Room supplements, child rates and extra beds: four ways price calendars go wrong

Rating errors are rarely arithmetic. They happen when something that should be an attribute is written as a note. Notes do not participate in calculation; people do, so the error travels with whoever is on shift.

Mistake one: the single supplement lives in the itinerary description. Travellers cannot see what they owe, staff quote it verbally, and two staff quote different numbers. Make single occupancy an attribute and configure the differential by date in the price calendar so the booking page computes it.

Mistake two: only one child type. There are at least three: with bed, without bed, and without bed excluding admission. Collapsing them means charging the no-bed rate in peak season for a traveller who does occupy a bed, so several beds are lost per departure. Three attributes are cheaper than chasing customers for the difference afterwards.

Mistake three: the extra bed is configured per order instead of per person per night. On a two-night trip you charge once and give the second night away. Confirm the unit of calculation when configuring; this is the item that most often breaks on multi-day itineraries.

Mistake four: holiday rates from memory. Public holiday dates shift every year, and copying last month sheet means your first holiday departure sells at weekday rates. Configure the calendar by date, then scan the colour distribution in the date view, which is more reliable than reading numbers row by row.

One practical habit: after publishing a new route, place a dummy booking yourself. Pick a holiday departure, a child without bed and a single supplement, and check whether the total matches what you expect. Three minutes of this catches at least three of the four above.