Rates Setup - 2-night minimum for weekends

We're often asked if you can force 2-night minimums, e.g. for a weekend or for holidays.  While there isn't a built-in way to actually force 2-day stays (and any Advanced Customization solution would be complex and not fool-proof -- see a previous article in newsletter 38), there is a way to make sure that Auto-Rates will always charge 2 weekend nights even if the reservation has only 1 night on the weekend.  These same techniques could be used for similar cases of 3-day holiday weekends, etc., with appropriate modifications.

UPDATE: Version 10.0 added Reservation Restrictions to actually make this possible to enforce minimum stays.  See the new article here:

https://campgroundmaster.com/news/reservation-restriction---3-da.html

Of course you may still want to have rates set up like explained below:

This example covers the specific case of making sure that if they stay on a weekend (Friday or Saturday), that they are charged 2 days at the weekend rate even if they only stay one weekend day and another weekday (e.g. Sunday or Thursday).  This also covers the case of charging 2 nights even if they stay only one night (optional).

There is too much to cover for a step-by-step walk through, so this assumes you're already familiar with basic Rates Setup and most of the common situations, e.g. as covered in the "Rate Setup Examples" in the documentation.

The Details:

It will need to first check for the reservation being on both weekend days, then for it "touching" a weekend (1 weekend day plus 1 weekday), and finally for being only 1 weekend night (optional).  So you need to create 2 or 3 special rates:

1. First is the "both weekend days" rate -- similar to a normal weekend rate (Fri & Sat selected), but make a 2-day rate e.g. "Rate is per _2_ (# of) _Days_, and the Charge amount will need to be for both days (e.g. if $30/day, enter $60 for the Each amount).

2. Second is the "touching a weekend" rate.  The way to handle the "touching a weekend" rate is to have a 2-day rate with the days Thu through Sun selected -- same as above but covering all 4 days, Thu/Fri/Sat/Sun.  The reason this is a separate rate and 2nd in order is so that it's not used for the first 2 days of a Thu-Sat stay -- e.g if they stay 3 days Thu/Fri/Sat, the Fri-Sat should be covered by the 2-day rate above, leaving Thu for the normal weekday rate.

3. Those 2 rates will handle 2-day (or more) stays touching Fri/Sat.  Now you may also need to consider a 1-day stay that would also need to charge 2 days.  So make a 1-day rate with only Fri & Sat checked that still has the 2-days' Charge.  If you don't want 1-day weekend stays to be charged for 2 days, then you'll still need a 1-day weekend rate, but just make it charge for the single day.

Of course this will need to be done for EACH site type and season, situation, etc. that would normally have a different weekend or weekday rate, if you have such multiple situations.

As always, the order is important.  It should look like this:

...any monthly/weekly first

Any 1-day holiday rates that should override weekends

Any 1-day discount rates that would override weekends (see note below)

2-day weekend-only rate (Fri/Sat) as explained above

2-day "touching weekend" rate (Thu-Sun) as explained above

1-day weekend rate (optionally charging for 2 days as explained above)

1-day (normal) weekday rate

Note that if you have Discounts like Good Sam that also discount the weekend rates, then the 3 separate weekend rates plus the weekday rate need to be duplicated for the Discounts as well, so it would be:

...any monthly/weekly first

Any holiday rates that should override weekends

Discounted 2-day weekend-only rate (Fri/Sat)

Discounted 2-day "touching weekend" rate (Thu-Sun)

Discounted 1-day weekend rate (optionally charging for 2 days as explained above)

Discounted 1-day weekday rate

Non-discounted 2-day weekend-only rate (Fri/Sat)

Non-discounted 2-day "touching weekend" rate (Thu-Sun)

Non-discounted 1-day weekend rate (optionally charging for 2 days as explained above)

Non-discounted (normal) 1-day weekday rate

Of course if you need to do the same for holiday stays that "touch" a holiday, that gets even more complicated... although that can often be done by simply extending the Season Dates Applicable to 1 or 2 days before/after the holiday.