Dynamic Rate Formulas can be found through Benson’s settings cog in the lower-left corner of your screen. The section is grouped together with your Rate Type and Policies setup.
What are Dynamic Formulas?
A Dynamic Formula is a calculation that determines what percentage discount should be applied to the Rates it has been assigned to. The percentage discount applied at any given time will depend on two things: how much availability is there and how far in advance is the booking being made.
For example, a booking made at the last minute when the hotel is almost fully occupied will likely offer no discounted Rate to the guest, whereas a booking made at the last minute to an empty hotel could attract a far greater discount.
You can create as many Dynamic Formulas as you like and apply them to any Rate Type of your choosing.
The discount applied, and the two factors used to determine when the discount is applied, is all determined by the hotel’s setup.
Dynamic Formula Setup
A Dynamic Formula template is created by clicking on the “Create Dynamic Rate Template” button in the upper right corner of the Dynamic Rate Formula page. A name is required for the template to be created. Once the name of the template has been captured and saved, you can start capturing the different bands or “tiers” that will hold the values used to discount your rates.
Dynamic Formula Tiers
A Dynamic Formula template is comprised of one or more “tiers”. Each tier will hold the percentage discount to be applied as well as the values used to determine WHEN the discount is applied.
A percentage discount is captured at the bottom of the tier popup with the availability and booking lead days used to calculate when to apply this discount just above.
For example, a discount of 15% will be applied to a Rate amount when the hotel has 25 % – 50% availability and the guest is booking between 15 and 21 days in advance. A second tier may only offer a 10% discount when availability is between 25% and 15% and the guest is booking anywhere between 5 and 10 days in advance.
Tiers may overlap in certain areas but each tier will have to have its own unique percentage discount and a unique booking lead day or availability range.
How to Apply Dynamic Formulas
Once you’ve finished setting up a Dynamic Formula, it can be applied to a Rate Type. The Dynamic Formula will then act on the Rates for all Room Types using that Rate Type. To assign a Dynamic Formula to a Rate Type, head over to the Rate Type of your choice and select the Dynamic Formula from the drop-down list that has been added to the Rate Type settings popup.
If you do not want a Dynamic Formula to affect the Rate amounts of a specific Room Type, there is an indicator on the Room Type setting popup that you can select to turn off the Dynamic Formula on that Room Type.
If you want to turn off a Dynamic Formula for certain days after it’s been assigned to a Rate Type, you can go over to the Rates page and select the days that you want to turn the calculation off for.
Lastly, any Rooms or Room Types having no bearing on the hotel’s occupancy will be included in the availability calculation of a Dynamic Formula.
Integrations and the Web Booking Engine
If your hotel has a channel manager integrated with Benson, then Benson will send the dynamic rate amounts to these channel managers if the channel manager accepts Rates from Benson. This means that your channel managers will also be kept up-to-date with all Rates influenced by a Dynamic Formula. Benson’s web booking engine will also reflect Rates that have been adjusted by a Dynamic Formula.