Understanding Customization and Date-Specific Override Hierarchy

Understanding Customization and Date-Specific Override Hierarchy

It is important to understand the hierarchy of which rules will apply when. Like someone wise once said:

With great power comes great responsibility.

The ability to set rules at an Account/Group/Subgroup level is useful if you manage tens or hundreds of listings so that you don't have to set customizations for each one of them individually. This post is to clarify which customizations get applied when you have customizations applied on at least 2 of any levels: Account, Group, Subgroup, and Listing levels. There are two kinds of customizations available with PriceLabs today:
  1. Customization Rules: These are broad rules such as last-minute pricing, orphan day pricing, and minimum night restrictions.
  2. Date-Specific Overrides: These are applied to specific dates, and can be fixed prices override (where you specify the amount), % override (where you add a percentage change in discount/premium), or minimum night.
By default, the hierarchy for customizations and date-specific overrides is as follows:


Both types of rules can be set up at the Account (PMS), Group, and Listing levels. Here is what happens if you have various rules set up at different levels.

Identifying the Applicable Customization Rule

We first identify which customization rules will be applied for a listing by using the following logic for each of the customizations
  1. if the corresponding listing level customization is on, then that gets used. The listing level has the highest priority. 
  2. if the corresponding sub-group level customization is on and the listing level customization is off, then the sub-group level customization gets used.
  3. if the corresponding listing and sub-group level customization are off, but the group level customization is on, then the group level customization gets used.
  4. if the corresponding listing, sub-group level and group level customizations are off, but account-level customization is on, only then does the account level customization gets used.
Note: As the image above shows, the min-night settings are all or nothing, so you can't have rules from different levels mixing (i.e., you can't have some min-night customizations from one level and some from another level).

Identifying the Applicable Date-Specific Override

The following example shows what happens if a date has both a listing, group, and account level overrides. 









For each of the two date-specific overrides (price and minimum night):
  1. if a date has a listing-level override, then that gets used.
  2. if a date doesn't have the corresponding listing level override, and has one at the group level, then the corresponding group level override gets used.
  3. if a date doesn't have the corresponding listing and a sub-group level override, and has one at the group level, then the corresponding group level override gets used.
  4. if a date doesn't have the corresponding listing, sub-group or group level overrides, and has one at the account level, then the corresponding account level override gets used.
Another example:



Applying the Identified Customizations and Overrides

Things are straightforward if on any date only one customization or date-specific override is applicable. If not, the different overrides and customizations are applied in the following order to determine that day's price:
  1. If there are 'Fixed' overrides and Pricing Customizations, they are applied in the following order:
    Date-Specific Override > Last Minute Price > Orphan Day Price
    Note:     Account and Group-level '% change on base price' overrides are considered 'Fixed'. 
  2. If there's an Account or Group-level '% change on base price' override and no 'Fixed' Price Listing-level override, the Account or Group-level '% change on base price' override will take precedence regardless if there's a Fixed Minimum or Maximum Listing-level override.

    In the sample screenshot above, although there is a Fixed Maximum Price of 1,450 as Listing-level override, since there is a % change on Base Price of +270% on the Group-level override, the final price was calculated as 475 (base price) * 3.70 plus 10% final adjustment = 1,933.
  3. For dates that don't have any date-specific overrides applying to them, the Last Minute and Orphan Day Prices are applied if any.
    If there are both Last Minute and Orphan Day prices:
    1. If both are discounts, the larger discount is applied (since applying both discounts can result in a very large discount)
    2. If one is a discount and one is a premium, or if they are both premiums, both are applied
  4. Finally, the date-specific "% adjustment on recommended price" overrides and "Occupancy-Based Adjustments" are applied on top of the price to all dates that don't have 'Fixed' pricing customization.
To determine the minimum stay requirement, the applicable minimum night customizations and overrides are applied in the following hierarchy (in case a day has more than one rule):
Date-Specific Override > Far-out Minimum Stay > Last Minute Minimum Stay > Default Minimum Stay
The Orphan Day customization is applied over everything else if it won't increase the minimum night setting on a day.
For example, suppose you have a last-min min-night of 1 within 10 days, and orphan gap rule of "length of gap" for gaps 1-3 days. For an orphan gap of 2 days in the coming week, the "length of gap" orphan rule wouldn't apply because the last-min rule of 1 is lower.

We understand that this might be a lot to take in, but it is important to understand these if you are using customizations at multiple levels. Once you have gone through these, you will realize that they are fairly logical and easy to understand, and will be able to use these powerful features to their fullest!


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