The prices shown on the booking engine and OTAs are automatically adjusted based on pricing recommendations from the Revenue Management System (RMS), which considers several factors, including: booking periods, booking window, competitor prices, occupancy levels and market demand.
In rare instances, a hotel may need to manually adjust room rates rather than relying on the RMS’s pricing recommendations. For example, for same-day bookings after 4 PM, a hotel might choose to set rates lower than the RMS suggests to capture last-minute reservations—securing additional revenue rather than leaving rooms unoccupied. The Price Lock feature allows hotels to manually override and lock rates when necessary, ensuring they do not follow the automated pricing recommendations from the RMS.
The Price Lock feature can only be found in Rates and Availability > Availability Calendar.
A price lock can only be set up for a single date, room type and master rate plan combination at a time. The master rate plan is the rate plan that appears in the first row under each room type in the Availability calendar.
How to apply a price lock
1. Click on the cell that corresponds with the date, room type and rate plan combination that you would like to lock.
2. A pop-up will appear, displaying the pricing details (Base BAR, Tax, BAR including tax, and the Price Lock option) for the specified master rate plan, room type, and date.
3. Override the rate in either the “Base BAR” or “BAR including tax” field, check the “Price lock” box, then click “Submit”.
In the example below, the “Base BAR” rate for the date was $42.19, but the user would like to lower it to $35 and does not want the rate to be overridden by the RMS.
Note: By default, the Price lock will only lock the rate from the time it is applied till the end of the day. It is possible to update this to “7 days” or “permanent” by using the drop down menu on the right of the “Price lock” check box. When this period is over, the rates will revert to following the pricing recommendations of the RMS.
How to remove a price lock
1. Click on the cell that matches the date, room type, and rate plan combination where you want to remove the price lock setting. This would be a grey-coloured cell, which indicates that a manual setting is in place.
2. On the pop up, uncheck the “Price Lock” box to remove the price lock and then click “Submit”.
Once the price lock setting has been removed, the room rate will be automatically updated based on pricing recommendations from the RMS.
How to identify a rate that has been manually adjusted
Cells with modified prices (either from applying or removing the price lock) will appear in gray, indicating that manual price adjustment was made.
⚠️ Use Price Lock with Caution
- Designed for Exceptions only
The Price Lock feature is designed as a safeguard for extreme conditions, not for regular use. Frequent manual overrides can hinder the system’s ability to optimize pricing. - Impact on Revenue Optimisation
By locking prices, hotels prevent the Revenue Management System (RMS) from dynamically adjusting rates based on demand and market conditions, potentially leading to missed revenue opportunities. - Temporary Manual Control
Price Lock provides a temporary override when necessary but should not replace data-driven pricing strategies set by the RMS. - Risk of Undervaluation or Overpricing
Manual overrides could result in rates being set too low, reducing profitability, or too high, discouraging potential bookings.
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