Accomodation capacity and wrong price

[Aron Martinez]

Hi,

I am having the same issue as reported in another ticket (see reply #787233), which is suppposed to be already solved since version 3.5 (I am using version 3.8.1).

My situation is as follows: I have triple rooms which can also be booked at a reduced rate by only 2 guests. In the rates I have the “base rate” for 3 guests (the number of guests is greyed out and not editable) and I added a variable price for two guests with the lower rate.

Before a number of guests is selected and also in the overview list of the rooms, the higher price for 3 guests is always displayed, but the lowest price should be shown (given that the text states “Price starting at: …”).

Can you please tell me how to properly display the lowest rate for all rooms?

I am also encountering the following, related issue: the triple room should not be bookable by a single guest (only prices for 3 guests and 2 guests are provided), but the room is still showing up if a search for a single guest is performed, and the problem is that here too, the price displayed is the higher one for 3 guests (not the lower one for 2 guests). In a previous ticket you already told me that a “minimum occupancy” is not available (even if this is very confusing for the clients, even more irritating for the hotel owner, and at the end an optional “minimum ocupancy” field would be a useful enhancement and a very appreciated addition), but at least the lowest possible price should be displayed in this case, and not the higher one.

Thank you in advance for your support.

[J. Davis]

Hi Aron,

Thank you for your question. By default, there is displayed the Base Price when no capacity is selected http://prntscr.com/s8qcqr
You just need edit this Base Price to show the lower price http://prntscr.com/s8qltw
to displayit at property listing and on the checkout page when capacity is not indicated.

Let me know if it is helpful.

best regards,
J. Davis

[Aron Martinez]

Hi J. Davis,

Thank you for the explanation.

It is true that with this workaround the correct prices are displayed on the front-end, but it is not clear to me why there must be this duplicate of the “Base Price” and the prices for N guests in the administration of the prices.

The way in which other systems (e.g. Booking.com) do it is much clearer and more immediate:

• I have a room with a maximum capacity of 3 guests, and I enter the “Base price” for this number of guests (e.g. 3 guests = USD 200)
• The same room can also be booked for 2 guests, with a reduced price, so I add a new variable pricing for 2 guests (USD 160 = the rate is discounted by USD 40)
• The system automatically displays the lowest price when talking about “Prices starting at…”

In Hotel Booking I must add the “Base Price” (supposed to be the lowest price, but I have to enter the price near the field where the maximum number of guests is displayed, which makes the whole thing very confusing), then I have to add the price for only 2 guests (which is again the same price as the “Base Price” in this case) and then I have to add the price for 3 guests (the highest price available).

I know that it is “just one more line” to add to the variable prices, but I imagine some bigger hotels, or simply hotels with many different seasons and corresponding prices, getting crazy with this sort of bad user experience.

Can this be improved in future versions?

Best regards,
Aron

[Aron Martinez]

I just noticed one more issue with the “Base price”, linked to the search availability form: if I search for a specific number of guests, the search results provide me always with the “Base Price” (without taking into any consideration the provided number of guests…), to have the correct price I need to first go to the booking form and provide the number of guests for each room.

This is very confusing for customers booking online (and very irritating for hotel owners, which in turn irritates me as their web developer), given that the following steps are performed:

1. Customers search available rooms for 6 people and are presented with the two triple rooms as suggestion (under “Recommended for 6 guests”), with a total price of USD 320 (but these two rooms should be priced at USD 200 each = USD 400 total)
2. Customers click on the “Book now” button (being for now wrongly convinced that the rooms cost USD 320), are redirected to the booking form (where the price details still wrongly list two rooms at USD 160 each) and start filling out their details (3 people for room A, three people for room B), and… BOOM the price just went up to USD 400 (which is correct, but just a little too late giving that previously a lower price was provided to the customers)
3. Customers call the hotel to ask for details and complain about the totally unclear price structure and booking procedure that has absolutely no logic from their point of view
4. The hotel owners call me to complain about the totally unclear price structure and booking procedure that has absolutely no logic

Can you please have a look at how the prices are entered and calculate, in order to FINALLY have a clear, usable and correct price structure?

Thank you in advance

[J. Davis]

Hi Aron,

Thank you for your reply.

1. The Base price is applied if there is no price variation for certain capacity combinations so you may set up just Base Price $160 and variable pricing for 3 adults. You may skip adding the variable pricing for 2 adults since the base price is applied.

2. The recommended section is optional and can be disabled via settings of the Hotel Booking plugin if it does not work for your property rental type. In order to investigate the case we need website URL and further instructions to relicate the issue. Thanks.

Best regards,
J. Davis

[Author]

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