Advanced Price Ranking and Upgrade

Use Advanced Settings if your property contains two or more distinct types of inventory that each need their own upgrade path, independent pricing or both. Here are two examples:

Your property has two physical towers with distinct characteristics, one with views of the ocean, the other with views of the parking lot. Each tower has Room Classes like Standard, Deluxe and Suites, and each has its own upgrade paths between those Room Classes. Furthermore, you might allow upgrades from the parking lot-view tower to the ocean-view tower, but never the other way around. See Scenario 2 below.

A resort that has one main building (with separate Room Classes like Standard, Deluxe, and Suites) and separate free-standing units (again with different Room Classes, like bungalows, casitas and villas). In other cases, the separate inventories are in the same building but distinct for other reasons, like a property that has regular hotel rooms and residences that are given to the hotel to rent when the owners do not occupy them.

In these scenarios, click the Advanced Settings option. It opens a similar page as before in Price Ranking but you can see an extra tower on the right side and you can add more towers, each representing a separate inventory. Use arrows to define the price ranking and upgrade relationship between the Room Classes in all towers.

Note: Advanced Settings is not available if you use Run of House overbooking. And Advanced Price Ranking doesn't apply if your property uses Master Class Pricing where the Master Class determines the BAR decisions of all Room Classes. You can use Advanced Upgrade Paths for complex upgrading between Room Classes. However, the Price Rank Only option is not relevant and G3 RMS ignores it.

Setup Steps

Click Next after you complete Room Type setup. The Price Ranking and Upgrade Path page displays.
Click the Advanced Settings link. The Advanced Settings page displays. Two inventories display by default, represented by two separate towers.
To add more towers for more than two inventories, click the add icon at the top of the page.
Click and drag Room Classes for each separate inventory from the first tower into blank spaces in the tower that represents their inventory.
Order the Room Classes in the towers by price rank. The price ranking follows the arrows.
Click an arrow to open an arrow selector. Click the appropriate arrow to indicate a Price Rank, Price Rank and Upgrade Path, or no connection. Click the direction arrows to change the direction of the price ranking or upgrade. You can have one or more price rankings and upgrade paths between towers.
- A solid arrow indicates the path is both Price Rank and Upgrade.
- An outlined arrow indicates only Price Rank. When an outlined arrow displays, the Room Class that it connects to is not included in the upgrade path.
- A dotted arrow indicates no relationship, either for price ranking or upgrade.
- The directional arrows change the direction of the price ranking or upgrade path between the two towers.
Click any blank space that you need to change to a Pass Through . A Pass Through is a filler space that you can use to create the appropriate relationships between Room Classes. A Pass Through can only have one arrow coming in and one arrow coming out. See Scenario 3 below.
Click Preview after you complete your setup. G3 RMS cleans up the display. Any redundant or unnecessary price ranking or upgrade paths are removed to simplify the display. This process does not change the setup.
Click Next. Continue to complete all the steps in Rooms setup.

Best Practices

Use the Correct Arrows to Define Relationships

Vertical arrows within a tower always point up. In other words, price ranking and upgrade path always go from the lowest priced Room Class at the bottom up to the higher priced Room Classes.

Horizontal arrows indicate relationships for price ranking or both price ranking and upgrade between towers. They can point in either direction between towers.

Price ranking is represented only by the arrows. There is not a numbered price rank displayed for each Room Class. This is because, with more than one tower, there are almost always Room Classes without direct price ranking relationship. See Scenario 2 below.

Be Careful With Towers Without An Upgrade Relationship

You can have independent towers that have no upgrade or no price rank and upgrade relationship with the other towers. However, keep in mind that any such independent tower, like an independent Room Class, cannot accept excess demand. In the case of zero demand for the independent tower or Room Class and more demand than capacity for the other tower, G3 RMS considers all the excess demand of the other tower as lost, and the independent tower or Room Class remains empty. See Scenario 2 below.

Understand the Impact on Price Ranking

When you set up an Advanced Price Ranking and Upgrade Path, G3 RMS no longer checks if your pricing in Rate Plan Configuration is aligned with the Room Class hierarchy. As an extreme example, G3 RMS would not warn you if you set up pricing for your highest-ranked Suites lower than for your Standard rooms.

Therefore, we recommend that you only enable the Advanced Settings if you truly require them. See the scenarios below for hotel setup when Advanced Settings are needed.

If you do not require Advanced Settings, click Exist Advanced Settings to restore a linear path.

Scenarios

Scenario 1: Two Physical Towers

In the example below, the property has two physical towers, the Resort View Tower and the Ocean View Tower. Each has Standard, Deluxe, and Suites. The setup below indicates the following:

Each of the two towers has a straight price ranking and upgrade path, from Standard to Deluxe to Suites.
Price ranking and upgrades go from the Resort View to the Ocean View Tower at each level. For example, the Resort View Deluxe can upgrade to either the Resort View Suite or to the Ocean View Deluxe.
Resort View Deluxe and Ocean View Standard both have to be priced below Ocean View Deluxe and above Resort View Standard. Otherwise, they are priced independently from each other because they are in separate towers. Based on their pricing setup, that could mean that Ocean View Standard is sometimes priced above Resort View Deluxe and sometimes below.

Resort View Tower		Ocean View Tower
Resort View Suite		Ocean View Suite

Resort View Deluxe		Ocean View Deluxe

Resort View Standard		Ocean View Standard

Scenario 2: Two Inventories That Don't Share Demand

In the example below, the hotel has six Room Classes separated into two inventories. The setup below indicates the following:

The Regular Hotel Rooms in the left tower and the Residences on the right have a straight upgrade path and price ranking within themselves.
There are no upgrade path relationships between the two inventories. If there is excess demand in either of the towers and not enough demand in the other tower, G3 RMS considers the excess demand as lost.
Residences – 1 Bedroom have to be priced below Specialty Suites, but there is no other price ranking relationship between Residences and Regular Hotel Rooms. If the pricing setup allows it, Residences – 1 Bedroom and Residences – Studio could be priced below Suites, Deluxe and Standard, if that was the output of the optimization.

Regular Hotel Rooms		Residences
Specialty Suites		Residences – 1 Bedroom

Suites		Residences – Studio

Deluxe

Standard

Scenario 3: Two Inventories with Linear Price Ranking

In the example below, the hotel has six Room Classes separated into two inventories. The setup below indicates the following:

Both towers have a straight upgrade path and price ranking within themselves.
Standard View cannot upgrade to Junior Suite, because, even though the Junior Suite is larger than the Standard View, guests insist on the view. However, the Price Rank Only arrow between them means that Standard View must be priced below Junior Suite.
Despite the Price Rank Only arrow (between Standard View and Junior Suite), each Room Class still has an uninterrupted upgrade path to the highest Room Class. Any excess demand is always accommodated if there is not enough demand for higher ranked Room Classes.
Pass Throughs are necessary to ensure the desired relationships, for example, that Standard View is ranked above Standard and below Junior Suite and that, at the same time, Standard View has upgrade paths with Standard and Junior Suite View.
This example is rare because a linear price ranking applies to all Room Classes: Standard is ranked 1, Standard View ranked 2, Junior Suite ranked 3, Junior Suite View ranked 4, One Bedroom Suites ranked 5, and so on.

Inventory without View		Inventory with View
		Specialty Suites

		One Bedroom Suites

		Junior Suite View

Junior Suite		Standard View

Standard

Scenario 4: Two Inventories with Price Ranking and Upgrades

In this example, the hotel has five Room Classes separated into two inventories. The setup below indicates the following:

Both towers have a straight upgrade path and price ranking within themselves.
Standard 2 Doubles cannot upgrade to Junior Suite, because the Junior Suite can't accommodate more than 2 guests and most demand for the Standard 2 Doubles is for 3 or more guests.
Standard King can only accommodate two guests, Standard 2 Doubles four guests. Demand often can't be moved between the two types. Therefore, the two Standard room types are in separate Room Classes even though their ADR is similar.
Standard King has to be priced lower than Junior Suites, but Standard 2 Doubles can be priced the same or higher than Junior Suites. This might occur when there is excess demand for triple or quadruple occupancy room types and not enough to fill the single or double occupancy room types.

Single or Double Occupancy		Triple or Quadruple Occupancy
		2 Bedroom Suite

Junior Suite		1 Bedroom Suite with Sofa

Standard King		Standard 2 Doubles