Seasonal pricing for apartments comes down to a short stack: one base rate, a season for each period that sells differently, and a few rules for weekends and short notice. Each layer replaces or adjusts the one before it, so you only enter what differs from the base. The price a guest sees is the result of that stack, always worked out in the same order.
This post goes through the stack layer by layer: the base rate, seasons, minimum stays and arrival days, pricing rules, and the order in which huttoro applies them to a stay.
See how huttoro prices every night from seasons, rules and extras
Start with one base rate
The base rate is the price of any night that no season covers. For a flat it is usually a flat rate for the whole apartment per night. You can price per person instead, and add a table by length of stay, so that a longer stay gets a cheaper night.
A stay shorter or longer than the table reuses the nearest row, so a one-night request still gets a sensible price. The prices you enter in huttoro are the ones on your own website and booking form. Prices on Airbnb and Booking.com stay set on the portals, because iCal carries dates and not prices, as the calendar sync post explains.
Seasonal pricing for apartments: one season for each period that sells differently
A season is a named period with its own price. You give it a window, a price and a priority. The price is either a fixed rate or a multiplier, such as 1.25 for 25 percent more than the base.
A window repeats every year on the same dates. One that ends before it starts wraps over the new year, which is how a New Year season is entered. A window tied to Easter follows the real Easter date each year, so you enter it once.
When two seasons overlap on a night, the higher priority wins. Each night is priced by the season that covers it, so a stay that crosses two seasons is billed night by night, and nights in no season use the base rate.
A season can apply every year, only this year, from a chosen year on, or to a chosen list of years. A single year can be edited on its own without touching the others.
Put minimum stay and arrival days on the season
Each season carries its own stay rules: the minimum nights, the maximum nights and the weekdays a guest may arrive on. A rule is judged against the season the guest arrives into. A season that sets no minimum leaves the base minimum standing.
A booking on your website that breaks a rule is refused with a readable message. The date picker greys out the arrivals and check-outs that would break it, and once the guest picks an arrival date it names the minimum stay for that date. A new season starts at 2 to 31 nights, so set the real limits when you create it.
A season can also be sold as one block, for example New Year. Then the minimum and the maximum both equal the length of the window, and arrival is fixed to its first day. A reservation you enter yourself in the dashboard may break these rules, with a warning, because phone bookings do not follow them.
Use rules for weekends and short notice
Pricing rules adjust the price without a new season. There are six types: weekend premium, weekday discount, last minute, early bird, length of stay and custom. Each rule reads exactly one condition.
Weekend and weekday rules look at nights, and a night belongs to the day it ends on. The weekend nights are Friday to Saturday and Saturday to Sunday, and Sunday to Monday counts as a weekday night. A percentage takes its cut of the matching nights only, and a fixed amount is charged once for each matching night.
Last minute, early bird, length of stay and custom rules work on the whole stay. Last minute reads how close to check-in the guest booked, early bird how far ahead. They apply to the running total, and a fixed amount is charged once.
A rule can also have a validity window over the stay dates and a list of seasons where it never applies. A weekday discount that skips the Christmas season is therefore one rule, not two.
The order the prices apply in
huttoro always works in the same order: the base rate, then the season, then the pricing rules, then extras, then the discount code. A code comes last, so a percentage code takes its cut of a total the rules have already moved.
Take a summer season at 100 per night with a weekend premium of 20 percent. A stay from Thursday to Sunday is three nights, so 300 at the season rate. The two weekend nights add 40, which makes 340. A 10 percent code then takes 34 off, and the guest pays 306.
Extras such as cleaning come before the code. Each extra has a switch for whether a percentage code reaches it, so a cleaning fee can stay out of the discount.
The same prices appear on your own website, as described in direct bookings for your apartments.
Summary
- The base rate covers every night that no season covers.
- A season replaces the base rate for a period, and the higher priority wins on overlap.
- Minimum stay, maximum stay and arrival days sit on the season.
- Weekend, last minute, early bird and length of stay are rules on top, not new seasons.
- The order is base rate, season, rules, extras, discount code.
What to do now
- Enter the base rate for each apartment, with a length-of-stay table if a longer stay should be cheaper per night.
- Add one season for each period that sells differently and set minimum stay and arrival days on the busy ones.
- Add a weekend premium, then run the calculator on a weekend stay that crosses a season boundary and check the total.
