To successfully attract guests, it is crucial to always maintain prices up-to-date on the property's website. When prices are missing, guests are unable to complete their bookings and often switch to OTAs, where prices are always available.
To help hoteliers avoid situations where current prices are not displayed in the booking engine, a new feature has been introduced in Exely Suite — a default rate plan with a season calendar. It allows prices in the booking engine to be automatically extended, even if the property staff forget to update the standard rate plans.
Using the default rate plan helps to:
Ensure prices are displayed even when prices in rate plans are not set or not uploaded from the PMS.
Reduce the risk of losing guests due to missing prices for future dates.
Flexibly adjust rate plans based on seasons, keeping offers competitive and aligned with the market conditions.
What is default rate plan and season calendar
Default rate plan is a rate plan that is applied in the booking engine when a property has no other current prices set. The default rate plan is automatically extended, ensuring that guests always see a price available for booking.
Season calendar — is a time period during which the hotel sets specific prices based on expected demand levels. The default rate plan consists of the seasons.
Pay attention. If you use Exely Price Assist, price levels and seasons created in the “Price assist” section are independent of the default rate plan season settings.
The default rate plan is available for all properties by default except properties that work in the flats and apartments mode or use the booking engine for resorts.
How to enable and set the default rate plan
To work with the default rate plan, you need to
1. Create and set seasons and seasons periods: “How to create and set seasons for default rate plan”.
2. Create and set the default rate plan: “How to create default rate for Exely Booking Engine”.
The default rate plan starts working automatically — if there are no other rate plans available for the selected dates in the booking engine or on the property’s page in Google Hotel Ads, the default rate plan will be displayed.
If the booking dates fall on the boundary of periods, and standard rate plans are available for some days but not for others, a guest will not be able to complete the booking without the default rate plan. With the default rate plan enabled, the system will offer this rate to the guest, allowing them to proceed with the booking.
Features
Only one default rate plan can be created in the property's Exely extranet.
The default rate plan is always available to all guests. It cannot be
restricted by promo codes;
limited only to loyalty program members;
hidden in the booking engine using restrictions or additional display settings.
To close sales for the default rate plan, you need to close availability for the required dates. If all rooms are booked, the default rate will no longer be available for booking.
The default rate is a backup rate plan: it does not replace standard rate plans, but serves as a safety net in case no prices are set.
The default rate is automatically extended. You only need to set it up once, and the system will maintain up-to-date prices automatically. You will not lose bookings even if you forget to update your standard rate plans.
The default rate is displayed only in the booking module and Google Hotel Ads, if there are no other rate plans available for the selected dates.
The default rate plan is not available for mapping in Exely Channel Manager, and prices are not uploaded to channels.
In case of PMS integration, the default rate plan can be mapped and will be passed to PMS as any other rate plan. However, prices cannot be loaded from PMS into the default rate plan.
If you need to delete the default rate plan, contact your Customer Support manager or Exely Customer Support team.
If the price increase rate is modified, the prices will be recalculated for future periods. Prices for past periods will not change.
The default rate plan cannot be used for dynamic rate plans.
The default rate plan can be used as a source rate plan for a combined rate plan (Rate Mix).
Derived rate plans cannot be created from the default rate plan.
All discounts created in the Exely extranet can be applied to the default rate plan.
The default rate plan cannot be edited in the Exely Hotelier mobile app.
Booking confirmations for hotels and guests display only the name of the rate plan for which the booking was made, without any additional information.
