Promotions

Use a promotion to offer a temporary discount on a rate plan, such as an early-bird or a stay-longer deal. In Veridien a promotion is its own rate plan, built on the rate plan it discounts. It takes that plan's price for each night, including its seasonal intervals, and applies the discount on top, so a promotion is never priced by hand and never drifts from the plan it discounts.

Open Promotions from the Sell group in the sidebar. Everything is one table: each promotion is a row, with its Public name, what it Discounts, its Code, and its Direct and Channels switches.

1. On the Promotions page, select New promotion.
2. Choose the Room type the promotion prices.
3. Enter a Name, for example "Early Bird" or "Stay 4 Pay 3". Staff see this name.
4. Under Discount, choose the rate plan in Discount applied to, a Discount type and the Amount. A discount is a minus: -15 takes 15 off. The types are:
   • Percent of the parent rate: a percentage off the plan's nightly rate.
   • Fixed amount per night: an amount off per room per night.
   • Amount per guest, per night: an amount off per guest per night.
5. Optionally set the Sale window, Stay window, Length of stay and Days of the week, and the Cancellation policy and Deposit and balance terms, as for a rate plan.
6. Under Sales channels, choose where it sells (see Distribution). Under Guest listing, set the Public name, Description and Image address guests see in offers returned by the API.
7. Select Create promotion. The promotion appears as a row in the table.

To change a promotion later, open it from the table. Its page has Discount, Reservation rules, Policies and Distribution tabs, and each section saves when you leave it.

Because a promotion is built on a rate plan, its price is always that plan's current price less the discount. If you change the plan's rates or seasons, the promotion follows.

• A public promotion can be reserved by anyone once its Direct switch is on.
• A code-gated promotion stays hidden until a guest enters a code that unlocks it. Turn on Requires a promo code on the promotion's Distribution tab; the table then marks it Code required, and shows Needs a code until you add one.

To make a gated promotion public again, turn off Requires a promo code.

Each promotion row carries its codes in the Code column. Select Add code to create one, select a code to edit it, or point at it and select its delete button to remove it. A code sets:

• Code: the text a guest types, at least 3 characters. Case does not matter; codes are stored and matched in upper case. A code cannot be renamed once created, because reservations keep the code they were made with. To change it, delete the code and create a new one.
• Unlocks: the promotion the code opens.
• Valid from and Valid to: an optional window during which the code works.
• Total redemptions: an optional cap on how many times the code can be used across all guests.
• Per guest: an optional cap per guest.

Select Create code to save a new code, or Save changes when editing.

Each promotion has two switches, in the table and on its Distribution tab:

• Direct: whether the promotion is offered to guests who book direct through the API.
• Channels: whether it is sent to connected OTAs. When the channel sync would leave the plan out, this switch is locked and an info button next to it explains why under Not distributed, so the table never claims a rate is live on a channel when it is not. A promotion behind a promo code always stays off the channels, because sending it to an OTA would make it public.

When a guest books a promotion, its nightly rates are the discounted plan's rates for those dates (including any seasonal interval) with the discount applied. The reservation total is the sum of those nights. As with every rate plan, a reservation already placed keeps the price it was quoted, even if you later change or delete the promotion.

Requiring a code but never adding one. A promotion that requires a code with no code attached can never be used. The table flags it as Needs a code.

Building a discount into the rate plan. Do not make a discount by lowering the rate plan's price. Create a promotion instead, so the rate plan keeps stating the real rate and the discount stays visible and trackable.

Forgetting the Direct switch. A promotion with Direct off does not appear to guests who book through the API, even when it is public or has a code.