iBex is able to send minimum stay requirements to the online sales channels whose systems support them. There are a couple of scenarios where you might want to send a minimum stay requirement:
- To force a guest to book for 2 nights if staying on a Saturday.
- To provide a discounted rate if a guest stays for longer.
Due to the way sales channels operate, you can't easily do both at the same time.
Taking the first scenario of a 2 night requirement for a Saturday.
In iBex, we replace the current 1 night price with a 2 night rate value for each Saturday in the period that this is required.
With no 1 night rate value set, it's not possible to book a single night stay. The sales channels which support this will accept the First Available minimum stay that we send - ie, if there's no one night stay, they will accept a two night stay.
Once set up in iBex, your rates and min stays calendar would look something like this ...
and the iBex Channel Manager would be configured to use 'First Available' for Min Stay Handling (in the Channel Mapping tab for the sales channel).
In the second case, where you are offering a discount for a longer stay, you will always need to configure this at the sales channel first (providing the channel supports this feature).
So in addition to your existing minimum stay, you would need to set up a 4 and 7 night stay in your sales channel account - you may need your sales channel account manager to do this for you.
In iBex, you would then set up a 4 and 7 night stay price for the current rate that you have, to look something like that shown below...
and then set the Min Stay Handling (in the Channel Mapping tab for the sales channel) to use 'Specific Minstays' in the iBex channel manager so that you can map the specific minimum stay requirements accordingly.
