Upsell Items

Upsell items let guests add optional extras and services to a direct booking, and add compulsory fees like taxes and charges. Set them up in Settings > Booking Engine > Upsell Items. They show on the booking page after the guest selects a room.

• You can create up to 20 upsell items per property.
• If you allow Multiple Room Bookings, obligatory extras apply to all rooms and optional extras are offered for all rooms.
• The context help (?) next to each setting has instructions.

Warning: Upsell items can't be exported to OTAs. If required, set them up directly at the channel. Upsell items also need prices for each room: price linking across rooms or properties doesn't work.

Table of Contents

1. Types of items
2. Per and Period
3. Description and status
4. Order of the items
5. VAT
6. Add an upsell item to a booking
7. Limit items to prices or rooms
8. Show prices including obligatory fees
9. Reports and templates
10. Examples

Types of items

Type	How it works
Optional	The guest selects it with a tick box on the booking page. Amount is the cost of the item; negative amounts are allowed and create a discount.
Optional Quantity	Like Optional, but the guest selects the quantity with a selector.
Optional Percentage	Calculated and added to the invoice when the guest selects it. Enter the percentage in Amount as a number, for example 10 = 10%.
Obligatory	Like Optional, but added to the booking automatically and can't be removed. For example, a cleaning charge or fee.
Obligatory Cleaning	Applied on the booking page. It isn't sent to OTAs. Some OTAs accept cleaning fees; the channel help pages explain where to set them up.
Obligatory Percentage	Like Optional Percentage, but always calculated and added to the booking, and can't be removed. A common use is adding one or more sales taxes.
Obligatory Percentage Tax	Like Obligatory Percentage, but added to the Price field and the Tax field in the Charges and Payments tab of the booking. If the tax applies only to the room and doesn't add up with other taxes, set Per = Room. See Tax.
Refundable (set under Period)	Works like obligatory items but isn't sent to comparison sites like Trivago or Tripadvisor.

Per and Period

Per and Period calculate how many of the item are needed. For percentage items, Period isn't used and Per sets what the percentage is calculated on:

Per	Percentage calculated on
Room	The room price only, not other upsell items.
Booking	The room price plus all selected items defined before this one. Items defined after it aren't included, so you can use this to add tax-free items after the tax calculation. See Order of the items.

Description and status

• Enter the Description in each language. It can contain HTML tags to enhance the on-screen display. The tags don't show in emails, the rate description and invoice fields.
• To add a picture, add the Image Tag of a picture uploaded in Settings > Booking Engine > Pictures.
• Status: to show an invoice sum for certain upsell items only, exclude upsell items from the total, or group specific items in reports, add a status to the invoice item. Put a pipe symbol | between the description and the status, for example Description of item | Status.

Order of the items

The order in which you define the items in the control panel matters for percentage calculations.

• Except for per-room percentages, percentage items apply to the room price and any items above them. For example, to add an item without an obligatory tax applying to it, create the obligatory tax before the item.
• Obligatory upsell items appear on the booking page in the room section. Other upsell items appear under Add Extras in the order you defined.
• Voucher codes: voucher code discounts aren't applied to any items from the first obligatory percentage item onwards. See Voucher Codes.

VAT

Each item can have its own VAT rate, for example if some items are VAT-free or have discounted VAT rates.

Note: VAT is generally the tax already included in the price. Don't confuse it with a tax added by an obligatory percentage item. See Tax: VAT on extras.

Add an upsell item to a booking

Add upsell items to existing bookings in the control panel with the selector in the Charges and Payments tab of the booking.

Limit items to prices or rooms

Enable or disable upsell items for individual Daily Prices or Fixed Prices. A booking is offered only the upsell items enabled for a price involved in the booking.

Different items for different rooms: upsell items are created at property level, but a price can be specific to a room. Create your upsell items, then in each price's upsell section activate or deactivate the items for the room the price belongs to.

Warning: Limiting upsell items doesn't work properly when prices are linked.

Tip: Set up extras you only sell on site as invoice items in Settings > Guest Management > Invoicing.

Show prices including obligatory fees

To show prices including obligatory fees on the first screen of your booking page, set Total Price Style = Total including obligatory in Settings > Booking Engine > Property Booking Page.

Warning: With this setting, you can't use Per Booking fees with multi-room bookings. If you apply per-booking fees, disable multi-room bookings.

Reports and templates

• Add the value or quantity of each item as columns in custom reports. The columns are called Upsell 1 Value, Upsell 1 Qty and so on, where the number is the order the items were created in.
• Use Template Variables to show invoice charges in invoices, booking templates or email templates.
• To offer extras separately from the booking and manage or show their availability, see Extras: Sell Extras like Activities or Car Rental.

Examples

Set up all examples in Settings > Booking Engine > Upsell Items. For VAT and city tax examples (5% city tax, breakfast with a different VAT rate than the lodging, city tax only for children above a certain age), see Tax: Examples.

Obligatory cleaning fee

An obligatory cleaning fee of 50 applies once to all bookings.

Setting	Value
Type	obligatory
Description	Cleaning Fee (if several languages are activated, enter it in all languages)
Amount	50
Per	booking
Period	one time
Vat %	The VAT rate, if applicable

Optional breakfast

A guest house offers an optional breakfast for 10 per day, with 19% VAT included.

Setting	Value
Type	optional
Amount	10
Per	person
Period	daily
Vat %	19

City tax for the first 7 nights only

Create 2 upsell items and 2 Fixed Prices or Daily Prices.

Setting	Upsell item 1	Upsell item 2
Type	Obligatory Tax	Obligatory Tax
Amount	The value per person, adult or day	The total for 7 nights
Per	Adult	Adult
Period	Daily	One Time
Description	City Tax	City Tax

Then assign the items to the prices:

• Prices > Fixed Prices: open Rate 1, set Maximum Stay = 7 in the Summary tab and select upsell item 1 in the Upsell tab. Open Rate 2, set Minimum Stay = 8 in the Summary tab and select upsell item 2 in the Upsell tab.
• Prices > Daily Price Rules: open Daily Price 1, set Maximum Stay = 7 and select upsell item 1 under Upsell Items. Open Daily Price 2, set Minimum Stay = 8 and select upsell item 2.

Two tax percentages, both on the base price

With a base price of 100, tax 1 = 5% = 5 and tax 2 = 9.975% = 9.975, the expected result is 114.975.

If you've already added the 5% tax and don't want it included in the second tax, reduce the second one: 9.975% of the amount without the first tax is the same as 9.5% of the balance including the 5% tax.

Setting	Upsell item 1	Upsell item 2
Type	obligatory % tax	obligatory % tax
Amount	5.0	9.5
Per	booking	booking
Period	one time	one time
Description	Tax 1	Tax 2

Alternatively, combine the two taxes into one item of 14.975%.

Obligatory tax that doesn't apply to business travellers

An obligatory tax applies to all bookings except business travellers. Add the tax as an upsell item:

Setting	Value
Type	Obligatory
Description	Tax (if you use several languages, enter it in all languages)
Amount	1.5
Per	Booking
Period	One-time
VAT %	The VAT rate, if VAT is included

Then create a second upsell item with Type = Optional, titled "I am a business traveler", and the same amount as a negative number (-1.5). Business travellers tick it on the booking page to subtract the tax again.

Offer extras after the guest has booked

Use a separate property to sell extras to guests who have already booked. Guests enter their accommodation booking number when they book the extra, so you can group the bookings.

1. Create the "Extras" property. In Settings > Properties, click Add New Property, then Edit to open Settings > Properties > Description. Enter the name (for example "Extras – after booking") and the currency you accept, and set Type of Booking = Activity.
2. Create a room for each extra in Settings > Properties > Rooms > Setup, for example different prices or types such as Large Hamper, Gourmet Hamper, Champagne Hamper, Cooking course or Spa Day:

   Setting	Single item (for example Welcome Hamper)	Per-guest item (for example Welcome Dinner)
   Name	The name of your extra	The name of your extra
   Quantity	The number you want to sell in advance, for example one hamper per unit per day	The number you want to sell in advance (number of guests)
   Unit Allocation	One per Booking	One per booking
   Collect Number of Guests	No	Yes
   Maximum Guests	1	Number of guests per booking
   Maximum Adults	Not set in this example	Number of adults per booking, the same as your room types (may need to be higher if you have a mix of room types)
   Maximum Children	Not set in this example	Number of children, if you offer different prices for adult and child meals
   Maximum Stay	Single Day Activity	Single Day Activity
   Accommodation Type	What the guest books, for example Welcome Hamper	What the guest books, for example Welcome Meal

3. Replace accommodation wording. In Settings > Booking Engine > Property Booking Page > Developers, replace all phrases that refer to accommodation in Custom Text, for example (for hampers):

   Check in|Purchase Date
   Book Multiple|Buy Multiple
   Book|Buy
   Guest|Hamper
   Guests|Hamper
   Click to Book Now|Click to Buy Now
   Confirm Booking|Buy Now
   Guest Details|Details
   Click here to make another booking|Click here to make another purchase

4. Set prices. For single items like a welcome hamper, Daily Prices work, as you likely sell 1 item per booking.
5. Further settings:
   • In Settings > Properties > Booking Questions > Custom Question, add a question such as "Please enter your Accommodation Booking id" and make it compulsory.
   • In Settings > Booking Engine > Payment Collection, set up payment collection, or use payment requests.
   • In Settings > Guest Management > Confirmation Messages, customise the confirmation message for the Extras property. At least delete everything in the default that refers to accommodation, and include the answer to the custom question (the original accommodation booking id) so you and the guest can refer to the original booking. You need it to group the extra with the original booking.
6. Optional: let guests choose options. If guests should choose options before arrival, for example the number of each dish for an evening meal, add optional upsell items in Settings > Booking Engine > Upsell Items: one per item, with Type = Optional, Description = for example Roast Chicken dinner, Amount = 0, Per = Booking, Period = Daily, VAT % = 0. Then tick the items that should show in the upsell tab of the Fixed Prices or the upsell items of the Daily Price for this extra (evening meals).

Tip: You may want a separate property for each kind of extra, for example Food, Experiences or Travel (pickups).

Manage extras and bookings:

1. Treat the original booking as the master. Open the extras booking, go to the Detail tab and copy the answer to the custom question (the original booking id).
2. In another window, paste the booking id into the booking search box (top right of most pages) and open the booking.
3. In the Invoice tab, scroll down to Add New Booking to Group, enter the booking id of the extras booking and press Enter.

Expected result: The bookings form a group booking and the extra shows in the Invoice tab of the original booking.

• Set up an Auto Action to confirm to the guest that their extra has been received and linked to their accommodation booking, with the booking ids of both bookings in the email.
• Set up an Auto Action to send a payment request if you didn't collect payment at the time of booking.

Related Articles

• Tax
• Voucher Codes
• Extras: Sell Extras like Activities or Car Rental
• Prices including cleaning fees