Rate plan inheritance: derived rates

Why	Keep a family of rates on a single base: edit the base rate and the children recalculate on their own. The typical case — a non-refundable rate always 15% below the main one.
Who	Administrators who run several rates: flexible plus non-refundable, channel-specific sets.
What you’ll get	A child rate with a price modifier; restriction inheritance from the parent; targeted exceptions for individual categories.
Limitations	Inheritance works within one property. A child rate gets no currency of its own — currency conversion is done with the “Currency exchange” modifier. The chain is broken with a modifier too, not by removing a link.

How the rate plan tree works, and why child rates exist at all, is covered in Rate plans: how they work. This article is the practice: create a child rate, give it a price formula, and decide what it takes from the parent and what it keeps for itself.

Why inheritance

The base rate holds the prices; the children are variations: a non-refundable rate at a discount, a channel rate with a markup. Edit the parent and the children recalculate by their own formulas: raise the main rate, and the “minus 15%” non-refundable rate moves down on its own — nothing to edit by hand.

Two maintenance rules follow from this design:

• prices are changed on the parent, not on each child in turn;
• a child differs from its parent by exactly what is written in its formula.

Create a child rate

1. Open “Rates” in the left menu — the “Rate plans” screen opens.
2. Press “Rate” — or open the card of the future parent and press “Create child rate”: it is the same form, only the “Parent rate” field is already filled in.
3. Fill in “Name” and “Meal type”, check the currency, and pick the “Parent rate” — the base rate the prices will be calculated from. Press “Save”.
4. Open the card of the new rate — it now has an “Inheritance” tab, which a standalone rate does not. The tab shows a “Parent rate → Child rate” diagram with both names.

Result: the child rate is created and linked to its parent; its price formula is set by the modifier on the “Inheritance” tab — the next section covers it.

The cancellation policy and categories are not picked in the creation form: the cancellation policy is set on the card’s “Cancellation policies” tab after saving. If the new rate is not visible in the list, tick the “Show hidden” checkbox above the list.

The price modifier

The child’s formula lives on the “Inheritance” tab, in the “Price modifier” block. The options:

• “Equal to parent” — the prices match the parent’s.
• “Percentage change” — a “Value” field with a ”%” suffix: minus for a discount off the parent, plus for a markup.
• “Fixed per person” and “Fixed per room” — a fixed amount on top of the parent’s price.
• “Currency exchange” — prices are calculated in the child’s currency; a currency pair indicator, such as “EUR → EUR”, is shown next to the option.
• “Break the chain (own prices)” — a special case, with its own section below.

The owner’s scenario “non-refundable below the main rate” takes one step: pick “Percentage change”, enter −15 in the “Value” field, and save. The child rate is now always 15% below the main one: any price change on the parent repeats in the child with the same discount.

Result: the child’s prices are calculated from the parent by a formula — a percentage, an amount, or a currency exchange; there is nothing to maintain by hand.

Breaking the chain

“Break the chain (own prices)” is not a separate button but one of the “Price modifier” options. Pick it and the rate gets prices of its own: it no longer follows the parent, and the parent’s edits no longer reach it.

The decision is deliberate and reversible: inheritance is restored in the same field — pick another modifier option, and the prices flow from the parent again, by formula.

What is inherited from restrictions

The “Restriction inheritance” block is a set of ten toggles, one per restriction type: “Min stay”, “Max stay”, “Min stay at check-in”, “Max stay at check-in”, “Closure”, “No arrival”, “No departure”, “Min days before arrival”, “Max days before arrival”, “OTA limit”.

While a toggle is on, the child’s restriction is the same as the parent’s: change the minimum stay on the parent and the child follows. Turn the toggle off, and that restriction becomes the child’s own and is edited separately. What the restrictions themselves mean is covered in the article on sales restrictions.

Exceptions by category

The “Price exceptions by category” block lists the room categories. Each shows an “Inherited” status, the text “Prices are calculated using the child rate’s inheritance formula”, and an “Enable price exception for category …” button.

The button opens an “Enable price exception?” dialog with a warning: “The prices of the main rate will be saved for category “Single Room”. After that, the category can be edited separately from the child rate’s formula.” The buttons are “Cancel” and “Enable price exception”.

Once confirmed, the category drops out of the formula: it keeps the saved prices, and from then on you edit it separately from the parent and the modifier.

Occupancy variants under inheritance

The modifier also applies to occupancy variants — party sizes such as “2 adults + 1 child”. The “Inheritance” tab lets you choose how:

• “Discount/markup on all variants” — “The rate modifier is applied to the price of each variant separately”.
• “Base only, recalculate the rest” — “The rate modifier is applied only to the base variant. The rest are recalculated from the new base according to the surcharge rules”.

The interface shows example formulas next to the choice, so you can see in advance how the modifier will land on the base variant and the surcharges. What occupancy variants are and how to set their surcharges is covered in a separate article of this section.

Honest boundaries

• Inheritance works within one property: a child rate is linked to a parent of the same property. Rates of two different properties cannot be joined into one chain.
• In the “Price manager” calendar, inherited rows are visible: the “Inherited” filter (next to “All” and “With price exceptions”) selects the rows calculated by a formula.
• A child rate gets no currency of its own: if prices should be calculated in another currency, use the “Currency exchange” modifier with its pair indicator, such as “EUR → EUR”.

See also

• Rate plans: how they work — the rate tree, meal types, and occupancy variants.
• Occupancy variants — party sizes and surcharges the modifier applies to.
• Sales restrictions — what the ten toggles inherit.
• The price calendar: how to read and use it — the price grid, where inherited rows show up through a filter.