Overview - Rate Sets and Rate Groups

This chapter covers the definition of and the use of Rate Sets and Rate Groups within CARS+.

I. DEFINITIONS

Rate Set: Time and Mileage rates can have several price determining factors such as the Class of vehicle, Effective Date and Rental location. For example, rates can be set up so that they are more expensive at an airport location (due to the added overhead) than at a off airport location. This "geographical" element of a rate is handled by the Rate Set concept in CARS+. Locations that share a common set of rates do that by means of having a common Rate Set Code in their Location record. For an example, if all airport locations share a common set of rate prices, they can all be assigned Rate Set "1", while downtown, remote locations could use Rate Set "2".

Example:

Location Code	Location Description	Default Rate Set in the Location Record
LAX	Los Angeles International Airport	1
LAX01	LA Downtown	2
SNA	Orange County John Wayne Airport	1
ANA01	Radison Hotel near Disneyland	2
BPK01	Marriot Hotel near Knott's Berry Farm	2

Table A

If you have to change the way Rate Sets are currently configured within your system, see the chapter Overview - Rate Set Changes for the required steps for changing Rate Sets.

Rate Group: Rate Groups represent larger geographical areas for rates that are shared by multiple or even all locations. Continuing the example started above: the WALKUP rate is priced differently between Rate Set "1" and Rate Set "2", so it exists in each of those Rate Sets. Yet the national, corporate rate for IBM is priced the same for both the airport and downtown locations. Instead of having to set up the identical prices for the IBM rate in all both Rate Sets, a single rate record can be set up with a Rate Group code that is shared by all rental locations. Let's assign this Rate Group the code "A". Under this configuration, Rate Sets "1" and "2" contain only those Rate Products whose prices are location sensitive between airport and non-airport locations, while all other Rate Products that are priced the same for all locations are defined in Rate Group "A".

A location can belong to more than one Rate Group. For example, the five locations mentioned above could be grouped as follows:

Group Description	Member Locations	Rate Group Code
All Locations	LAX, LAX01, SNA, ANA01, BPK01	A
Airports	LAX, SNA	AP
Los Angeles County	LAX, LAX01	LA
Off Airport	LAX01, ANA01, BPK01	OA
Orange County	SNA, ANA01, BPK01	OC

Table B

Rate Lookup Rules: When looking up the prices for a rate product, the following steps are tried:

The system first tries to find the rate in the pick-up location's Rate Set. If a valid record is found there, it is used. So using the illustration above, at location LAX, Rate Product "WALKUP" would be found in Rate Set "1" and thus used, but the corporate rate for IBM would not be found in Rate Set "1".
If a rate product cannot be found in the pick-up location's Rate Set then the system tries the various Rate Groups that the pick-up location belongs to. Therefore when the IBM rate could not be found in Rate Set "1", it will be found in Rate Group "A", and that record will be used for the transaction (more on how this is done will be explained later in this chapter.)

II. RATE SETS/RATE GROUPS AND THE REQUOTING OF RATES

Rate Sets and Rate Groups come into play when changing the pickup location on a transaction. Assuming none of the Rate Groups in Table B have been set up and that we just have the two Rate Sets from Table A, the following are true:

A reservation made for the Disneyland location, ANA01, will NOT have its rates requoted if the pickup location is changed to Location BPK01 (assuming that the dates and the vehicle class were not changed at the same time). This is because both of these locations use the same Rate Set for their rates and, therefore, this location change will not cause the system to re-quote the rates.
But if the same reservation had the pickup location changed from ANA01 to the Orange County Airport SNA, such a change would trigger a rate re-quote because those two locations do NOT share the same Rate Set.

But what if you want to maintain different prices between airport and off airport locations when originally booking reservations, but once the rate is booked you want to be able to administratively change locations without having the rate requoted? For example, imagine that a national res center books a reservation for LA Downtown LAX01 with a pickup at 9 pm. Due to construction downtown you know that the location will be closed for the arrival date. Therefore, it's necessary to edit the reservation so that the pickup will be at the airport. But such a change will cause the rates to be re-quoted using the higher airport rates. Rate groups can be used to prevent this from happening. By defining Rate Sets 1 and 2 as also Rate Groups you can set up the five locations as follows:

Location Code	Location Description	Default Rate Set in the Location Record	This Location is also a Member of Rate Group
LAX	Los Angeles International Airport	1	2
LAX01	LA Downtown	2	1
SNA	Orange County John Wayne Airport	1	2
ANA01	Radison Hotel near Disneyland	2	1
BPK01	Marriot Hotel near Knott's Berry Farm	2	1

Table C

This configuration will work as follows:

When originally booking a reservation for LAX01, the system will use the location's default Rate Set "2" (the lower off-airport prices). The higher airport prices Rate Group 1 will not be seen because the default Rate Set supersedes any Rate Group.
But if after the reservation is initially booked for LAX01, you change the pickup location to the airport LAX, even though the default Rate Set for the new pickup location is different, because LAX belongs to the Rate Group "2" which is the Rate Set/Group Code presently on the reservation, the rates will NOT re-quote. This set up says that although you cannot book Rate Set 2 prices at LAX, this location will honor Rate Set 2 rates that were booked legitimately elsewhere.
This logic works both with the Reservation program when editing reservations and within RA Open when a rental that was booked at one location is opened at another.

III. ADDITIONAL NOTES ON HOW THE SYSTEM READS RATE GROUPS

As stated earlier, a location can belong to more than one Rate Group. For example, the five locations mentioned above could grouped as follows:

Group Description	Member Locations	Group Set Code
All Locations	LAX, LAX01, SNA, ANA01, BPK01	A
Airports	LAX, SNA	AP
Los Angeles County	LAX, LAX01	LA
Off Airport	LAX01, ANA01, BPK01	OA
Orange County	SNA, ANA01, BPK01	OC

Table D

When looking up rates, the system reads the Rate Group file according to the rules of an alphanumeric sort. The first record found that matches the request is used, and the program stops reading the file. For example, see Table E below of the Rate Product WKENDJOY (Weekend Joy) which has been set up in several Rate Groups:

Group Set Code	Rate Product Code	Daily Rate for a Compact
A	does not exist for this Group
LA	WKENDJOY	39.95
OA	WKENDJOY	37.95
OC	WKENDJOY	35.95

Table E

When booking a reservation for a compact car using the WKENDJOY rate to be picked up at the Disneyland location (Location ANA01) the system will read the records as follows:

1. First Anaheim's default Rate Set ("2") from the Location record for ANA01 would be used.
2. Assuming the rate product was NOT set up there but is defined with a Rate Group Code, the above read would fail and the system would turn to the Rate Group file. The first Group Code it would find (according to the rules of an alphanumeric sort) would be Rate Group "A". But as stated above, the rate product WKENDJOY was not defined in that Group.
3. Next would come Group Code "AP" but since location ANA01 is not a member of that group, that record would not be used, nor would the next "LA" for the same reason.
4. Then Rate Group "OA" would be tried. Since location ANA01 is a member of the Rate Group OA and the rate WKENDJOY is set up with Rate Set OA, the price of $37.95/day would be found and used.
5. The fact that WKENDJOY also exists in Rate Group "OC" (to which ANA01 is also a member) and at a lower price would never be seen. Once the system finds a rate, it stops looking.

The lesson to be learned here is that when naming Rate Groups keep in mind the rules of an alpha-numeric search. For more on the rules of an alpha-numeric search see the chapter "General Data Entry Instructions". Rate Groups that should be tried first should be given codes early in a alphanumeric sort. Those that are "catch-all" groups that are to be used when all else fails should be given codes at the end of the sort. Based on that, the Rate Group Code for the group that includes all locations really should be named "Z" not "A". That way the restrictive groups for LA and Orange Counties and Off Airport would be tried first and then when all else fails the group for all locations would be tried.