Base price, weekend price and booking window
By GuestChat Team ·
Before fine-tuning the price of every long weekend, there are three settings that shape how your calendar looks by default. If they're right, everything else is touch-ups. If they're wrong, every touch-up is a patch.
Where they are
In the Calendar, Settings tab. They appear there for the property you have selected and, further down, with the label "(all)", to apply them to all your properties at once.
Base price per night
This is the starting price for each night. Without it, the booking site publishes nothing: the connection can look perfect and not a single night goes out. That's why the guided setup asks for it and the calendar reminds you "Set a base price first." before publishing.
Watch out for one important detail: saving the base price republishes every day at that price, including the ones that had their own price set by hand. The same happens when you save the weekend price, the minimum or maximum stay, or the window. The dashboard warns you first. If you've already worked out seasonal prices, change them with the range editor, not from here.
Weekend price
It applies to Friday and Saturday nights. If you leave it empty, it's calculated automatically: the base price plus 15 percent. That's a good starting point for a city apartment; for a country house where weekends are the whole business, you'll probably want to set it by hand.
Booking window
How many days ahead people can book, starting from today. With 90, nobody can book more than three months out; the rest of the dates are closed. With No limit, everything is open.
What it's for:
- If you're not sure yet about next year's prices, a short window keeps you from selling August at November prices.
- If your apartment lives on bookings made far in advance, a long window gives you visibility.
- If you're going to sell or renovate, it's better to close bookings from a set date onward, since that option exists for exactly that.
Republishing
At the end of Settings there's Republish now. It sets every day to the price and the minimum and maximum stay above, including any you had set by hand on a single day. It's a button for starting from scratch, not for refreshing. Only use it if you know you want to erase your exceptions.
What happens to bookings already made
Nothing. Price changes apply to future nights; confirmed bookings keep the price they were made at.
Where to start
- Set the base price with a mid-season Tuesday in mind.
- Decide whether the weekend uses the automatic 15 percent or its own price.
- Pick a booking window that lets you sleep easy with the prices you've decided on.
- Then, and only then, mark special dates with the range editor.
- Check the grid: the small number on each day is the published price for that night, before the per-channel markup if you have one set.
Common mistakes
- Changing the base price in the middle of summer and accidentally erasing all your seasonal prices.
- Leaving the window at no limit and finding out in March that someone booked next Christmas at the price of an October Tuesday.
- Forgetting that the "(all)" value overrides each property's own value.