Booking Rules — Administration Guide

Nitesoft · Updated June 2026

Booking rules control availability and restrictions for your booking channels — such as minimum stay, closed dates, and stop-sell. In the updated system, rules are organised into rule sets that are assigned directly to your channels. This means you configure a rule once and it applies wherever that rule set is used.

This guide explains how rule sets work, how to set them up, and how to control which rules apply to different types of bookings.

Rule sets

A rule set is a named collection of booking rules — minimum stay, closed out, stop sell, and so on. You can create as many rule sets as you need and assign them to one or more channels.

Channels

Channels represent the source of a booking: your public booking engine, an OTA, or internal (intranet) bookings made by your staff. Each channel can be assigned a rule set directly.

How the system picks a rule set

When a booking is created or modified, Nitesoft determines which rule set to apply using the following hierarchy:

1. If the channel has a direct link to a rule set, that rule set is used.
2. If the channel is marked as Public, the rule set of the Public channel is used.
3. If the channel is marked as External, the rule set of the External channel is used.
4. Otherwise, the rule set of the Intranet channel is used as a fallback.

Note: You can still override the rule set for a specific rate plan in channel management. This takes precedence over the channel's assigned rule set.

Step 1: Create a rule set

Go to Administration → Drop Down Lists →  Booking rule set, and create a new rule set. Give it a descriptive name, for example 'Standard restrictions' or 'Summer rules'.

Step 2: Assign the rule set to a channel

Go to Administration → Drop Down Lists → Booking Channels. Find the channel you want to configure and assign your rule set to it.

You can assign the same rule set to multiple channels. For example, if your public booking engine and your OTA channels should follow the same restrictions, assign the same rule set to all of them.

Step 3: Assign a rule set to the Intranet channel

For the new booking rules system to be fully active, a rule set must be assigned to the Intranet channel. This acts as the fallback for any bookings made internally by staff.

Note: Until a rule set is assigned to the Intranet channel, the new booking rules system is not activated for internal bookings.

When creating or modifying a booking — whether in the wizard, grid, or elsewhere — you can choose how restrictions should be applied using the Restriction policy setting:

• Channel restrictions: Uses the rule set assigned to the booking's channel. This is the default.
• Intranet restrictions: Forces the rule set of the Intranet channel, regardless of the booking's channel.
• No restrictions: Bypasses all booking rules. This option can be restricted to specific user roles.

This means staff can, for example, override public restrictions when making manual bookings — without affecting what guests see on the booking engine.

If a particular rate plan should follow different rules than its channel's default, you can override the rule set in channel management under the rate plan mapping. This takes precedence over the channel-level assignment.

The old BAR Management page has been hidden and will be removed in a future update. All functionality is now available under UNIT & RATES → Booking rules.

If you had rules configured in BAR Management, these have been automatically carried over to the new system. No action is required.

Do I need to reconfigure my existing rules?

No. All existing rules have been automatically migrated to the new system.

Can I use the same rule set for both my public channel and OTA channels?

Yes. Assign the same rule set to all relevant channels and they will share the same restrictions.

What if I don't assign a rule set to a channel?

If a channel has no rule set assigned, the system falls back through the hierarchy: Public → External → Intranet. As long as the Intranet channel has a rule set assigned, there will always be a fallback.

Can I stop staff from bypassing restrictions?

Yes. The 'No restrictions' option in Restriction policy can be restricted to specific user roles. Contact Nitesoft support to configure this.