Best Available Rates (BAR)

Prerequisites: Best Available Rates (BAR)

Best Available Rates (BAR) are the best rates available per room type for a property. When Best Available Rates (BAR) are configured for a property, the best rates available for the property appear on the Look To Book Sales screen's rate availability display based on the specified date range and BAR criteria searched.

Overview of BAR Types

Once you activate Best Available Rates for your property, the application setting Best Available Rate Type becomes available. This setting enables you to choose one of three types of BAR rates to determine how your property handles Best Available Rates (BAR). Only one of the following options can be selected for the BAR type:

• Best Available Rates by Day — You can configure up to 25 rate codes per day and room type for your property. This Best Available Rate returns four best available rate codes out of the 25 rate codes configured for the stay date, by room type, per availability search. If this setting is selected, you cannot activate the Dynamic Best Available Rates (DBAR) function for your property.

• Best Available Rates by LOS — The best available rate is determined based on the length of stay. This enables you to configure one rate code per length of stay per day. The rate search returns that rate code for the given search criteria, based on the arrival date and length of stay, and returns only one rate amount per room type as the best available rate. If this setting is selected, you cannot activate the Dynamic Best Available Rates (DBAR) function for your property.

• Best BAR by Day — Out of all best available rates, only the best rate code shows. You can configure BAR based rate codes to calculate the rate amount based on the best BAR rate code's amount. The availability search automatically groups all BAR rates by room type for the date and the lowest available rate for the selected room type shows. Each room type can have a different rate code. Selecting Best BAR by Day makes BAR Based functionality available on the Rate Code Configuration screen.

Note:

When a Best Available Rate type is selected, assuming an alternate type was previously configured, rates for the previous type are removed from rate availability viewing.

BAR Configuration Process

Once the Best Available Rates function is activated, you must select the BAR type to use at your property. This is done by selecting it in the Best Available Rate Type setting in OPERA Controls as explained above.

Next, you must select the actual rate codes to use for the BAR type. These rate codes are created through the Rate Code Configuration screen by selecting the Administration menu, selecting Financial, selecting Rate Management, and then selecting Rate Codes. From the Rate Code Configuration screen, you can select the Best Available Rate option under Rate Code Type.

Note:

When selecting rate codes for use as a BAR type, all the selected rate codes must be configured with the same currency. A rate code with a different currency is not returned during rate availability queries.

Configuration Guidelines for Rate Codes used as BAR

You can use both new and existing rate codes for Best BAR (BBAR) rates, but you must follow these guidelines:

• A BBAR rate code cannot be based on itself.

• All BBAR rate codes should have the same currency for the system to consider them when returning available room types and their lowest rates.

• All BBAR-based rate codes (those calculated and reduced using the BAR base rate, such as negotiated rates) should have the same currency as the BBAR rate code.

• BBAR based rate codes and BBAR rate codes cannot be configured into Blocks because the block price is static and closing or opening rate codes based on hurdles is dynamic in the system.

• Prerequisites: Best Available Rates (BAR)