Step 5: Price and availability

LOS pricing model

TripAdvisor does not accept LOS pricing model and requires Rentals United to provide the prices in the "one price for each night" format. Based on your LOS prices in Rentals United, we perform the following calculations, so that your pricing is the most accurate on the TripAdvisor side:

  1. In case you have some LOS pricing defined, we will try to use it. We will always try to use the LOS price to calculate the nightly price in the first place.

  2. If we cannot use the LOS price, we will send the Daily price. All LOS prices will be ignored.

Note that it may result in slight discrepancies in the pricing. See here for more information.

Note: Your potential guests will be first presented with daily prices when searching for an apartment to stay. This is because TripAdvisor does not support any advanced type of pricing in their API connection.

However, when the guest attempts to book the stay and TripAdvisor makes a final quote to Rentals United for availability and prices, the advanced pricing (LOS pricing, FSP pricing or Occupancy pricing, depending on your settings) is shared with the channel at this moment. The guest may therefore experience different prices through the reservation process.

This behaviour was designed by TripAdvisor and Rentals United has no power to improve the connection. Nonetheless, you will receive bookings with the price set up in Rentals United, which should ensure you do not need to decline reservations.

FSP pricing model

TripAdvisor does not accept FSP pricing model and requires Rentals United to provide prices in a "one price for each night" format. In case you use FSP pricing in Rentals United, we will recalculate these prices and send them in the nightly format. This may result is slight discrepancies in pricing. See here for more information.

Note: Your potential guests will be first presented with daily prices when searching for an apartment to stay. This is because TripAdvisor does not support any advanced type of pricing in their API connection.

However, when the guest attempts to book the stay and TripAdvisor makes a final quote to Rentals United for availability and prices, the advanced pricing (LOS pricing, FSP pricing or Occupancy pricing, depending on your settings) is shared with the channel at this moment. The guest may therefore experience different prices through the reservation process.

This behaviour was designed by TripAdvisor and Rentals United has no power to improve the connection. Nonetheless, you will receive bookings with the price set up in Rentals United, which should ensure you do not need to decline reservations.

Daily price

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,

  • Weekend pricing.

Note: When calculating the final reservation price at the quoting stage, the Daily price and its components will be disregarded if the property has already LOS pricing or FSP pricing rules set.

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.
Example: If the Daily price includes 3 standard guests, the price stays the same in the case when either one, two or three guests book a stay.

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.

Example: If the Daily price includes 3 standard guests and 5 guests book a stay, then Daily price is applied for 3 guests, but the 4th and 5th guest need to pay the Extra guest price.

Note that Extra guest price will not be displayed separately, but included in total.

Minimum 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. The Minimum stay value is used for the availability check.

 

For TripAdvisor Minimum stay can be collectively overwritten for all properties advertised through this channel. This can be done in Account Settings.

Note: If you overwrite the Minimum stay in Account Settings, changes will be applied for the TripAdvisor channel only. No other channels will be affected.

  1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

  2. Click the My services tab.

  3. Type the TripAdvisor name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

  4. Unfold the TripAdvisor section by clicking the Down arrow button.

  5. Click the Account Settings button.

  1. Select the Minimum stay section.

  2. Set the new value for Minimum stay and click Save.

    Note: If you set the value to 2, it means that any reservation made through the TripAdvisor website will need to be at least 2-nights long.

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.

The prices sent to TripAdvisor on regular basis do not include Occupancy pricing, as TripAdvisor does not support this type of pricing in the API connection. However, when TripAdvisor quotes Rentals United for availability and prices, the Occupancy pricing is shared with the channel.

Note: Your potential guests will be first presented with daily prices when searching for an apartment to stay. This is because TripAdvisor does not support any advanced type of pricing in their API connection.

However, when the guest attempts to book the stay and TripAdvisor makes a final quote to Rentals United for availability and prices, the advanced pricing (LOS pricing, FSP pricing or Occupancy pricing, depending on your settings) is shared with the channel at this moment. The guest may therefore experience different prices through the reservation process.

This behaviour was designed by TripAdvisor and Rentals United has no power to improve the connection. Nonetheless, you will receive bookings with the price set up in Rentals United, which should ensure you do not need to decline reservations.

Complimentary topics

Discounts (N/A)

In this integration, this is not synchronised with TripAdvisor.

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.

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.

For detailed description of how PTBA works, please see Preparation Time Before Arrival.

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.

Information on the Check-in days is sent to TripAdvisor. Check-out days are verified at the quoting stage.

Tax and Fee

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.

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.

There is no mapping between Rentals United and TripAdvisor with regards to taxes and fees. We will synchronize all taxes and fees that are passed as:

  • flat per stay

  • independent percentage

Note: Taxes and fees are added by TripAdvisor on top of the prices provided by Rentals United.

Down payment (N/A)

In this integration, this is not synchronised with TripAdvisor.
Down payment can be established directly with the channel. Reach out to the TripAdvisor support.

Security deposit

Security deposit is a mandatory or optional refundable charge the guest needs to pay to cover for potential property damages.

TripAdvisor handles Security deposit for you - the guest's credit card is charged by TripAdvisor. If you do not report any damage within certain time after the guest checked out, the amount is refunded to the guest's credit card.

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. Rentals United sends prices to TripAdvisor in the same currency as they are in Rentals United. Bookings are received in the same currency as were sent.

Not all currencies are supported by TripAdvisor. In case the currency defined by your property location is not accepted by TripAdvisor, you need to select a different one in Account Settings. In such a case, your prices and charges will be sent to TripAdvisor in the new currency.

  1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

  2. Click the My services tab.

  3. Type the TripAdvisor name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

  4. Unfold the TripAdvisor section by clicking the Down arrow button.

  5. Click the Account Settings button.

  1. Select the Currency section and provide the following details.

    • Point of Supply - TripAdvisor Rentals company through which the account is contracted

    • Payout mode denotes a payment method available for each Point of Supply

    • Currency

  2. Click the Save button.

In case the currency of your property does not match the one in TripAdvisor, Rentals United will convert the pricing upon each price push. When a booking is received, Rentals United performs a conversion, too. Original booking price is available in the Comments section of the reservation.