There’s a much larger list of revenue improvements Rategenie can make for your rental operation, of course. Today we’ll be going over a few quick, actionable tips. Everything below is accessible via the rate strategy settings.
While Rategenie’s strength lies in its ability to adapt to and improve on each rental’s specific conditions, there’s some rules that can be applied to any strategy. We’d like to show you a few right now!
1. Minimum Nights Stay
One of the very first parameters you’ll be asked to enter for your rate strategy setup is your Minimum Nights Stay. Many vacation rental owners set theirs to 2 or 3 to ensure that the effort of preparation and cleaning is repaid. You’ll even find some rentals that only cater to 7 night stays and above.
Every night that you add to the minimum stay parameter will lower the number of potential guests who can book your property. This, of course, can create some dry periods in your booking schedule (which will be addressed below).
Another way to attract longer bookings is to use Rategenie’s Advanced Booking Rule. This feature will automatically adjust the price for guests seeking to rent above a specified length of time in the future.
It encourages longer stays and early bookings, while allowing you to keep your minimum nights stay reasonably low.
-
- Advanced Booking Rule
-
- Example parameters
2. Gap Nights
What’s a gap night, you ask?
It’s simply a period of time between two bookings that’s shorter than your minimum nights stay setting. For example, if you have your minimum nights stay set at 3, but there’s a 2-day gap between bookings, that period cannot be booked.
You can ensure those nights are made available for booking by using the Gap Night Rule. It can be set during your strategy creation (or you can edit an existing strategy to include it). Rategenie will detect these gaps and automatically lower your minimum stay rule and adjust fees.
-
- Gap Nights Rule
-
- Example parameters
3. Last Minute Bookings
For vacation rental managers, a last minute booking is either a blessing or a pain. Rategenie understands this and will make adjustments to reflect your disposition via the Last Minute Bookings rule.
The parameter setup looks a lot like the Advanced Booking Rule’s, but there’s an important distinction. We are now focusing on fast approaching dates and seeking to lower the minimum nights stay.
Depending on your feelings on the matter, you may wish to make the dates available to potential guests (lowering minimum nights stay) but place a small increase on the rate for the effort of short-notice booking.
Others may find it best to lower the minimum nights stay and also decrease the rate to maximize bookings. The choice is yours!
-
- Last Minute Bookings
-
- Example parameters
4. Channel-Specific Pricing
Some channels offer smaller commission fees or other advantages to other channels. It makes sense that you should adjust your rates slightly to accommodate the added expense or risk of doing business on some channels.
Rategenie’s Channel Adjustment Rule allows you to set a percentage or absolute adjustment for any channel. This adjustment is made when your rates are pushed from Rategenie to the specified channel.
-
- Channel Adjustment Rule
-
- Example parameters