Groups and allotments

Both hold rooms back for someone in particular, so that nobody else sells them:

• a group is a dossier for a wedding, a conference or an agency, with one or more room blocks over a period;
• an allotment contract is a recurring contingent negotiated with a tour operator or an agency, over a validity period, with automatic release of unsold rooms.

You find them in the Sales & Distribution group: Groups and Allotments. Each is a module of your subscription; without it, the page sends you to the module-unavailable screen. You view them with permission to view groups (allotments) and change them with permission to manage them; the bookings made from them need permission to manage bookings. The partner (the billable party) is chosen from Billable parties — see Fixed charges, packages and extras.

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Groups

Group Bookings → New group: the group name, an optional billable party, an optional source and internal notes → create. Then, in the group, Add block:

• the property, the start date (check-in) and end date (check-out);
• Inventory mode: Fixed — pickup capped at the blocked contingent or Elastic — pickup beyond the contingent when public availability allows;
• Fixed cutoff date (optional) or Rolling cutoff days (optional) — after it, rooms not picked up are released;
• an optional default rate plan.

In the block’s grid you set, for each day and room type, the Blocked units and, if you want, a Special rate for the group. The block’s actions: Confirm, Release, Release remaining (only the rooms not yet picked up) and Cancel. On a definite block, Pick up reservations creates the guests’ bookings from the block; Import rooming list takes them from a file. In the Master folio, Route charges moves what the organizer pays off the group’s bookings — Room & city tax or All charges — and Issue group invoice makes a single invoice. Under Invoices issued the folio keeps every invoice issued for the group, with its status and where ANAF or SDI has got with it, and opens each one — for whoever may read invoices. At each property’s day close — on that property’s own clock — the rooms not picked up on definite blocks past their cutoff are released on their own and sent to the channels. If a close is held or fails, an hourly check releases them half an hour after the property’s closing time. A group can be deleted only when all its blocks are released or cancelled; a block, only when it is tentative or cancelled and has no bookings.

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Allotment contracts

Allotment Contracts → New contract: the partner (tour operator or agency), the validity period, the kind of contract, the automatic release (days before arrival), the contracted rate plan and the billing rule (Full credit, Half credit, Prepaid). A contract starts as a Draft: Generate lines fills in the daily grid by room type, which you can adjust and save. The contract page shows the rooms contracted, released, consumed and remaining, and the contracted rate per room type (with no fallback to the public rate). Activate puts the contract into force: only then do the rooms leave availability. Activation is refused if there is not enough public availability. Book against this contract creates up to 50 bookings at once — all of them or none. The statuses are Draft, Active, Expired and Cancelled; a contract can be deleted only as a draft or cancelled, with no bookings. At each property’s day close the unsold rooms of free-sale contracts past their deadline are released, and contracts at the end of their validity expire — with the same hourly check behind it if a close is held or fails. A released night does not come back into the contract, even if a booking is cancelled.

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The rate plan’s rules

Pick up reservations, Import rooming list and Book against this contract ask the same rules as New booking (PMS) — a minimum or maximum stay, a day closed to arrival or departure, a night closed to sale — of the plan each stay is sold on: the block’s plan (or the room type’s default) or the contract’s plan. A stay that breaks one is not booked: its row names the rule, and Ignore the restriction, with a Reason (optional), books the stays anyway. Each such booking’s History records who ignored which rule and why, and its panel shows Restriction ignored — see Bookings. In a rooming list the row stays valid, with its rule, until you commit again with the restriction ignored; a contract’s price preview shows the rule before you book.

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The room’s capacity

Pick up reservations and Import rooming list hold each party to its room type the way New booking (PMS) does. More guests than the room sleeps, or more adults than it admits, is refused, and Ignore the restriction does not lift it: the form names the limit under the row as you type and does not submit, and the rooming list marks the row Invalid with the limit in the preview, before you commit. More children than the room type is meant for is only a warning — the row can still be picked up or committed.