Understanding Allocations

An ‘Allocation’ is the reservation of space for an agent before any booking has been made. Normally allocations are made for relatively long periods of time, e.g. an agent may be allocated 2 rooms for the duration of a season. An allocation assures an agent of availability so that they can safely conduct sales campaigns. The intention is that as bookings are secured they draw down from the allocated availability, thus reducing the allocated (or reserved) balance.

How Allocations work in ResRequest

Let’s take a look at what an allocation looks like in ResRequest. An allocation is applied on an Agent contact, so to view or add an allocation, click on the Agent button on the relevant Agent contact screen and select the Allocations tab (see the Allocations setup guide for more details). An allocation is made up of an Allocation header and Allocation item/s.

1. The ‘Allocation Header’ records global data such as the creator, the agent consultant and the expiry terms. This is displayed in bold.
2. ‘Allocation Items’ record itinerary details, i.e. Property / Accommodation, duration of stay and number of rooms.

Allocation dates

An Allocation header can be the parent of multiple Allocation items. Each Allocation item is specific to a Property / accommodation type combination.

Each allocation has a start date and an end date, which represent the date range of the allocation. These dates apply in the same way as reservation arrival and departure dates, i.e. the accommodation is reserved for the night of the start / arrival date but is not reserved for the night of the end / departure date.

Allocation expiry

An active allocation is one that is holding accommodation space and may be drawn down on by a reservation, as described below. When an allocation expires, it releases the stock. The expiry method and dates are specified at the allocation header level, i.e. they apply to all items within the allocation.

You may set up an allocation to expire fully at a given date, as described below under ‘absolute expiry date’. Under this method the whole allocation is expired.

Alternatively, you may set up an allocation to expire incrementally, one day at a time, as described below under ‘expiry lead time’. Under this method an allocation may be partially expired, i.e. part of the allocation is active and part is expired.

Various screens use background colour coding to depict allocation expiry status as follows:

• White: fully active
• Orange: partially expired
• Red: fully expired
• Yellow: unsaved allocation

Absolute expiry date

When an absolute (specific) expiry date is given for an allocation, the whole allocation expires at midnight at the end of the specified expiry date. The effect is that at that time all space held by the allocation will be released. Any draw downs that have already been made on the allocation will still exist, but no further draw downs may be made on expired dates.

Examples

Allocation details:

• Allocation start date = 4 March
• Allocation end date = 15 March

Example 1: Expiry date = 1 March

The entire allocation is active (holding space) until midnight of 1 March.

Example 2: Expiry date = 5 March

The entire allocation is active until midnight of 5 March. By that time the first 2 days of the allocation are in the past, so are no longer relevant. The space held by the balance of the allocation falls away on 5 March.

Example 3: Expiry date = 15 March

The entire allocation is active throughout its date range because the expiry date is later than the allocation end date.

Expiry lead time

When you specify that an allocation has an expiry lead time it means that the allocated accommodation will be held up to a specified number of days before the set allocation item date.

To calculate the active and expired portions of an allocation under this method, add the number of days lead time to today’s date. The resultant date is the first day of the active portion of the allocation. Any part of the allocation prior to that date is expired.

Working backwards from the accommodation date to determine the last day on which a specific allocation day will be active, the calculation is:

Accommodation date –- number of days lead time = date of the last day on which the allocation day will be active.

Example

Allocation details: Today is the 22nd of February and you have an allocation with a start date of 1st of February and an end date of the 1st of March.

The effects of some sample lead time specifications would be as follows:

1. 0 days lead time = the portion of the allocation from today (22 Feb) to the end of the allocation is active.
2. 1 day lead time = the portion of the allocation from tomorrow (23 Feb) to the end of the allocation is active.
3. 5 days lead time = the portion of the allocation from 27 Feb (today + 4 days) to the end of the allocation is active. The allocation up to and including 26 Feb is expired. Working backwards to determine what is the last day on which the allocation for 27 Feb will be active, the calculation is: 27 – 5 = 22 Feb.

Now that you have a better understanding of how allocations work, use the Allocations setup tutorial to learn how to create them.