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Net rates
Net rates enable you to work with travel agents & other distributors in a different way to working with travel agent commission. Net rates are a fairly advanced concept. Start using travel agent commission first, then if commercial circumstances require it, then move to using net rates for some or all travel agents
Example
With travel agent commission, if you have a 100 USD tour and give 10% travel agent commission, the travel agent will pay a net balance of 90 USD
With net rates, you will distribute the tour at 90 USD and the booking will come into TourCMS at 0% commission
Differences
- Net rates can be applied to date bands AND rate types (e.g. just adults) AND to specific trips (e.g. just afternoon tours). Travel agent commission is applied at the tour level and applies to all dates for that tour
- To adjust an individual booking with net rates, you adjust the sale price in a booking to give a different price to a travel agent. With travel agent commission setup, you adjust the travel agent commission (on the marketing tab)
- Travel agent commission MAY be taxable in your locality
- Travel agent commission can be set to be per person (e.g. 5 USD per person). Net rates does not have this capability
How net rates work with sale (retail) prices
Travel agent commission ALWAYS applies to the sale (retail) price for a tour.
Net rates CAN work either from the sale (retail) price (e.g. 20% off) OR you can hard set a net rate
We suggest net rates are a % off the sale (retail) price. For example if next wednedsay you have a large group booking and they cancel at the last minute. You now want to promote that date to drive demand. You would do this by creating a special offer on the sale (retail) price in tours departures. IF you have created net rates anchored off your sale prices then the net rate for next wednesday will also reduce. Distributors therefore will also be incentivised to promote that date
You would use fixed net rates for seasonal contracts that you have in place prior to using TourCMS
If your TourCMS account has a base currency that is NOT USD then you can also add net rates at fixed rates in USD. These will only be distributed USD sales channels. This enables fixed price net rate distribution to some of the larger US based travel websites
Initial setup
- Travel agent general settings - turn on net rates (By default they are off for new accounts and it is set to use travel agent commission instead)
- Users - set user permission for each user you want to be able to edit / create net rates
- Configuration & setup - create several top level tiers
- Travel agent general settings - set a default net rate tier (for new travel agents)
Probably you want to choose between using travel agent commission and net rates. It is possible to run both systems though (maybe if you are transferring from one to the other)
Tiers
Tiers enable you to group travel agents into different levels. You can have unlimited tiers however we suggest at least initially you keep the number of tears to a minimum (e.g. maximum 5)
e.g. You could have one tier for top level travel websites and one for regular companies.
In travel agent manager on an individual travel agent record, you can assign a travel agent to a tier. You can change this setting at any time
MAYBE if you are doing a deal with a specific travel agent you may want to put them in their own tier (probably not something you need to setup at first though)
Tour set up
Once you have turned on net rates and setup some tiers you will now see, on tours, a new section called Net rates
First you will see a default (GREEN) net rate. This will be the % that you have setup when you created that net rate tier. i.e. if you created the net rate tier at 20%, the default net rate will be a 20% reduction
If you are happy with the default NO OTHER configuration is required
Individual date bands can be added with new rules. These MAY overlap. This enables you to for example do a special net rate promotion for a certain month
Applying the net rate to the booking
- Staff booking engine - net rates will be applied automatically if an agent is selected (at the start of the booking process) that is set to net rates
IF several net rate rules are applicable on a tour then date specific will take precedence over the default net rate
Net rates apply to tour departures, options & tour freesale
Frequently asked questions
When we set up a new tier will the default percentage apply to all tours?
YES - but only after a few minutes (there has to be some recalculation behind the scenes)
If we modify a default from within a tour, it only applies to that tour?
YES
If we modify a default for an existing tier in configuration and setup (rather than in a tour) what happens - does it modify all defaults for all tours?
If the update tick is selected, all existing tours will update to the new default (overwriting any tour specific default settings that may have been configured). If the update tick is left unticked, the new default will only apply to newly created tours