Rack rate against the prices guests actually pay
The name comes from the rate card that once sat in a rack at the front desk. Few guests pay it. What they pay is usually a rate set below it: the best available rate for the date, a non-refundable price, a corporate contract rate, a package with meals, or an online travel agency's rate.
The rack rate still does a job: it is the ceiling, and the reference every other rate is measured from. A hotel that sells at its rack rate most nights has probably set it too low; one that never gets near it has a rack rate nobody believes.
Example
A deluxe room with a rack rate of ₹4,500 might sell at ₹3,800 as the flexible rate on a peak weekend, ₹3,200 on a weekday, ₹2,900 to a company with a contract, and ₹3,400 with breakfast as a package.
How Nivasik handles it
- Each room type has a standard price, and rate plans (the flexible rate, a non-refundable rate) with a price for any night, seasonal and per date.
- A booking is priced from its rate plan where one exists. Changing a type's standard price moves the plans that were still tracking it — and only those, so a plan deliberately set 10% under is left alone.