January, and the August calendar is still almost empty. A booking comes in for one night, Wednesday 12 August. You are pleased for a few minutes. Then you see what happened: the room now has a gap from Saturday to Wednesday and another from Thursday to Saturday. Families looking for a week by the sea fit nowhere. At the end of the season you count gaps like this and realise money was lost somewhere.
That is what availability restrictions are for. There are five, they have English names that sound harder than they are, and they do simple things. You set them once in your system and the channel manager sends them to Booking.com, Airbnb and the other channels. Let us take them one by one.
1. Stop sell: "stop selling"
What it does: it closes a rate plan for specific dates. The room may be free, but it is not sold at that rate.
When you use it: when you renovate a floor, when you hold rooms for a wedding or a group, or when you want to close the non-refundable rate for August and sell only the standard one.
How it differs from "0 availability": availability is about the room. Stop sell is about the rate. With stop sell on the "with breakfast" plan, the "room only" plan can keep selling.
2. Minimum stay
What it does: it blocks bookings shorter than a number of nights.
When you use it: in August, at weekends, over holidays. A common example: 3 nights minimum from 1 to 20 August.
There are two versions, and the difference matters:
- Min stay arrival: the rule looks only at the arrival day. If Saturday has a 3-night minimum, anyone arriving on Saturday stays at least 3. Someone arriving on Friday, which has no restriction, can book 2 nights and pass through Saturday.
- Min stay through: the rule applies to every night of the stay. If Saturday has a 3-night minimum, any booking that includes Saturday must be at least 3 nights, whatever the arrival day.
For a property that wants weekends filled with longer stays, "through" is stricter. For one that only wants to avoid one-night Saturday arrivals, "arrival" is enough.
3. Maximum stay
What it does: it blocks bookings longer than a number of nights.
When you use it: less often. For example, on a special offer valid for up to 5 nights, or when you do not want one booking to lock a room for all of August at a low rate you set in January.
4. Closed to arrival (CTA)
What it does: no booking can start on that date. A stay that started earlier can still run through it.
When you use it: when nobody is there for check-in, for example on Sundays at rentals run by one family. Or when you want every weekly stay to start on Saturday: you close the other days to arrival.
5. Closed to departure (CTD)
What it does: no booking can end on that date.
When you use it: when the housekeeping team does not work on a certain day, or when you know a departure on the Sunday of the mid-August holiday will leave a gap that is hard to fill.
The Wednesday booking, again
Back to the opening example. With a 5-night minimum stay for August, the one-night Wednesday booking would not have happened. If you want Saturday-to-Saturday weeks, you also close the other days to arrival. Restrictions do not remove every gap, and you should relax them as the dates get closer, because a two-night gap in August sells more easily if you accept 2 nights. But they keep long stays from being cut into small pieces.
A rough calculation: a 10-room property that loses 4 single nights per room over the summer has 40 nights unsold. Multiply by your average August rate and you will see whether a restriction is worth setting.
How you set them in Bookmatrix.com
Restrictions are set per rate plan and per day, on the same screen as the rates. From there the channel manager sends them together with the rates to Booking.com, Airbnb and the other channels, up to 500 days ahead. Your own booking engine reads the same calendar, so they apply there too.
- Bulk change: pick a date range and days of the week, for example "every Saturday from 1 July to 31 August", and set the restriction once.
- Plans that inherit: a rate plan derived from another, for example "with breakfast" from "room only", can take the restrictions of the original, so you do not set them twice.
- Stop sell from the calendar: you close dates from the reservations calendar and write a note with the reason, so your colleague sees it too.
One practical point: not every channel shows every restriction the same way. After the first setup, open the Booking.com extranet and the Airbnb calendar and check two or three dates. If you want to see why it pays to set everything from one place, read why every hotel needs a channel manager.
Frequently asked questions
What is stop sell on Booking.com?
It closes a rate plan for specific dates. The plan is not offered for booking, even if rooms are free. When you remove it, the plan sells again.
What is the difference between min stay arrival and min stay through?
Arrival checks only the arrival day. Through checks every night of the stay, so a booking that merely passes through a restricted day must respect it too.
If I set stop sell in Bookmatrix.com, does it close on Airbnb too?
Yes. The restriction is sent to every channel connected to that rate plan, within seconds.
Can I have a different minimum stay on each channel?
Yes, when each channel is connected to a different rate plan. Otherwise one set of rules covers every channel.
Want to see how restrictions are set up for your own property? Start the free 14-day demo at bookmatrix.com/demo. Or tell us what gaps you see on your calendar at bookmatrix.com/form and we will call you on the next working day. You can also call us at +30 2351 151525.