Hotel net rates for travel agents: rules and clear quotes

A hotel net rate is the price a hotel gives a travel agency before the agency adds its own markup; the agency's selling price is the net plus that markup. A checkable quote shows the net, every rule that changed it, and the final price, so both sides can rebuild the number line by line.

Two people look at the same agency booking and arrive at two different prices. One has the contract, the other has the confirmation email, and neither can rebuild the number that was actually charged. After reading this guide you will be able to write hotel net rates for travel agents as rules, apply them in a fixed order, and produce quotes both sides can check line by line.

What is a hotel net rate for a travel agent?#

A net rate is the price the hotel gives the agency before the agency adds its own markup. The agency sells at the net plus that markup, and the hotel is paid the net.

Separate three numbers at the start. The net is what the hotel receives per room night. A commissionable rate is a published price from which the hotel pays the agency a commission after the stay. The selling price is what the guest pays. Mixing the first two is a common contracting mistake, and it surfaces months later as a settlement dispute.

The two models carry different control. A net rate hands control of the selling price to the agency. A commissionable rate keeps the hotel's own price visible and settles with the agency afterwards. Neither is better, but the contract must name one and stay with it.

State what the net includes: board, service, extras, and whether the accommodation tax sits inside or outside the figure. According to the Revenue Administration's accommodation tax guide (January 2023) (opens in a new tab), the tax applies to overnight stays and to other services sold with them inside the facility, whatever the guest's nationality or residence, and the taxpayer is whoever operates the facility, whether the sale came through an agency or directly. An agency sale does not move that duty to the agency.

Name the currency, and if conversion is allowed, the rate source and the day it is taken, for example the daily central-bank rates the contract names. Net rate and markup are defined by the contract, not by a published standard, so write the definition as if a stranger will have to apply it.

Attach cancellation, no-show and length-of-stay terms to the net, not to the agency's selling price. Otherwise the two sides are arguing about different numbers. The same logic applies to room blocks, which we cover in hotel allotment contracts: release periods and clauses to check.

Which rules change the price of an agency quote?#

Six rules do most of the work: season, board, occupancy, child age, early booking and length of stay. Each should be a condition plus an amount, not a sentence buried in an email.

Season and date bands need exact dates, not the words high or low season. Religious and public holidays and local event dates need their own band, because they break the pattern the rest of the year follows.

Express board as supplements per person per night on top of one base: oda kahvaltı (bed and breakfast), yarım pansiyon (half board), tam pansiyon (full board), her şey dahil (all inclusive). A second and third price list that has to be kept in step is a slower and riskier way to reach the same numbers.

Occupancy rules cover single use of a double room, a third and fourth adult in the room, and the extra-bed charge. Say whether each supplement is per room or per person, because the two readings differ by a factor of two.

Child age needs one cut-off age, the amount charged below it, and an answer to what happens when the child has a birthday during the stay. Age at arrival and age at departure give different answers.

Early booking and length of stay combine a booking window with a minimum stay, and an explicit answer to what happens when a booking satisfies one rule but not the other. Anything added later, such as a transfer, a late check-out or a spa package, enters as a named extra with its own line. Folded into the net, it disappears from the record and reappears in the argument.

The same discipline matters when you sell the same rooms through many channels at once; see one room inventory across every channel.

How do you write rate rules so a quote can be checked?#

Fix the order in which rules apply, fix the rounding, and make each rule fire at most once. Then two people holding the same booking get the same number.

Write the order into the contract: base net per room night, then season or date band, then board, then occupancy and child, then length-of-stay and early-booking adjustments, then named extras, then the agency's markup last. The markup is last because it is the only line that belongs to the agency rather than the hotel.

Decide precedence. When an early-booking rule and a long-stay rule both fit the same booking, say whether both apply or only the better one for the agency. Those are two different contracts with two different totals.

Fix rounding: the step, for example to the nearest whole unit, and the point where it happens, once at the end or at each line. Rounding at each line and rounding once can differ by more than the rounding step. Fix currency behaviour too: the quote currency, the rate source if conversion is allowed, and the day the rate is taken. A rate taken on the booking day and a rate taken on the arrival day are different prices.

Give the rule set validity dates, and say what happens to bookings made before a change. Silence here means the old and new rules are both arguable. Keep the version of the rule set that produced an old quote: a dispute about a past booking should be settled from the record, not from memory.

What does a checkable agency quote look like, line by line?#

It is a short list of lines, each with the rule that fired, ending in a total both sides can rebuild. The figures below are illustrative, not a market price.

Take a booking of four nights, two adults, one child aged seven, bed and breakfast upgraded to half board for two of the nights, booked 70 days before arrival, with the agency markup added last. Each line carries three things: the rule that fired, the amount, and the running subtotal. A line without a rule name is a number nobody can defend.

The markup is its own line, never the silent difference between two totals. A hidden markup is the fastest way to make an honest quote look dishonest.

Exclusions get their own note: what is billed at the hotel, and how the accommodation tax is treated in the figure, to be confirmed with the hotel's accountant. Finally, run the same booking under both precedence choices. If both the early-booking and the length-of-stay rule apply instead of only the better one, the total moves, and that gap is exactly what a dispute is made of.

Instant confirmation or on request: what changes for the agency?#

Instant confirmation means the hotel has given the system authority to confirm against live availability within limits it sets. On request means a person at the hotel decides, and the agency waits.

Three arrangements appear in agency contracts. An allotment holds rooms for the agency, with a release period. Free sale lets the agency sell against the hotel's live availability. On request makes each booking a question. Define yours in the contract: the release period, the confirmation mode and what happens when the block runs out.

Instant confirmation needs three things: a live inventory, a limit on how many rooms and which rate codes may be confirmed without a person, and a rule for what happens when the limit is reached. On request needs a response deadline, a named person or team who may answer, and a line the agency can give the guest while waiting.

Risk sits with whoever confirms. An instant confirmation given against inventory that is not the inventory the hotel actually sells from becomes the hotel's problem at the front desk. A hold that expires returns the room to inventory: say how long a hold lasts and who may extend it, because an expired hold and a cancelled booking look identical to an agency that was not told.

When inventory runs short, the cleanest control is a stop sale on the affected channel; see stop sale in hotels: when to close a channel and how.

How do you keep agency net rates off public sites?#

With contract terms that name what the agency may do with the rate, and channel controls that make the net rate technically unusable outside the agency's own sales.

On the contract side, state that the rate is for the agency's own clients, not for resale to other sellers, and name the channels allowed. Contract only with agencies that hold an operating certificate: Law No. 1618, Article 4 (opens in a new tab) requires one from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to operate as a travel agency in Türkiye, and the certificate number can be checked against Ministry records. Since the July 2024 amendment to the Travel Agencies Regulation, agencies must also verify accommodation facilities' certificate numbers through the Ministry's database and show them in their sales and marketing (Resmî Gazete, 26 July 2024 (opens in a new tab)).

On the channel side, use separate rate codes that are never published to public channels, closed user groups, allotment-only availability, and no public booking link that carries the net code.

Monitoring is routine work: search your own facility name and dates on a schedule, keep dated screenshots, and raise a breach in writing against the clause rather than against the relationship. Certificate hygiene is part of distribution hygiene. A Ministry of Culture and Tourism circular dated 14 August 2026 tells online platforms and travel agencies not to promote or sell accommodation without a valid tourism certificate, to remove listings the Ministry flags, and to connect the Ministry's verification system to their software (Alomaliye.com, 18 August 2026 (opens in a new tab)).

Parity is a separate question from leakage. Take legal advice before writing a parity clause or enforcing one.

For how agency bookings settle on the hotel's books, see hotel city ledger explained: invoicing agencies and companies.

Where does a distribution hub fit?#

A distribution hub is the layer where a hotel publishes contracted rates to travel agencies and receives their bookings, with the pricing rules kept as rules rather than as a price list.

What it has to do: hold the rule set, apply it in the order the contract fixes, and return a quote with its working attached. One engine can confirm instantly for connected hotels and route the request to hotels that confirm by hand, which is the instant-versus-on-request split written as software.

AI Otel's distribution hub is built, with seed data; no agency is connected yet. Hotels publish contracted rates to travel agencies on their own terms, and every quote shows its working: the hotel's net, each pricing rule that fired and the final price. With no agency connected, nothing here is evidence of agency volume, and it should not be read as one. The distribution page on ai-otel.com describes the same component in the same words.

What to do next#

Take one live agency contract and one recent booking, and try to rebuild that booking's price from the contract alone, without asking anyone. Where you cannot, you have found the clause to rewrite first: that single test ties together the net-versus-commissionable choice, the rules as conditions, the fixed order and rounding, the confirmation mode and the channel controls. If you want to see what quotes with their working attached look like in software, request a briefing at ai-otel.com/contact.