Set hotel policy rule exceptions by preferred tier

Administrators are able to set which preferred tiers of hotel properties are exempt from certain hotel policy-enforced restrictions. This allows hotels associated with these preferred tiers to override restrictions or policy settings that you have configured for your hotel bookings in general. 

For example, if you wanted to allow certain excluded property types (e.g., apartments) to still be in policy if the property was associated with your preferred hotel Tier 2, you would enable the rule exception for Property type for Tier 2 properties. As a result, if a hotel property booking was set to be excluded and out-of-policy due to being an “apartment”, but that property was also part of a Tier 2 preferred supplier, the booking would be allowed (and not marked as out-of-policy).

The policy settings for which preferred tier exceptions can be enabled are: 

• Restrict booking by keyword

• Property type

• Maximum price 

• Booking window (under Set flight policies)

• Star rating 

• Recommended maximum rate

Set preferred tier exceptions

To configure the preferred Hotel provider tiers for which policy exceptions are allowed, follow the procedure below.

1. Select Policies from the Program menu. 

2. Expand the Policy menu on the left.

3. Select the Default Policy (or other policy) from the menu. 

4. Expand the Hotel section.

5. Scroll down to locate the Rule exception by hotel tier section and expand it. The list of settings will be displayed. 

6. Select the relevant checkboxes to set which preferred hotel tiers will be allowed to override which hotel policy rules.

   1. You can enable a particular tier to override all hotel policy restrictions by selecting its checkbox.

   2. You can allow all hotel tiers to override a particular hotel policy restriction by selecting its checkbox (e.g., Maximum price).

   3. You can allow all hotel tiers to override all hotel policy restrictions by selecting the Select all checkbox.

7. When done, click Save changes. Any changes will be applied to any traveler searches or bookings conducted after you have saved your settings. 

Useful information related to this feature

• Hotel properties must be set as part of a preferred tier to receive tier exception benefits.  Refer to your preferred and restricted settings if you need to look up which hotel providers are set at which tiers.  
• If a hotel property’s preferred tier is set as exempt for a specific rule, that property bypasses the rule's restrictions entirely and remains in policy.
• Out-of-policy actions (e.g., approvals) do not apply to exempt properties.
• In-policy actions still apply to exempt properties.
• The Hotel tier exception settings will never override explicit restrictions that have been applied to any individual hotel property. Refer to your preferred and restricted settings if you need to look up which hotel providers you have restricted.

Rule-specific exception behavior

• Restrict bookings by: Properties in exempt tiers bypass property-level keyword restrictions only. Rate-level keyword blocking still applies.
• Property type: Properties in exempt tiers bypass the property type rule entirely.
• Maximum price: Properties in exempt tiers bypass all rate caps.
• Booking window: Properties in exempt tiers bypass the booking window rule.
• Star rating: The star rating rule is not applied to properties in exempt tiers.
• Recommended maximum rate: The median rate rule is not applied to properties in exempt tiers.