability
Rentals United automatically detects what may be your preferred pricing model only when adding new hotels to Booking.com. Their pricing model will be detected and automatically set in Booking.com. The existing properties will be left unchanged.
The pricing model setting in Booking.com is selected per hotel according to the following rules:
-
LOS pricing: If the account has at least one day with pricing that requires the LOS pricing model to be set in the channel, i.e. LOS pricing, FSP pricing, Occupancy pricing
-
Occupancy Based Pricing: If the account does not have a single day with pricing that requires the LOS pricing model to be set in the channel
Tip: If you already have hotels in Booking.com mapped to properties in Rentals United, your pricing model used in Booking.com will not change.
When you already have hotels in Booking.com and intend to map them to properties in Rentals United, your selected pricing model will not change, either.
The pricing model will be auto-detected only when adding new hotels to Booking.com via Rentals United.
LOS pricing model
Booking.com supports LOS pricing. If you use LOS pricing model, it will be fully sent to Booking.com.
FSP pricing model
Booking.com supports FSP pricing. If you use FSP pricing model, it will be fully sent to Booking.com.
Daily price model
Daily price
Daily price is the standard way of setting prices. It indicates the base price per night for the Standard number of guests. It also constitutes the basis for the Daily price model. Note, however, that the Daily price value which is eventually available for the potential guest depends on the data introduced in the following fields:
-
Standard number of guests,
-
Extra guest price or Occupancy pricing,
-
Weekend pricing.
Standard number of guests
Standard number of guests refers to the maximum number of guests included in the Daily price for whom the price does not change. If more guests than specified book a stay, the extra guests will be charged with the price set in the Extra guest price element.Tip: For Booking.com, Standard number of guests value takes important part in creation of rates. Read more about rates in Categorization.
Additionally, it is possible to override the Standard number of guests specified in Step 5: Price and availability and send different Standard number of guests exclusively to Booking.com. For more information, please see here. Note however that overwriting this number can cause price discrepancy between Rentals United and Booking.com - read more here.
Extra guest price 
Extra guest price is the price for guests that are not included in the Standard number of guests. In other words, if the overall number of guests exceeds the Standard number of guests, Extra guest price is applied for each guest above the specified standard.
If you have Extra guest price set and Rentals United pushes a new property to Booking.com, it will create for you just one standard rate.
Example:
Provided you have the following settings:
Maximum number of guests is 4 (Step 1: Basic info),
Standard number of guests is 2 (Step 5: Price and availability),
Daily price is 200 $,
Extra guest price is 110$.
Then, Rentals United automatically creates 1 standard rate:
for 2, where the price is 200 $;
for 3, where the price is 310 $ (Daily price + 1 x Extra guest price);
for 4, where the price is 420 $ (Daily price + 2 x Extra guest price).
This rate will look in the following way in Booking.com:
|
Minimum stay / Maximum stay
Minimum stay indicates the minimum number of days a reservation can be made for. Guests will be not be able to book your property if they want to book stays shorter than minim stay. This value is mandatory to provide.Maximum stay is an additional setting (optional), which ensures that your guests will not be offered stays longer than a particular number of nights.
There are two types of stay restriction in Rentals United. The default stay restriction type is stay-through. You can choose which model you want to work on and your selection will apply to both minimum and maximum stay restrictions at the same time. If you want to change the stay restriction type, see here.
Stay-through - the booking must meet the minimum / maximum stay requirements on each day of the booking
Arrival-based - the booking must meet the minimum / maximum stay requirements on the arrival day only
Your listing in Booking.com will be available according to the selected minimum and maximum stay type.
Example: You have the stay-through stay restrictions:
11-05-2021 to 16-05-2021: MS is 5; MX is 7
17-05-2021 to 20-05-2021: MS is 7; MX is 7
Some of the stays:
5-night-long stay (11 - 16 May) is possible
5-night-long stay (13 - 18 May) is not possible (as the minimum stay on 18th May is 7)
6-night-long stay (11 - 17 May) is possible
7-night-long stay (11 - 18 May) is possible
8-night-long stay (11- 19 May) is not possible (as the maximum stay on 19th May is 7)
Example: You have the arrival-based stay restrictions:
11-05-2021 to 16-05-2021: MS is 5; MX is 7
17-05-2021 to 20-05-2021: MS is 7; MX is 7
Some of the stays:
5-night-long stay (11 - 16 May) is possible
5-night-long stay (13 - 18 May) is possible
6-night-long stay (11 - 17 May) is possible
7-night-long stay (11 - 18 May) is possible
8-night-long stay (11- 19 May) is not possible (as the maximum stay on 11th May is 7)
|
Weekend pricing
Weekend pricing refers to a specific type of pricing rules that are applied on selected weekend days only. If the weekend-specific pricing is set and the reservation matches specified criteria, then the Weekend pricing will be applied instead of the Daily price.
Occupancy pricing
In Occupancy pricing, it is possible to specify pricing plans for different numbers of Extra Guests (not included in Daily price). The difference between Extra guest price and Occupancy pricing lies in fact that with Extra guest price the same price is applied for each Extra Guest. On the other hand, in Occupancy pricing it is perfectly possible to specify different prices for different numbers of Extra Guests. Note that Occupancy pricing takes precedence over Extra guest price.
If you have Occupancy pricing set and Rentals United pushes a new property to Booking.com, it will create for you just one standard rate with different pricing options. See here.
Complimentary topics
Discounts (N/A)
Calendar
Calendar stands for the property's availability to rent. You can check here the availability of your property in the selected time frames. Once a reservation is inserted in Rentals United, the availability in the calendar gets blocked for this period. The calendar is updated automatically every time the availability of the property changes or at predefined times to remain up-to-date. For Booking.com, the availability is sent upon change.
Preparation Time Before Arrival
PTBA stands for Preparation Time Before Arrival. It is a general keyword to describe the minimum time a booking has to be made in advance in order to be accepted by the PM. The dates restricted by PTBA are normally set as not available already in the calendar. Hence, the PTBA data is already applied in availability and sent to the channel within the ARI data. The PTBA in Rentals United blocks the availability x hours from 23:59 PM of the day of arrival on the property's local timezone. For example if the PTBA is set to 6 hours, bookings will be accepted until 6:00 PM of the day of arrival, after 6:00 PM the calendar will be closed. If the PTBA is set to 24 hours, bookings will be accepted until 23:59 PM before the day of arrival, after that the calendar will be closed.
In case of Booking.com, the PTBA-blocked period is already shared with the channel within the property's calendar. Hence, the time restricted by PTBA are set to unavailable to book.
For detailed description of how PTBA works, please see Rentals United: User Guide.
Changeover restrictions
Changeover restrictions specify whether check-in or check-out is allowed for a given day. This is a great option if you need the guests checking in and out to fit your schedule and it will help you avoid unexpected guests. If some days are restricted from changeovers, then your guests will simply not be able to select such a stay if the start or end day falls on a changeover-restricted day. If some days are set not to allow guests to Check-in or Check-out, then this information is pushed in the availability data. Any booking that has a changeover selected for the blocked days will be rejected.
Tax
Tax refers to mandatory charges legally levied on particular types of goods, services and transactions, paid as a contribution to the state’s revenue, for example VAT or city tax.
After being reviewed, taxes are mapped between Rentals United and Booking.com.
| Rentals United tax type | Booking.com mapping |
|---|---|
| City tax | City tax |
| Goods and services tax | Goods and services tax |
| Local tax | Local council tax |
| Tourist tax | Government tax |
| VAT | VAT |
As the fees and taxes in Rentals United are always on top of the price, we send them as “not included in price”.
Note: Mandatory taxes
Booking.com requires two mandatory taxes: city tax and VAT. In case you have no city tax specified in Rentals United, but have a local tax instead, then your local tax is treated just as the city tax.
Tip: VAT settings:
If you set the VAT amount in Rentals United, it is synchronized as any other tax.
If you do not set the VAT amount, then Rentals United adds the VAT automatically, depending on your property location. In this case, the VAT value will be synchronized to Booking.com as "included in the price". You can see the VAT amount per location below. If the property is not located in any of these countries, VAT will not be specified.
See the list of default VAT amount per locationBE 06%
BG 09%
CZ 15%
DK 25%
DE 07%
EE 09%
IE 09%
GR 13%
ES 10%
FR 10%
HR 13%
IT 10%
CY 09%
LV 12%
LT 09%
LU 03%
HU 18%
MT 07%
NL 06%
AT 13%
PL 08%
PT 06%
RO 09%
SI 9.5%
SE 12%
GB 20%
If VAT is not applicable to you, set VAT to 0% in Rentals United platform or your PMS before the initial connection of your properties.
The general rule is that the taxes you set up in Rentals United will be applied to rent only because fees are not taxable in Booking.com by default. If you want to tax fees, you need to contact Booking.com and request them to set it up for you.
Note: Unknown tax type in the USA
If you are located in the USA and you have a tax of the Unknown type, then a property created in Booking.com by Rentals United will have all the fees taxable.
If you want only some fees to be taxed, then map the fees that you do not want to get taxed to one of the three listed below. Then, you need to contact Booking.com and request to tax all the remaining fees.
Environment fee
Destination fee
Tourism fee
Fee
Fee refers to mandatory or optional charges paid in exchange for particular services. These include:Charges for additional services, for example Internet access or shuttle.
Fees defined by local governments that do not fall into the tax category, for example environmental fees.
After being reviewed, charges are mapped between Rentals United and Booking.com.
| Rentals United fee type | Booking.com mapping |
|---|---|
| Air conditioning fee | Air conditioning fee |
| Airport shuttle fee | Airport shuttle fee |
| Bed linen fee | Bed linen fee |
| Cleaning fee | Cleaning fee |
| Club card fee | Club card fee |
| Conservation fee | Conservation fee |
| Destination fee | Destination fee |
| Electricity fee | Electricity fee |
| Environment fee | Environment fee |
| Extra bed fee | Mapped as Service |
| Gas fee | Gas fee |
| Heating fee | Heating fee |
| Housekeeping fee | Housekeeping fee |
| Internet fee | Mapped as Internet Policy |
| Kitchen linen fee | Kitchen linen fee |
| Linen package fee | Linen package fee |
| Oil fee | Oil fee |
| Parking fee | Mapped as Parking Policy |
| Pet fee | Mapped as House Rules and Service see here |
| Resort fee | Resort fee |
| Sea plane fee | Sea plane fee |
| Shuttle boat fee | Shuttle boat fee |
| Ski pass | Ski pass |
| Tourism fee | Tourism fee |
| Towels fee | Towels fee |
| Transfer fee | Transfer fee |
| Visa support fee | Visa support fee |
| Water park fee | Water park fee |
| Water usage fee | Water usage fee |
| Wood fee | Wood fee |
| Wristband fee | Wristband fee |
* Fees other than specified in the above table are mapped as Service charge in Booking.com
Pet Fee (optional and non-optional) is always send to Booking.com as a pet policy and will be available in the House Rules section - see here. Booking.com will be only informed that charges may apply and you are responsible to charge them.
If you set the Pet Fee to be non-optional, we will additionally send it as the Service charge and provide Booking.com with the amount you defined in Charge Profile. This is not a recommended setting, as it causes the pet fee to be mandatory added to all reservations, and will inflate your reservation price for all potential guests (with and without pets).
Note: Optional fees
Optional fees are not sent to Booking.com. The only exceptions are Parking Fee and Internet Fee, which are sent to Booking.com regardless of whether they are optional or not.
Note: Important information about fees
As the fees and taxes in Rentals United are always on top of the price, we send them as “not included in price”.
Fees with the 0 value are not sent to Booking.com.
When there are multiple fees mapped to the same type, their values are summed up. If there is a fee of some type applied both as fixed amount and percentage, Booking.com only takes the percentage into account.
All calculation types can be used in connection with Booking.com.
Credit card fee is not processed by Booking.com since 22nd November 2019.
Down payment (N/A)
Security deposit
Security deposit is a mandatory or optional refundable charge the guest needs to pay to cover for potential property damages.
Security deposit is synchronized with Booking.com only if you set the calculation type to flat amount per stay. Also, if your property has not been verified by Booking.com to use credit cards, Security deposit can be charged only in cash upon guest's arrival.
Currency
Currency in Rentals United is a fixed value, by default established on the basis of the property location. The currency of any property can be checked in Rentals United, go to Step 5: Price and availability after selecting All properties tab. For more information, please see Step 5: Price and availability in Rentals United: User Guide.
Booking.com requires you to use particular currencies, depending on the location of your property. When Rentals United pushes new properties to Booking.com, it will automatically assign the local currency according to Booking.com logic. It is very important while mapping the properties to the existing listings in Booking.com, as correct currency needs to be selected.
In case the currency of your property does not match the one in Booking.com, Rentals United will convert the pricing upon each price push.
When a booking is inserted to Rentals United, the price will be converted, too. The original booking price will be displayed in the reservation comments. You can access it after selecting a particular reservation available in the Bookings or Guest Planner tabs.