How to configure Discount

A discount is a price reduction that Solidres applies on its own when a booking meets the conditions you set: a long enough stay, an early enough booking, a quiet week. The guest does not enter a code. They search their dates and see the reduced price.

This guide covers installing the plugin, every field of the discount form, how the amount is calculated, and a set of ready-made discounts for hotels, apartments and guest houses that you can copy into your own site.

On this page:

1. Discount, coupon or rate plan?
2. Installation
3. Creating a discount
   • Discount types
   • The validity period
   • Days of the week
4. How a discount is calculated
   • Before or after tax
   • What the guest sees
5. Discount examples for hotels and rentals
   • Values used in every example
   • Weekly and monthly stays
   • Early bird
   • Last minute
   • Free night: stay 4, pay 3
   • Midweek special
   • Long weekend
   • Quiet dates
   • Several rooms
   • Low season sale
   • Fixed amount
6. Combining discounts
7. Discounts in the partner dashboard
8. Discounts for experiences
9. Checking that it works
10. Troubleshooting

Discount, coupon or rate plan?

Solidres has three ways to lower a price. They can be used together, and each has its own job:

When a coupon and a discount apply to the same booking, the coupon lowers the nightly rates first and the discount is calculated on the result.

Installation

1. Download Solidres Discount from your Download page on solidres.com.
2. In your Joomla administrator, go to System → Install → Extensions and upload the package.

The plugin is enabled for you on a first install. If it has been disabled since, enable Solidres - Discount plugin under System → Plugins.

Creating a discount

Discounts are managed under Solidres → Reservations → Discounts. The list shows each discount with its property, its validity period, its priority and whether it stops further processing.

Select New to create one.

Discount types

The validity period

Valid from and Valid to describe when the guest stays, not when they book. A discount is used only if the whole stay falls inside the period, the day of departure included:

To give a discount all year round, set a period of several years. To limit when the booking is made, use the type On number of days booked in advance, or publish the discount for the duration of the campaign and unpublish it afterwards.

Days of the week

Applied days is required. For a discount that does not depend on the day of the week, select all seven days.

How a discount is calculated

• On the room price only. Extras are not discounted.
• Per room. Each room of a booking is checked and discounted on its own. A percentage gives the same result either way, but a fixed amount is given for every room: a fixed discount of 20 on a booking of three rooms takes off 60.
• Except the type On number of booked rooms, which looks at the booking as a whole. It is calculated once, on the room total of the booking, it ignores Applied to, and a fixed amount is given once.
• A free night is worth its own price. When nightly prices differ, Free X cheapest stay gives away the cheapest nights and Free X last stay the last ones, whatever they cost.

Before or after tax

Open the Solidres options and select the Reservation tab. The option Discount pre tax decides what a discount is taken from:

The option is site-wide. Ask your accountant which one your tax rules expect, and set it before you publish your first discount: a reservation keeps the setting it was made with.

What the guest sees

When a guest searches their dates, each rate shows the discounted price, and the price breakdown lists the Room discounted amount and the Room cost after discounted. The booking summary, the confirmation email and the invoice carry a Total discount line.

When staff create or amend a reservation in the administrator, the total discount is filled in by the same rules and can be changed by hand.

Discount examples for hotels and rentals

Each example below is a complete discount. Find the one closest to what you want, copy the values, and change the numbers.

Values used in every example

The examples list only the fields that make the offer. Unless an example says otherwise, the other fields are:

Weekly and monthly stays

A longer stay means fewer arrivals, fewer changeovers and less cleaning. Holiday apartments, aparthotels and guest houses share that saving with the guest. Create one discount per tier, with ranges that do not overlap, so that a stay matches one tier only:

Result: 7 nights at €120 come to €840. The guest gets €84 off and pays €756.

Early bird

Bookings made months ahead give you a base of occupancy to plan around, and money in the bank if you take a deposit. Resorts and seasonal properties use it to fill the high season early.

Result: a guest who books on 1 March for an arrival on 10 July books 131 days ahead. 5 nights at €150 come to €750, the guest gets €112.50 off and pays €637.50. A guest who books the same stay on 1 June books 39 days ahead and pays the full price.

Last minute

A room that is empty tonight earns nothing. A last-minute discount sells what is left for the coming days.

Result: a booking made today for an arrival today, tomorrow, or up to three days from now gets 20% off.

Free night: stay 4, pay 3

A free night reads better than a percentage, and it rewards exactly the longer stay you are after. There are two types, and they differ when your nightly prices differ:

Result: a guest arrives on Wednesday for 4 nights. Wednesday and Thursday cost €100 each, Friday and Saturday €140 each, €480 in total.

• With Stay 4, pay 3, the cheapest night is free: €100 off, the guest pays €380.
• With Fourth night free, the last night is free. That is Saturday: €140 off, the guest pays €340.

Use Free X cheapest stay when you want to know the most a free night can cost you. Use Free X last stay when the offer is worded as "the last night is on us".

Midweek special

City hotels that live from weekend leisure guests, and country hotels that live from the weekend, have the same empty nights from Sunday to Thursday. This discount applies only to stays that stay clear of Friday and Saturday night.

Result: Monday to Thursday, 3 nights: discount. Tuesday to Friday, 3 nights: discount, the guest leaves on Friday morning. Thursday to Saturday: no discount, the stay includes Friday night. Friday is selected because it is a day of departure, as explained in Days of the week.

Long weekend

Weekend guests tend to book Friday and Saturday and leave Sunday night empty. Reward the ones who add a night.

Result: Friday to Monday, 3 nights: discount on the whole stay. Friday to Sunday, 2 nights: full price. The same idea fills a single weak night: arrival day SUN, from 1 to 2 nights, for a Sunday-night offer.

Quiet dates

This is the discount that follows demand. It looks at how many rooms of the room type are still free for the dates the guest asks for, lowers the price while most of them are, and stops when the rooms fill up. Use two tiers that do not overlap:

Result: the room type has 10 double rooms. For dates where 8 are free, the availability is 80% and the guest gets 10% off. When 5 are free, 50%, the discount is 5%. When 3 are free, 30%, the price is the full price.

Several rooms

Families, wedding guests and small groups book several rooms at once. A discount on the number of rooms wins the booking that would otherwise be split over two hotels.

Result: 4 rooms for 2 nights at €90 come to €720. The guest gets €72 off and pays €648. The rooms can be of different room types: two doubles and two twins count as four rooms.

Low season sale

The validity period turns any discount into a seasonal offer. Here, a sale for stays in the weeks before Christmas.

Result: a stay from 20 to 23 November gets 20% off. A stay from 16 to 19 December does not, because the guest leaves after 18 December. If the last discounted night is the night of 18 December, set Valid to to 19 December.

Fixed amount

An amount is easier to advertise than a percentage: "€50 off your week by the sea". Set Is percent? to No.

Result: a week in one apartment is €50 cheaper. A week in two apartments is €100 cheaper, because the amount is given for each room. Keep the amount well below the price of the shortest and cheapest stay that can match.

Combining discounts

When several discounts match a room, Solidres processes them in the order of their Priority, 1 first. Give each discount of a property its own number, so the order is never in doubt.

What happens next depends on Stop further processing of each discount that applies:

Three things follow from this:

• Percentages do not add up. Each one is calculated on what is left after the discounts before it: 15% and 10% make 23.5%, not 25%.
• To give the guest the best single discount, give the largest discount the highest priority and leave Stop further processing on Yes everywhere. This is the safe setup, and the default.
• To let discounts add up, set Stop further processing to No on every discount except the last, and work out the largest total a booking can reach before you publish.

A discount of the type On number of booked rooms is always processed last, once per booking. It is calculated on the room total of the booking and added to the discounts the rooms already received.

Discounts in the partner dashboard

With the Hub plugin, partners manage the discounts of their own properties from the partner dashboard, under Discounts. The form is the same. A partner sees and edits only the discounts of the properties they own.

Discounts for experiences

With the Experience plugin installed next to the Discount plugin, discounts for experiences have a list of their own, under Solidres → Experiences → Discounts. The form works the same way, with four discount types:

Checking that it works

1. On your website, search the property for dates that meet the conditions of the discount. The rate shows the discounted price.
2. Continue to the booking summary. It carries a Total discount line, and the grand total is lower by that amount.
3. Search again for dates that do not meet the conditions: one night fewer, or a departure one day after Valid to. The price is the full price.

Check the third step as carefully as the first. A discount that applies too often costs more than one that does not apply.

Troubleshooting