Promo Codes on the booking Engine

By the end of this training article you will be able to :

• Create a Promo code for discounts on the HART booking engine
• View your promo code on the booking engine
• Create the direct link URL
• Check how many bookings you have had on the promo code

Creating a Promo Code

In Cloud reservations, navigate to Reservations > Rates > Promotions and the following screen will appear. Press the Add New Record button to insert a new line.

• Code: The promo code which will be given out to guests
• Name: The name of the promotion
• Book Until: The date until this promotion is active on the engine
• From & To: The stay window of the promotion
• Discount: The percentage discount you are offering
• Min: If there is a minimum night stay this applies to, put it here
• Max: If there is a maximum night stay this applies to, put it here
• Lead: if there is a minimum lead time, i.e. available on bookings more than 10 days in advance, put it here

Press Save Changes at the top of the screen. 

Next, you need to link it to the rate plans it is valid on. You can add a single promo code to multiple rate plans if you wish. 

In the bottom part of the screen, under the tab Rate Plans, press the Add new record button. Select the rate plans you wish to add from the drop-down list, adding a new record of each entry.

Once you have done this, press the Save Changes button in the Rate Plans tab. 

Press Ctrl + F5 to refresh the screen, and then click on the Room Types tab. This is where you will link the promo code to the room types it is applicable to. 

Press the Add new record button to add rows for each room type and then press the Save Changes button in that tab.

You have now completed the set-up of the promo code and are ready to test. 

Checking the promo code on the booking engine

Navigate to your booking engine and select dates which fall in with your promotion code. On the right-hand side you will see Add Promo Code. Click here and insert your promo code.

If the promo code is valid, you will get a success notification as below.

Press search to do the rates search and you will see the next page shows the promo code applies, plus displays a strikethrough for applicable rates and room types. 

Creating a direct link to the promo code

When sharing your promo code with your customers, you have two options. You can either give out the promo code itself and the user self applies it in the method followed above, or you can insert a direct link into a mailer which will apply the promo code automatically. 

To do this you will add the smart tag promo= to the end of your booking engine URL, followed by the promo code. 

In the example above, you would use promo=spring

Checking how many bookings were made on a promo code

Navigate to Reservations > Bookings > List in cloud reservations. Run the report for the dates you would like to check bookings for, and then filter by the promo code column. This will give you your bookings to date.