Lesson 3: Asking about prices
The Pricing tab talks to Exubee's pricing specialist. It suggests room prices by room type, using your occupancy, how fast bookings are coming in, your local events calendar, and the rates of the competitors you track.
Who sees the Pricing tab: owners and managers.
What it can do
- Recommend a new price for a room type, or putting it back to the base price.
- Show its working: in Co-Pilot it answers with a table — Room Type, Base, Current, Occupancy%, Nearby Competitor Rate, Recommended, Action and Reasoning — and does not change anything by itself.
- Propose a price change as a card you Approve, Edit or Reject.
- Look at group requests and group blocks, check how many rooms a group has picked up, and propose new blocks, changes to a block, or declining a request.
The suggestion chips on this tab are a good start: Recommend standard room price, Check booking velocity trend, Analyze RevPAR for this week, Suggest seasonal rate adjustments.
Built-in safety limits
Two limits hold whatever you ask:
- A recommended price stays between 70% and 300% of the room type's base price.
- A room's price can move at most 15% in a day by default. The owner can make this stricter on the Autonomy page, but not looser.
These are safety nets, not targets. "Use the full 15%" is the wrong instinct. Tell Exubee the outcome you want and let it find the price.
How to ask well
Give numbers, not adjectives. "Be aggressive this weekend" tells Exubee nothing it can act on.
Weak: "Be aggressive with Deluxe this weekend."
Strong: "Deluxe is 5 of 7 rooms sold for Saturday and there's a wedding in Riverside. Recommend a Saturday price for Deluxe, not above NPR 9,000."
Name the cause of demand. Exubee prices better when it knows why.
"The Riverside marathon is on the 12th and we have a group block of 6 rooms that night. What should Standard and Deluxe cost on the 11th and 12th?"
Ask for a comparison before a change.
"Compare our Standard, Deluxe and Suite prices with our competitor set for the next seven days. Don't change anything yet."
Ask about a slow period.
"Standard rooms are 2 of 8 sold for Tuesday and Wednesday next week. What price would help fill them? Don't suggest below NPR 3,000."
Ask about groups.
"Show group requests waiting for an answer, and how many rooms the Carter family block has picked up so far."
What not to ask
| Instead of… | Why it does not work | Ask… |
|---|---|---|
| "Keep discounting until we pass 80%." | Exubee suggests a price for now; it does not keep watching and acting on a condition. | "What should Standard cost for Tuesday at today's 25% occupancy?" Then set a rule as a policy (Lesson 6). |
| "Undercut the hotel next door." | It only knows competitors you track, and matching a rival is not a reason. | "How do we compare with our competitor set this weekend?" |
| "Set Deluxe to NPR 25,000." | Above 300% of base, it is refused. | Change the base price on What You Sell if your prices have really moved. |
| "Change breakfast prices." | The pricing specialist prices rooms only. | Change menu prices on F&B Restaurant. |
Deciding on a price card
When Exubee proposes a price, a card appears in the chat. Read the reasoning, then:
- Approve — the price goes live (and to your OTA channels, if connected).
- Edit — opens Change this price before approving. Type your price, answer Why are you changing this? (for example "Festival weekend, corporate block already committed at this rate"), then Save & Approve.
- Reject — choose a reason (Too Aggressive, Wrong Timing, Wrong Target, Factually Wrong or Other), add a note if you like, then Confirm Reject.
Lesson 7 explains why a quick edit is better than a silent reject.