You can offer discounted rates through the booking engine or channel manager.
The discounts can be available any date, or only on specific dates.
Discounts can be offered based on :
the length of stay
the lead time of the booking (e.g. early booker or last minute booker)
The discount can be a % discount or a value discount, and can be
per stay
per person per night
per room per night
per person per stay
Discounts are applied to rate plans, e.g. you might have the following rate plans
Room Only
Bed and Breakfast
Then you can create a discount e.g. 3 nights receive €5 off per night. You only need to create the discount once and apply it to each of the rate plans. The discount will automatically be applied (and advertised) on the booking engine.
Discounts are not available if the rate plan is not available, i.e. if you close room only for tonight, you don't need to close the discount, as it will only be applied if the rate plan is also available. You can close a discount on any dates that you do not want to offer the discount. This can be done on the rates screen by Ctrl+Click on the discount, on the given date you wish to close.
When closed it will be highlighted in red on the rates screen.
Mapping discounts on the channel manager
If you have a discount that reduces the rate based on a % for a particular length of stay, it should be mapped to a rate that is derived on the OTA, as the nightly rate being sent across by the channel manager would not be correct for the different lengths of stays the guest may be searching for. The discount should also be configured on the OTA and they will calculate the correct rate.
The mapping is important so you can close the discount on the OTA and also when bookings are retrieved, the channel manager will correctly identify the discount in the reservation created within the Diary.