Overview
ThinkReservations offers a Yield Management tool designed to maximize your revenue by adjusting your rates in response to real-time supply and demand. This feature allows you to set up rules that automatically adjust your rates based on occupancy and booking window parameters that you set. In order to leverage this feature, you will first configure your Yield Management Plans, then apply them to your Rate Types.
Automatic Yield Management is a powerful time-saving tool that can capture opportunities to increase your revenue. However, before configuring this feature, you should review your rates to build out a dynamic structure that factors in your peak seasons and any peaks within your peak season. Having a strong foundation with intentional rate structuring will maximize the impact of the Yield Management tool and allow you to assess what Yield Management Rules make sense for your business - each business is different.
How do I set up a up Yield Management Plan?
To get started with Yield Management Plans, we'll review the steps to setting up a Yield Management Plan that applies to all rooms or room types as an example.
Navigate to Settings > Yield Management Plans > click the New button.
Name your Yield Management Plan and select the All Room Types option.
Configure your first rule - occupancy thresholds are required, and advanced booking windows are optional.
Add additional rules as needed by clicking the Add Rule button and then configuring.
Remove unwanted rules by clicking the X button on the right-hand side of the corresponding row.
When you've completed your work, be sure to click the Save button in the bottom right.
Understanding the Example
Let's review the Yield Management Rules configured in the example above.
Rule #1 at the top says: If I have high occupancy (70% to 100%) and guests are searching for dates that are more than seven days out, I want to increase the price by 20 dollars. This rule applies only during the date range specified.
Rule #2 says: If I have medium occupancy (40% to 70%) and guests are searching for dates that are more than seven days out, I want to increase the price by 8 dollars. This rule applies to all dates.
Rule #3 says: If I have low occupancy (0% to 30%) and guests are searching for dates within the next seven days, I want to decrease the price by 10 percent. This rule applies to all dates.
How do OCCUPANCY and ADVANCED BOOKING BY ranges work?
The Occupancy and Advanced booking by options feature two entry boxes. The boxed work together to give the system a range. An empty box means there is no limiter. Looking at rule 2 in the above example, the rule will apply when the occupancy is greater than or equal to 40% to less than 70%.
The first box is greater than or equal. | The second box is less than. |
Important: For the booking range, don't forget 0 is a number! 1 day means tomorrow. 0 days means today. For a rule that applies just to same-day reservations, the rule should read 0 to 1 days.
Considerations for Yield Management Rules
Below are some additional considerations for creating Yield Management Rules:
There are no limits to the number of rules you can create in one Yield Management Plan.
Overlapping rules are cumulative.
Yield Management is calculated per rate type based on the occupancy of the rooms within the room types that are enabled on that rate type.
Your rules are based on occupancy percentages. Occupancy percentage varies based on the number of rooms included in the rate type.
Example 1: If your property has several rooms, but a rate type applies to only two of those rooms, Yield Management Plans applied to that rate type will calculate occupancy based on how many of those two rooms are available.
Example 2: If you have a yield management plan where you have indicated only some room types are eligible using the settings on the yield management plan, the occupancy is still calculated based on how many total rooms are in the rate type, but the rule will only apply to the rooms indicated in the yield management plan.
Example 3: If you have rooms that are unavailable due to room-linking but don't have a reservation or blackout, they are still considered as part of the overall percentage calculation of total rooms.
Blackouts count towards occupancy.
Linked rooms count towards occupancy. For example, if you have a Whole House "room" option that results in your individual rooms being blocked when it's rented, you will need to include the Whole House "room" as part of your occupancy.
We still highly recommend you supplement automatic rules with manual yield management to maximize your revenue potential.
Applying Yield Management Plans
Once you have created your Yield Management Plans, you can then apply them to any applicable rate types using the steps below:
Navigate to Settings > Rate Types > click on the rate type to open it.
On the Details tab and in the Pricing section, click the "Add Plan" button and select the appropriate Yield Management Plan from the dropdown menu.
Once your selections are complete, click the Save button in the bottom right.
Important: You can apply multiple Yield Management Plans to the same Rate Type. When leveraging multiple Yield Management Plans, the recommended best practice is that each room or room type should apply only one Yield Management Plan. Configuring more than one Yield Management Plan applied to the same room type can result in unexpected pricing adjustments.
Using Multiple Yield Management Plans
You may want to take advantage of multiple Yield Management plans to make occupancy and advanced booking pricing adjustments that vary for different room types. For example, perhaps your property has a combination of Guest Suites and Villas. You may want to apply a more modest increase as availability becomes more scares in your Suites and a steeper increase as availability becomes more scarce in your Villas.
To accomplish this, follow the steps below:
When creating your Yield Management Plans, choose the "Some Room Types" option and select the rooms to which this plan should apply.
Next, navigate to Settings > Rate Types > choose the rate type to which these rules should apply.
On the Details tab and in the Pricing section, click the "Add Plan" button and select the appropriate Yield Management Plan from the dropdown menu.
Click "Add Plan" again, and continue to add as many Yield Management Plans as you need.
Once your selections are complete, click the Save button in the bottom right.
Considerations for Multiple Yield Management Plans
The same Yield Management Plan may be applied to multiple Rate Types. Similarly, each rate type can have a unique Yield Management plan.
It is recommended that only one Yield Management Plan should be applied to each room type to avoid unintended price adjustments. For example, if you choose to apply multiple Yield Management Plans to the same rate type, we recommend applying each Yield Management Plan to a unique subset of room types.
⚠️ IMPORTANT: How Occupancy Triggers Are Calculated
Yield management rules calculate occupancy based on the total capacity of the Rate Type, not individual room selections.
The "Rooms" tab is a filter, not a calculation basis: Selecting specific rooms in a Yield Plan only controls which rooms receive the rate update. It does not isolate their occupancy calculation for the trigger.
Shared Rate Types pool occupancy: If "Villas" (4 rooms) and "Casitas" (6 rooms) share the same Rate Type ("Best Available Rate"), the system triggers yield rules based on the combined occupancy of all 10 rooms.
How to yield room classes independently: To trigger rate changes for different room classes on their own terms, you must create separate Rate Types (e.g., BAR – Villas and BAR – Casitas) and link each to its own dedicated Yield Management Plan.
Viewing Your Live Pricing
When you add new Yield Management Plans or make changes to existing plans, you will not see these reflected in your rate type calendar. Why? Because this is where you set the base rates.
How do you see the changes?
On your reservation Calendar:
Navigate to your reservation calendar using the Calendar link in the top menu.
Click the View dropdown menu and select "Show Rates"
The prices you see on the calendar will reflect any adjustments made by your Yield Management Plans.
On your Booking Engine:
Navigate to your Booking Engine from your website or from Settings > Booking Engine and click on the Booking Engine URL at the top of the page.
Search for availability on the dates you would like to check.
The prices you see on the booking engine will reflect any adjustments made by your Yield Management Plans.