Minimum stay restrictions are a vital tool for hoteliers and revenue managers to optimize occupancy, increase revenue, and attract the right guest segments. RoomPriceGenie supports fully automated setting and removal of Min Stay rules.
| Product Plan | Feature Availability |
| Advanced | Orphan Gap Correction, Restrictions on Rates |
| Professional | Everything in Advanced, plus automated setting rules, mode selection, and calendar management |
PMS Compatibility: Available for Apaleo, Beds24, Booking Factory, Cloudbeds, Mews, RMS Cloud, VIPS, Resly.
In pilot: GuestPoint, Ibelsa.
Note: This feature is currently in Beta and may not yet be fully available for your property. We're gradually rolling it out to all customers.
What Are Minimum Stay Restrictions?
Minimum Stay restrictions limit bookings to a defined number of consecutive nights.
Example: If a 3-night Min Stay is set for a particular date, bookings including that date must be at least 3 nights long.
Why use Min Stay?
- Capture more revenue by removing unnecessary booking restrictions
- Prevent lost bookings caused by forgotten or overly strict Min Stay rules
- Easily adapt to demand surges or drops with conditional logic
How do Minimum Stay Restrictions work in RoomPriceGenie?
RoomPriceGenie pulls minimum stay restrictions from the PMS and displays these in the calendar.
As with prices, a full suite of adjustments is possible:
- Set Min Stay Rules Automatically (Pro): Automatically apply restrictions based on lead time and occupancy.Example: Apply a 5-night Min Stay rule 5 days before arrival when occupancy > 80%.
- Remove Min Stay Rules Automatically (Pro): Automatically remove restrictions based on lead time and occupancy: Example: Remove Min Stay rule with 5 days left to arrival when occupancy <90%.
- Arrival vs. Stay-Through Mode (Pro): Arrival Mode, only guests arriving on the selected day are restricted.Stay-Through Mode: Any guest staying on the selected day is restricted.
- Full Calendar Overview (Pro): View all restrictions by day, room type, and source (e.g., PMS, Automated, Manual. Instantly identify what rule is applied and edit it directly.
1. Configure Automated Rules (Pro)
Navigate to Pricing Strategy > Min Stay > Add New Rule and customise the rule with the following conditions:
- Rule name: Give each rule a clear name; this will appear in the list.
- Rule type: Choose between
SetorRemove - Effective period: Choose if the rule applies always or during a specific date range
- Day of week: Define which days of the week the rule should apply to
- Days to arrival: Specify how many days before arrival the rule becomes active
- Room types: Select which room types are affected
- Occupancy threshold:
- Set rules: apply restriction if occupancy is above a defined threshold
- Removal rules: remove restriction if occupancy is below a defined threshold
2. Adjust Manually via Calendar
Bulk edits: Navigate to Calendar > Bulk Edit > Add the interval and days of the week > Select Min Stay in the Adjustments dropdown
- Set a fixed restriction for a defined number of days or select no minimum stay.
Day edit: Navigate to Calendar > click at a particular date > Edit Min Stay:
- Select which Min Stay should apply: PMS, Rules set in RPG or select a custom restriction.
View restrictions: In the calendar, you can view all restrictions visually, adjust restrictions per day, per room, and identify rule source (PMS / Automated / Fixed).
Orphan gap correction (Advanced & Pro)
Imagine this:
- All rooms of a certain type are fully booked on Thursday and Sunday night.
- You set a minimum stay restriction of 3 nights for Friday or Saturday.
Problem: No guest can book a 3-night stay that includes Friday or Saturday — because they can't arrive on Thursday (already booked) or leave on Sunday (also booked).
Result: The room becomes unbookable, even though it’s empty on Friday or Saturday.
Resolution: Orphan gap! This smart feature automatically detects situations where your minimum stay rules would block bookings — like the example above — and adjusts the rule to make sure the room can still be sold.
So you don’t lose revenue just because of an inflexible rule.
How to enable the Orphan Gap?
- In the RoomPriceGenie App click on Pricing Strategy >> Minimum Stay.
- Click on Orphan Gap.
- Select if Orphan Gap correction should also overwrite fixed restrictions.
- Select the room type for which you would like to have it enabled.
Note: You can turn off Orphan Gap Correction for specific dates — either individually or using bulk edits.
However, please keep in mind:
- This action disables all automatic adjustments to the minimum stay restrictions for those dates.
- Selective adjustments (cherry-picking) are not supported — it's all or nothing.
Restrictions on rates (Advanced and Pro)
Available for Advanced and Pro users on PMS: Eviivo, RMS Cloud, Ibelsa, VIPS PMS, GuestPoint, Zonal PMS (HLS), Resly, Apaleo
How it works: Apply minimum stay restrictions to specific mapped rates beyond the primary one.
Min Stay type selection (Pro)
Pro users on PMS Eviivo RMS Cloud Booking Factory. For remaining PMS the Type is pre-defined and visual in the Calendar.
How it works: Option to select how the Rules apply:
- Stay-through mode: The minimum stay rule applies across the entire stay, regardless of the arrival date.
- Arrival mode: The minimum stay rule only applies from the arrival day onward.
Example
- Stay-through mode: For example, if you set a 2-night minimum stay rule for 17/07, this rule affects all bookings that include the night of 17/07. This means:
- On 15/07, a guest must stay at least until 17/07 (2 nights: 15–17)
- On 16/07, a guest must stay at least 2 nights (16–18)
- On 17/07, a guest must stay at least 2 nights (17–19)
- Arrival mode: If you set a 2-night minimum stay rule for 17/07, it only affects arrivals on that date. This means:
- Guests arriving on 17/07 must book at least 2 nights (17–19)
- Guests arriving before or after 17/07 are not affected by this rule
