Promotions - Setting Up & Managing Promotion Codes
Quick Answer: This article covers Promotion Codes in GuestPoint.
Promotion Codes can be used manually on GuestPoint for direct bookings, or integrated with our official GuestPoint Booking Engine.
Our Promotion Code feature is very simple and only offers the following options:
1. Apply a percentage-based or amount-based discount on a booking's nightly rates
2. Set a flat nightly rate
The most common Promotion Codes are offers like Stay 2 Nights and get 10% discount (Minimum Nights set-up), or a Book Direct and get 5% discount type of promotion.
Promotion Codes are also an easy way to apply company-specific flat rates for any repeat companies that have directly negotiated a rate with you.
Promotion Codes can be used manually on GuestPoint for direct bookings, or integrated with our official GuestPoint Booking Engine.
Our Promotion Code feature is very simple and only offers the following options:
1. Apply a percentage-based or amount-based discount on a booking's nightly rates
2. Set a flat nightly rate
The most common Promotion Codes are offers like Stay 2 Nights and get 10% discount (Minimum Nights set-up), or a Book Direct and get 5% discount type of promotion.
Promotion Codes are also an easy way to apply company-specific flat rates for any repeat companies that have directly negotiated a rate with you.
Promotion Codes on GuestPoint
Promotion Codes can be manually entered onto a booking's Reservation screen in the Rates section, or be used by a guest when they are booking online our GuestPoint Booking Engine.
When a promotion code is applied, it can do one of the following effects to the booking's nightly rates:
1. A percentage-based amount or a fixed amount off a nightly rate
2. A set flat nightly rate
OPTIONAL MINIMUM NIGHTS CONDITION
A minimum night requirement can be applied to the promotion code so that it only applies for bookings that satisfy the minimum night requirement.
Set Up & Management of Promotion Codes
Promotions are created & managed in Management > Setup > Standard Rates, Extras & Promotions > Promotions tab
Click into the New Promotion button on the right to begin the process. You will see below New Promotion screen and the fields required to be inputted.
Code - The promotion code you enter to apply the promotion. Typically, these are 4-8
character codes. Codes needs to be unique from other codes.
Name - Give your promotion a
name so it is easy for you to identify.
Limit Quantity - If you want to limit the number of times that the Promotion Code can be used, set a limit here.
Leave this field blank (not 0, but blank) for unlimited usage.
Book Period - Enter the booking date range for which the promotional code is applicable for.
The code will only work if new bookings are made during this Book Period.
Stay Period - Enter the stay date
range (on a nightly basis) in which this promotion is applicable for.
The code will only work if bookings are within this Stay Period.
Web Description - If a guest enters the Promotion Code
into your online booking page, they will
see this description appear.
Use this section to describe the promotion and any terms and conditions.
Rate - Select the rate plan(s) that the promotion code is applicable for.
Select Promo Days - If you wish
to exclude day(s) from the stay date range (e.g. weekends), you can remove the blue highlight on selected days of the week and the promo code will not apply on
those selected days.
Blue Highlight - Included
No Highlight (White) - Excluded
Discount Type - Select what the promotion code does when applied, whether it is a percentage-based discount, fixed amount based discount, or a flat set nightly rate.
Apply Discount To - Select
whether the discount is applied to your Standard or Dynamic Rates. This option doesn't apply to flat set nightly rate option.
The safest option is always Dynamic Rates option, there is very little use scenarios for the Standard Rates option.
Minimum Nights - Set the minimum number of nights required for this promotion code to work on a booking.
The default number is 1 if no minimum night condition applies to your promotion code.
When you have inputted all required fields in the New Promotion screen, proceed to Save the new promotion code.
Promotion Code Set-Up Continued
Once you create a new promotion code, expand the new promotion code out by clicking into your new promotion code.
You will see an expanded section with a similar set-up to the New Promotion screen as per below image.
There are a few more additional set-up fields that you don't exist on the New Promotion Screen.
These fields relate to online bookings through our GuestPoint Booking Engine only, but most of them are redundant nowadays as they relate to old features on GuestPoint.
Web Booking Notes (Recommended) - Very similar to Web Description, these populate the Booking/Confirmation Notes of a booking's Reservation screen when this promotion code is used for an online booking via our GuestPoint Booking Engine.
This is an optional field, but you should copy paste the same content from Web Description - it can be used as a quick internal reference tool on the Reservation screen and highlighting what the promotion code is for and the terms & conditions that apply.
Web Booking Source (Optional) - If you wish to keep track of whether a website booking from GuestPoint Booking Engine is using a promotional code or not, you can attach it to a booking source of your choosing when the online booking comes to GuestPoint.
You may wish to create a new Booking Source for this purpose in Management > Setup > Profile Fields, Booking Sources & Competitors > Booking Sources tab
Web Settings (Very Optional & Can be Ignored) - There are three checkboxes that can appear here relating to when a booking is made online through GuestPoint Booking Engine.
Almost all of these options are redundant nowadays and do not need to be used at all.
1. Link this Promo Code to Guest - The promotional code used is attached to the guest profile so that it applies by default when you make new bookings on GuestPoint for the same guest profile. This feature is useful for regular guest scenarios that always have a discount of some sort, but it is not practical in an online booking scenario.
2. Join Guest to Loyalty Program - Previously we had a Loyalty Program on GuestPoint that used to work with our older booking engines. This does not apply to our new booking engine.
3. Hide Promo Banner - Only relevant for our old booking engines which will be depreciated with time. Does not apply to our new booking engine.
Copy Link - This is a useful feature that produces a website URL link that takes you straight to the GuestPoint Booking Engine with the promotional code already applied instead of the booker having to manually input the promotion code.
When you click on the blue Copy Link button, GuestPoint generates a quick link that you can copy paste (Ctrl + V) onto your browser URL or provide as a link to your clientele directly.
The link will have a domain URL resembling something like: http://save.so/NumbersAndLetters/YourPromoCode
Once you click into it, you are taken to your GuestPoint Booking Engine with the promotion code applied already.
If you wish to provide a better-presenting promotion code URL to your clientele, proceed to the same save.so quick link for your promotion code.
When you are on the booking engine with the promotion code already applied, look to the current browser URL.
The wording should look like something below:
https://YourBookingEngineDomainName.bookus.direct/?promoCode=YourPromoCode
This is a nicer looking that URL would take you to the same save.so URL from using the Copy Link function on the Promotion Code.
You can then provide this new website URL link to your clientele or use it as a hyperlink in your emails.
Applying a Default Promotion Code to a Guest, Company, or Agent Profile
For any regular guests, company, or agent that books directly with you, you can apply a Default Promotion Code to their profile so that the promotional code is automatically applied to any new bookings you manually create using that profile.
This feature is very useful if you have a regular guest that always receive a discount when they stay with you, or if a company or agent has negotiated a specific nightly rate with you.
You may access the Default Promotion Code setting of a guest, company, or agent profile in Customers > Guests or Companies or Agents tab > Search for your profile & Open the profile
Input the promotion code to attach to their profile in above Default Promotion Code field and Save Changes.
All new bookings created using that profile will now automatically pre-fill the Promotion Code field.
Proceed to test your promotion code by trying to create a new reservation and selecting that same guest/company/agent profile and see if the Promotion Code is automatically applied to your booking.
What a Promotion Code CANNOT do on GuestPoint
A promotion code on GuestPoint cannot do the following common frequently asked scenarios:
1. Stay 3 Nights and Get 1 Night Off type of offerings
1. Stay 3 Nights and Get 1 Night Off type of offerings
Promotional codes apply on the nightly rates of all applicable day(s) of the week, you cannot choose what "night" the promotion code specifically acts on.
To closely mimic this type of Stay x Nights and Get Y Night offering on our system, you can only use the Minimum Nights option with a percentage-based discount.
I.e., above 3 nights and 1 night off option can be mimicked with a 33.33% discount and a 3 night minimum stay requirement. The overall effect is roughly 1 night free.
2. Stay 3 Nights and Get 4th Night Off type of offerings
Exactly the same as above scenario but this involves a 4 night stay.
You can closely mimick this with a 25% discount setting and a 4 night minimum stay requirement.
You can closely mimick this with a 25% discount setting and a 4 night minimum stay requirement.
3. Integrate with the promotional codes of another booking engine (i.e. the SiteMinder Booking Button) or other systems.
If you set up a promotion code on another booking engine that is not the GuestPoint Booking Engine, our system does not know how to link the two together when it comes to GuestPoint. You can still use the promotion code on your other booking engine/system and the correct discounted nightly rates will come through.
4. Rounding Options
Unfortunately our promotional code feature does not have a rounding option when it applies percentage-based discount or fixed-amount discounts.
Unfortunately our promotional code feature does not have a rounding option when it applies percentage-based discount or fixed-amount discounts.
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