Rates are important to get right - that is the source of your revenue after all! Firefly Reservations helps by allowing multiple rate rules for each unit. Standard rates are the units regular default rate, and special rates are for shorter special periods, such as peak seasons or holiday weekends when demand will be higher.
Standard Rates
Standard rates are the unit's default rate. A unit must have a standard rate with date coverage extending at least 6 months. Multiple standard rates are allowed, but they cannot overlap. For example, you might want a 2019 rate and a 2020 rate if you want to increase rates for the new year. You can also just have one standard rate that expires in 2025 so you don't have to worry about rates for a while. You can always come back and update the rate's effective date range if you want to change rates later. If you have multiple standard rates, be sure there are no date gaps in between them. You must have a standard rate for daily, weekly, and monthly rates.
Special Rates
Special rates make it easy to charge increased rates for peak seasons or holiday weekends without altering your standard rates. You can have as many special rates as want, or you can have none at all since they are not required.
Special rates will always override the standard rate if both rates are available for a given date. If multiple special rates are available for a given date, the topmost rate will be the rate that is applied. You can rearrange special rates by dragging the 3 stacked dots icon in order to arrange special rates in your desired order.
For example, in the image above, if a guest reserves a unit for May 7-10, the Summer 2019 special rate will be applied, since the July 4th rate does not apply for those dates.
Advanced rates options
To make your rates even more dynamic, you can change the rate applied to a reservation based on how full you property is, and even how many days in the stay. When editing a rate, click Show advanced rate options to view the advanced settings.
Simply enter a value in the minimum and/or maximum fields for Days in Stay and Property Occupancy sections.
In the example above, you can alter the daily rate depending on how full your property is. So when your property is only at 50% or less occupancy, the daily rate is $35. When occupancy is between 51%-90%, the daily rate is $50/day. And if the property occupancy is at 91% or higher, the daily rate will be $65.
How Rates are Calculated
If a guest reserves a unit for a date range where multiple rates will be applied, you might wonder how is Firefly calculating the final rate total. Basically, the reservation is broken down into individual days. Each day is validated against the rates to determine the correct rate for that day. The individual daily rates are then compiled to calculate the entire reservation total.
Rate Options
When adding a new rate, select a rate name and the rate amount. For daily rates, you can optionally enter a weekend rate that will only apply on Friday and Saturday nights. The active period specifies the time range the rate will apply. Max adults, children and pets identifies the maximum number of each that can stay for the specified rate amount. If the reservation includes more adults, children, or pets than the max allowed for this rate, the extra adult, children, or pet amount will be added to the rate. For example, in the rate above, the weekday daily rate is $50. The max adults is 4. If a guest wants to reserve for 1 night with 6 adults, $10 will be added to the rate, $5 extra for each adult.
