Setting Dynamic Minimum Stay Restrictions in PriceLabs
With PriceLabs you can set up rules for
applying default minimum night requirements, and apply special minimum
night
rules for last-minute bookings, for orphan-day / gap-day bookings, and
for far-out
bookings. Before we get started users should know that Minimum Night
Restrictions are advanced features that control how long a booking you
require on certain dates. These settings should be used with a knowledge
of your market, and the kind of bookings you want to get.
How to set minimum stay restrictions?
The
minimum stay options can be accessed from the "Edit" button on the
Customizations panel when you review prices for a listing.
Next, head to the "Stay Restrictions" tab.

Once you toggle on the "Minimum Stay Update" option to see a larger menu will open up.
Here's how you can use the six options available:
Select a minimum-stay profile: There are two available options here -
- If
you have an appropriate min-stay profile saved on your account, you can
just use that profile instead of entering all the fields again (more on
min-stay profiles later in this article!).
- If you want to enter custom values, you can choose the custom option and fill in the fields below as desired.
Default Min Stay Rule:
This is the default setting that'll be applied to any dates that
don't have one of the special rules that can be applied as an exception.
You can choose one of three values:
- Fixed (most common): You can choose a default minimum stay to be set for weekdays and
weekends. You must set a min-stay in each box, and must enter a number greater than zero.
- Booking Value:
If the value in the box is 300 (currency same as that
of the listing), then we calculate a minimum stay for the check in date
such that a booking value less than 300 is not possible. As an
example, if the prices for 5 consecutive dates between 2 bookings is
(100, 200, 150, 100, 200), then the minimum nights for those dates will
be (2, 2, 3, 2, 2) where the values will be calculated like this: 100+200=2 night, 200+15=2 nights, 150+100+200=3 nights, 100+200=2 nights. If your primary focus is the revenue then this is a good fit for you.
- None (rarely used): This implies
that by default we won't apply a minimum stay for
your listing. You won't be able to save any of the special options
below. (If you already have settings saved for last minute, orphan or
far out bookings from our previous UI, those will continue to apply as
before - we recommend turning these off if choosing "None").
- Minimum Stay for Last Minute Bookings: You can
specify a minimum nights length and specify how many days out this
should become active. In the image above, we have set the next 7 days to
have a 1-night minimum requirement for weekdays, and 2-nights for weekends - this can greatly increase the chances of
getting last minute bookings which tend to be shorter in length. You can specify up to 3 last minute min-night rules.
- Minimum Stay for Far Out Bookings:
You can specify a
minimum nights length and how far out this should be active for. In the
example above, we have set a 7-night minimum stay more than 180 days
out. This is useful to try and fill up your calendar with longer
bookings far out, and allowing regular 3-night minimum in the main
booking
window (depends on your location!). You can specify up to 3 last
min-night rules.
Minimum Stay for Orphan Bookings:
You can specify that any of the above minimum nights rules be
overridden
if the default minimum nights rule is longer than an orphan
gap in bookings, so a 2-night gap will not be adjusted if your default min-stay is for one night. To turn on this setting you
should also have a default minimum stay rule in place so a gap-length can be determined. You get a few different
options in the drop-down (each of these is activated only if the
min-stay setting needs to be reduced to accommodate a booking):
- Length
of Gap: For any gap of length specified in the box (in
the example above, gaps between 1 and 4 days), we will set the
minimum to be the same as the length of the gap. If you are using a
value-based default minimum stay, this will change the daily rates of
the orphan period to meet your required booking value.
- (Length
of Gap - 1): For any gap of length specified in the box (in
the example above, gaps between 1 and 4 days), we will set the minimum
stay to be one night shorter than the length of the gap. This is useful
because it might be pretty hard to fill a 4-day gap with an exactly
4-night booking, but somewhat easier to find a 3-night booking (though
it
will leave a 1-day gap open). Note that 1-day gaps will stay at 1-night
minimum. If you are using a valued-based default minimum stay then the
daily rates for orphan periods will be adjusted so that the shortest
stay allowed meets the minimum booking value required.
- Choose a number: If the value in the box is 1 (as in the example),
then we will apply a 1-night minimum for all days in gaps between 1 and 4 days.
- Minimum Stay for Adjacent Bookings: These
settings allow you to take shorter bookings when they don't create a
gap night. Note that these settings rely on the setting on the start
date of a reservation being used for min-stay restrictions.
- Adjacent bookings BEFORE an existing booking/block: These
settings are useful to specify what kind of bookings you're ok taking
before another existing booking/blocked date. In the example above,
we're saying that a 2 night booking is okay to take if starts 2 nights
before an existing unavailable date (thus resulting in no gap days).
- Adjacent bookings AFTER an existing booking/block:
These settings are restricted to the day after an existing booking -
you can specify if you are ok with a shorter booking after an existing
reservation as long as it doesn't create a gap.
Once the rules have been setup, you can see
the minimum night setting on the calendar at the top left of each date,
and hovering over a date provides the reason the min-night was set to a
certain value You can also use the "Download CSV"
link at the lower right corner to see all the settings at a glance in
Excel.
Group and Account level minimum stay restrictions
You can also apply these settings for certain
groups of listings or your entire account by setting these up on the Customization page
(Navigation Bar: Dynamic Pricing >> Customizations).
Any rules you apply here will be used for all the listings in the
account. If you want certain listings not to have the default rule, you
can apply a special setting for those listings individually as described
above. A full description of the hierarchy is
available here.
Saved profiles for minimum stay restrictions
As
you've seen above, our minimum night settings can be fairly detailed!
With group settings, we make it easier to apply settings across many
listings in your portfolio. However, there might be times when it's
easier to save your min-stay settings as a profile and use it for
different listings, groups and even seasons (see below). This can be
achieved by going to the Customization page
(Navigation Bar: Dynamic Pricing >> Customizations) and
heading over to the "Min Stay Profiles" tab. Here you can create, edit,
and clone profiles to be used in other customizations!

Creating seasonal minimum stay restrictions
There
are markets where depending on the season, you might want to have a
different (and still dynamic!) min-stay setting. This can be achieved by
editing your Custom Seasonal Profile and selecting a min-stay profile
for each setting. If you leave any season with "None" as the min-stay
profile, it'll default to the listing/group/account level setting as
appropriate.
Creating minimum stay restrictions for specific dates/events
Like always, you can click on certain dates and override these custom settings using
Date Specific Overrides.
Setting a minimum night requirement here will override all of your
regular rules except the orphan day minimum stay setting. If you setup a
custom four day minimum stay for certain dates, and two bookings result
in a 2-day gap, we
will apply the orphan day setting to ensure that you are able to get a
booking in that gap as well.
Video Tutorial
You can find a 5-min summary of the min-stay capabilities
here!
PMS specific notes
Please review the following system-specific notes before continuing:

- For connections to Lavanda, Lodgify, Stays, VRM, and Yield Planet, and when uploading rates using our extension, min-stays must be set in PriceLabs or sync will fail
- For connections to Airbnb, Guesty, and Tokeet,
PriceLabs will overwrite the all minimum-night settings you might
already have in place for with what you have set on PriceLabs.
- For connections to Beds24, you must first make sure your min-stay in Beds24 is
set to 1 or none in SETTINGS->PROPERTIES-ROOMS-SETUP and/or in
SETTINGS-PROPERTIES-ROOMS OFFERS or PriceLabs min-stays will not appear
on the Beds24 rates tape.
- For connections to Vreasy, if a minimum night requirement is not sent from PriceLabs then all min-stay values will become 1
- These features are currently not available for Kigo, Maxxton, and MyRent.
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