Contents
Rates - Plugixa Car Rental
A rate is the daily price of one vehicle model for a range of rental lengths, such as 1-2 days at 62 a day, 3-6 days at 55 and 7 days or more at 48. Each of those ranges is called a bracket. A model with no rate cannot be booked.
Open Plugixa Car Rental, then Rates in the Fleet group of the app’s sidebar. Rates are part of the core of the plugin and cannot be switched off.
The list
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Vehicle model | The model the rate prices. |
| Rental length | The bracket, written as “3-6 days”, or “7+ days” when it has no upper end. |
| Daily rate | The price per day. |
| Location | The location it is limited to, or “All locations”. |
| Name | Your own label for it. |
| Status | On is Published, off is Unpublished. Only Published rates are used. |
The search box is labelled “Search rates…”. Filters can narrow the list by status, model and location.
Adding a rate
Click Create.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Vehicle model | Required. “Choose the vehicle model this rate is for.” |
| Location | “Leave empty to use this rate at every location.” Pick one to price that model differently at one desk. |
| From (days) | Required. The shortest rental this bracket covers, from 1 to 1000. |
| To (days) | The longest rental it covers, on or after From. “0 means “and longer”.” |
| Daily rate | Required, more than zero: “A daily rate must be more than zero.” |
| Status | Published or Unpublished. |
| Name | “Optional, for your own reference, such as “Weekly”.” Customers do not see it. |
Brackets cannot overlap
For one model at one location (or for one model at all locations), each length of rental can have only one price. A bracket that overlaps another is refused: “Another rate for this model already covers 3-6 days. Change one of them so each length has one price.”
Unpublished rates count for this check. Rates in the trash do not, and a rate restored from the trash is checked again, so it cannot come back on top of a rate that took its place.
An All locations rate and a rate for one location may cover the same lengths. That is how you set a different price at one desk.
Leave no gaps
The plugin does not fill gaps between brackets. With brackets 1-2 and 7+ only, a 4-day rental of that model has no price, and the model is left off the booking form for those dates. The usual pattern is brackets that run on from each other and end with an open bracket:
| From (days) | To (days) | Daily rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 62 |
| 3 | 6 | 55 |
| 7 | 0 | 48 |
How the days are counted
A rental is charged in 24-hour blocks counted from the pickup time, the way the large rental companies charge. Time left over after the last full block is charged as one more day only when it is longer than the Grace period in Booking rules. A rental is always at least one day.
With the default grace period of 59 minutes:
| Pickup | Return | Billable days | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 10:00 | Tue 10:00 | 1 | Exactly one block. |
| Mon 10:00 | Tue 10:45 | 1 | 45 minutes over, inside the grace period. |
| Mon 10:00 | Tue 10:59 | 1 | 59 minutes over, still inside it. |
| Mon 10:00 | Tue 11:00 | 2 | 60 minutes over, past the grace period. |
| Mon 18:00 | Tue 09:00 | 1 | 15 hours. Crossing midnight does not matter. |
| Mon 10:00 | Mon 14:00 | 1 | The minimum. |
| Mon 10:00 | Fri 10:00 | 4 | Four blocks. |
The hours are counted on the pickup location’s own clock, so a rental over a clock change is not a day longer or shorter than it looks: Mon 10:00 to Tue 10:00 is one day even on the night the clocks go back. For a one-way rental between two timezones, the return is converted to the pickup location’s time first.
The same count decides the Shortest rental and Longest rental rules, and the number of days a per-day extra is charged for.
How the bracket is chosen
When a booking is priced, the plugin looks for the Published rate of that model that covers the number of billable days, in this order:
- A rate for the rental’s pickup location wins over an All locations rate.
- Among those, the bracket with the highest From (days) that still covers the length wins.
The return location plays no part, and a rate limited to another location is ignored.
If no rate covers the length, the model is not offered on the booking form. A booking made at the desk is refused with “This vehicle has no price for a rental of that length.”
How the rental line is priced
The bracket’s daily rate is applied to every day of the rental. The days are not split across brackets. With the brackets above, a 4-day rental costs 4 x 55 = 220, not 2 x 62 + 2 x 55.
The booking gets one line, such as “Peugeot 308 SW, 4 days”, with the number of days, the daily rate and the total, rounded to the currency’s decimals. One-way and after-hours fees, extras, coupons and taxes are added after it. See Locations, Extras and Coupons.
The price is worked out on the server each time, from the rates as they are at that moment. A pending booking is priced again, with the rates of that moment, when the customer applies or removes a coupon. Once a booking is confirmed its price no longer changes when you edit a rate.
Changing prices by date PRO
Rates are the same every day of the year. With Pro, Pricing rules change the daily rate day by day, for seasons, weekends, long rentals or bookings made early, and the Pricing calendar shows the resulting price of each model day by day.
Trash and restore
Deleting a rate moves it to the trash. A trashed rate is no longer used for new prices. Restore brings it back, unless another rate now covers the same lengths for that model and location.