Rate plan

A named, sellable price with conditions attached. Not just a number.

A rate plan bundles the price with the rules that govern it: the cancellation policy, the minimum and maximum length of stay, how far ahead it can be booked, whether anything is included such as breakfast, and which guests or channels can see it. The same room on the same night can carry several rate plans at once, typically a cheaper non-refundable one and a dearer flexible one.

Rate plans are where distribution gets fiddly. Each channel has its own structure for them, so a plan built in your property management system has to be mapped to the equivalent on every channel you sell through. Where that mapping is wrong, the price is usually right and the conditions are not, which is how a guest ends up holding a free cancellation you never intended to offer.

When a vendor says you can now manage rate plans from inside their platform, the thing to verify is what happens to the plans you already built in the channel's own extranet.