How prices reach your property system

The cycle, in one paragraph

About every five minutes MAYA runs one cycle for your property: it reads your bookings (and your own rates once an hour), prices again every night whose bookings changed or that a change of yours reaches, and once a day prices every night of the window again, tonight and the next 395 nights. Then, if the property is live, it sends the prices that changed; a cycle where nothing changed sends nothing. The cycle has each step.

A price you type does not wait for the cycle. The save runs the rules for those nights at once and, on a live property, asks MAYA to send them now. The confirmation says "Saved. Sending to Cloudbeds now." If that nudge cannot be made, it says "Saved. Sending to Cloudbeds on the next cycle (about 5 min)." While the connection reads Disconnected it says "Saved. It will be sent once you reconnect." and no send is asked for. While it reads Error it says "Saved. Cloudbeds isn't answering MAYA right now. MAYA keeps trying to reach it and sends this price as soon as it answers.": the cycle keeps trying to read, and the first read that works sends the price, so no send is asked for either. If MAYA cannot read the connection or whether you are live at that moment, it says only "Saved." and asks for no send: the next cycle sends the price if you are live and connected. While MAYA's work is paused over your subscription it says "Saved. Nothing is sent while MAYA's work is paused." followed by what to do next: update your card or restart on the Billing page, or, when the subscription is on hold, email us.

After a save whose price is on its way, the line follows the send. MAYA reads the night's status about 20 seconds, 1 minute and 3 minutes later (and about 6 and 11 minutes later when the price waits for the next cycle or for the connection), stopping once the answer is final, and once more when you open a day with a typed price. The line changes to "Sent to Cloudbeds." ("Accepted by Think Reservations, checking." on ThinkReservations, until MAYA's hourly read finds the price there), "Saved. It couldn't be sent yet. MAYA will retry 3 more times." with the real count left, or "This price couldn't be sent to Cloudbeds." with Try again, which sends it once more now, and See the error log or the cause written under it. Setting a price yourself has the lines.

When prices are sent

• Every cycle, changed prices only, live properties only.
• Now, after you save a typed price. If another run is busy with your property, the nudge waits up to a minute and then leaves the price to the next cycle.
• Not on a cycle where the read of your bookings failed. Nothing is priced or sent on stale bookings. The next cycle reads again.
• Not until a read of your bookings has finished. Your rules run on what has arrived, but MAYA sends nothing until a read of your bookings has finished. On a large property that read can take more than one cycle.

How many nights: 396

Your rules price tonight and the next 395 nights, about 13 months, and MAYA sends what they set. The nights are counted on your property's own calendar, not the clock where you happen to be. That is the window. Every part of a cycle uses the same one: the read of your rates, the rules and the send. No night goes out that MAYA has not priced.

Nights beyond the window are not sent and not priced. Each day, at your property's midnight, one more night enters the window and is priced and sent from then on. Your own base rate is read only inside the window too, so load rates that far ahead. Setting up your system has the check.

Going live sends every priced night of the window, nearest first.

If your property went live when MAYA sent 60 nights, it now sends up to 396 nights ahead too. Nights 61 to 396 got their first price over the few cycles after the window grew, and each is sent again whenever its price changes. Once MAYA has sent to one of those nights, a rate changed by hand in your system on it is kept as a manual price, as it always was inside the 60.

A price you type can reach a little further, up to 399 days ahead. It is saved and shown with its Manual badge, and priced and sent once its night enters the window. The confirmation says "Saved. It will be sent when the date enters the 396-day push window." For a range that crosses the edge it says how many nights go now and how many wait: "Saved. 12 nights sending to Cloudbeds now; 8 more will be sent as they enter the 396-day window." Until then it has no Current price.

Nights before your property's today are never sent. Tonight stays in the window, priced and sent like any other night, until midnight at the property. After that it leaves the window.

Changed prices only

A night is sent again only when MAYA's price for it changes. If the last successful send to that night was at the same price, to the same rate plan, the night is skipped. That is why a quiet property can go hours with nothing sent, and why the change log's runs often read "Prices checked" with no change.

Two exceptions. A night is sent again at the same price when the rate plan behind its room type changes in your system, for example after a base rate is replaced or the rate catalogue is rebuilt: MAYA re-reads which plan each room type maps to and sends the night to the new one. And with MAYA's price wins on, when someone changes or removes the rate in your system on a night MAYA sent to, MAYA sends its own price back (When MAYA's price wins). If you have renamed or rebuilt your rate plans and prices have stopped landing, Prices are not reaching your property system has the steps.

Which rate is changed

On Cloudbeds it is one price per room type per night, to the base rate. On ThinkReservations it is one price per room type per night to your main rate type, plus the same change on their own rate to the other standard rate types you tick. MAYA never sets a price of its own on another rate plan, and it never creates a rate plan, a restriction, a minimum stay or a close-out.

How MAYA confirms a send landed

Booking channels and your booking engine

MAYA's part ends at your property system. A price that changes is sent on that cycle, to the room type's base rate there (on ThinkReservations, also to the other standard rate types you leave ticked), and to nothing else. Your booking engine, your channel manager, Booking.com, Expedia and every other channel take their rates from your system, on their own timing, as they did before MAYA. MAYA does not talk to any of them, so it cannot hurry them and cannot tell you how long they take.

So when MAYA shows a new price and a channel still shows the old one, check your property system first. Look at the room type's base rate for that night.

• Your system still has the old rate. The price has not reached it yet. A price that changed in the last few minutes may not have gone out. If it is older than that, read Prices are not reaching your property system.
• Your system has MAYA's price. MAYA's part is done, and the wait is on the channel's side. Ask your channel manager, or your system's support, how often that channel picks up a rate change.
• The channel sells a rate plan MAYA does not write. A plan that follows your base rate moves by your system's own rules. On Cloudbeds, a plan that does not follow it, such as a package, keeps its own price whatever MAYA sends. On ThinkReservations, a standard rate type you leave ticked, a package included, gets the same change on its own price.

What is never sent

Before every send MAYA checks each room type and night once more, against the room type as it is now. A night that fails a check is held back and recorded, and never sent. The checks:

Only two of these are shown to you: the price of 0 and the missing base rate, because those need you. The rest are MAYA's own checks, and most clear on a later cycle without you. A room type switched off as a duplicate is never meant to be sent, and a night your system has at 0 waits until you load a rate there.

Room types you have unticked or switched off

Counts as a room on the PMS tab changes what MAYA divides by for occupancy, what you are billed for, and whether a price is sent for the type. A room type you untick there (a parking bay, a meeting room, a court) is still priced in MAYA whenever it has a starting price, but nothing is sent to your system for it unless one of your rules ticks it under Apply to room types, or you type a price for one of its nights. Your own rate for it stays as it is. The floor and ceiling answers from setup are not written onto it either. Tick it in a rule, and its price is sent like any other room type's. Type a price for a night of it on the calendar, and that night is sent as you typed it, with any rule that ticks the type on top; its other nights stay held.

A room type that counts as a room is sent whenever it has a starting price: your rate in your system, or a price you typed. To keep your rules off such a room type, leave it out of every rule's Apply to room types: it is then sent at your own rate, kept between its floor and ceiling. If your rate is outside them, the floor or ceiling is sent instead. For a room type that counts as a room there is no switch that takes it out of sending, with one exception.

The exception is a duplicate. A room type the review screen hides as a duplicate is switched off in MAYA, and nothing is sent for it. MAYA hides one at import, or you confirm one there later.

A room type your system has removed is switched off in MAYA:

• On Cloudbeds, MAYA's daily read of your room types switches it off, and the change log says "Deluxe is no longer in Cloudbeds." From then on nothing is sent for it. Until that read its prices cannot land, and once you are live the change log reports its nights as "Cloudbeds can't find the rate MAYA changes for" that room type.
• On ThinkReservations, MAYA's next read of your room types, on the next cycle, switches it off, and the change log says "Deluxe is no longer in Think Reservations." From then on nothing is sent for it.

The first send to a night waits for a fresh read

The first time MAYA sends to a night, it writes over the rate you had there. So MAYA makes sure the price it sends was built on a rate it has read recently. A night MAYA has never sent to is held until the cycle's read of your rates has succeeded, or a read within the last hour did. That is why the first send after going live, and the first send to each new night entering the window, can take one cycle longer than you expect. On ThinkReservations the same goes for the first send to a rate type you picked on the PMS tab, on a night MAYA sent to under another one.

If the read keeps failing, those nights keep waiting. Once a night has waited an hour, the change log says so at the top: "MAYA couldn't read your current rates in Cloudbeds, so its first prices for Deluxe haven't been sent." The item closes by itself on the first cycle whose read works, when the nights go out. When your property system does not accept a price has what to check.

Once MAYA has sent to a night it stops reading that night's rate as yours. What your system reports back is MAYA's own price, and storing it as your rate would build price on price. Instead MAYA compares. If the rate there differs from what MAYA sent, on a night MAYA sent to and confirmed at least an hour ago, your setting in Settings decides. As every property starts, MAYA keeps it as your manual price: your rules start from it, and a rule that fires on that night later moves the price on from your number and sends it. With MAYA's price wins on, MAYA sends its own price to the night again on the same run instead. Some changes are neither kept nor sent over, for example when nearly every night differs from what MAYA sent by the same percentage.

Before a new price goes to a night last sent to over an hour ago, MAYA reads your rate there once more if its hourly read did not run this cycle. A night whose rate moved waits for the next pricing run instead of being written over. With MAYA's price wins on, a night whose rate was changed or removed there does not wait: MAYA's new price goes out as planned. A night set to 0 there still waits, since that closes it, unless you typed its price in MAYA. Rates you change in your property system has every condition.

After going live from your current rates

When you go live with Start from your current rates, or choose by rule and night, a night where a rule was waiting is sent only once MAYA has priced it after you went live, with the rules' changes off. Until then nothing goes to that night, and nothing about it is recorded as held: it is simply not sent yet. MAYA prices those nights first, nearest first, up to 264 nights a cycle, so a year of nights goes out within a few cycles. A night MAYA could not fully price keeps waiting, and the next cycle prices it again. Going live has what each start sends.

When the read of your bookings fails

Nothing is priced or sent on that cycle. MAYA tries again about ten minutes after the first failed read, then every fifteen minutes. The first read that works puts the property back on the normal cycle, prices it and sends what changed.

While reads are failing, the rates already in your system stay exactly as they are. MAYA never sends a rate to undo an earlier one.

On Cloudbeds and ThinkReservations, reads that keep failing are not left to run quietly (Mews works differently: Connection lost). After three failed reads in a row, or half an hour without one that worked, an automatic alert goes to our team. One failed read on its own, after a quiet spell such as an import that held your system for a while, is not counted as an outage: the half hour and the hour below are measured from the last read that worked, and only count once a second read in a row has failed. After about an hour without a good read the connection reads Error on the PMS tab, the banner shows, and an hour after that the General Managers and Hotel Admins get the connection email, as Connection lost describes. The first read that works turns the card back to Connected and clears all of it. A refused sign-in is handled separately: see Connection lost.

Nights your system has no rate for

MAYA reads your rates as far ahead as your system returns them. A night with no rate on record, and no price typed in MAYA, is not priced and nothing is sent for it, whatever its bookings paid; the day card says "No rate in Cloudbeds for this night yet". When a later read returns a rate for the night, it is priced on it and sent on that run. A night the last read did not return, though an earlier one did, counts the same way until a read returns it again. A night MAYA has already sent a price to is different inside the stretch of nights your system still returns rates for: there a rate that is gone is a rate removed in your system. As every property starts, MAYA stops pricing and sending that night until your system has a rate again, and says so on the day card, while with MAYA's price wins on it sends its own price there again (A rate removed in your system). Past the last night your system returns, MAYA reads that as your system's rates ending there, whichever your setting: even a night MAYA sent to is not priced and nothing is sent, and its day card shows no current price and says "No rate in Cloudbeds for this night yet". A price you type for any such night is sent as typed.

If only the hourly read of your rates fails, rules still run and changed prices still go out. Only nights MAYA has never sent to wait for the next successful read, and you are told in the change log once they have waited an hour.

When a pricing run cannot finish

Your prices are made from the prices you typed, your own rates, your room types, your closed periods, your "not a fair comparison" dates and your bookings. A pricing run reads all of them from MAYA's records before it works out a price. If one of them cannot be read, the run stops before it changes any price. It does not carry on without the part it could not read, so a night is never priced as if you had typed no price, or as if your property had never been closed.

The prices already published stay as they are, and nothing new is sent for the nights that run was pricing. The next cycle prices the same nights again and sends what changed. A night that has waited more than 30 minutes to be priced is held back from sending until it is priced, as the table under What is never sent says.

When the latest run could not finish and either three runs in a row have failed or no pricing run has priced anything for your property for 15 minutes, an automatic alert goes to our team, and a second line tells them when a run has priced again. A cycle that ran and found nothing to price does not count as one that priced, so a run that keeps failing is not hidden by the quiet cycles between its tries.

A separate check runs inside MAYA's database every 10 minutes, apart from the pricing cycles, so it still speaks when the cycles stop altogether. It alerts our team when no pricing run has finished for your property in 30 minutes, or when your daily pass has not finished two hours into your hotel day, and says so again once pricing is running normally. It watches live and simulating properties alike, and repeats itself no more than once every six hours for the same property.

Large properties

A property with many bookings can need more than one cycle for its first read of them, and nothing is sent until that read has finished. A large first send goes out in batches, nearest nights first, and continues on the next cycle if it runs out of time.

On a large property the daily re-read of your bookings can take more than one cycle too. Until it finishes, rules still run but nothing is sent. Sending resumes on the cycle it completes.

When your system is busy it can ask MAYA to slow down, and MAYA waits and tries again. A busy hour at your system can make a large send take a few minutes longer. You do not need to do anything. If it lasts, the change log says so, for example "Cloudbeds asked MAYA to slow down, so Standard rates are taking longer than usual to update". When your property system does not accept a price explains that message.

Can I see what was sent?

Not side by side. The calendar's Current price is what your rules set for the night, and in the change log the newest change on a night says whether it was sent: "Sent to Cloudbeds.", or on ThinkReservations "Accepted by Think Reservations, checking." until MAYA's hourly read finds it. It goes to your system on that cycle or the next unless it is held, and a held night that needs you shows in the change log. The Last sync card on the PMS tab shows the last successful read of your bookings (in your browser's local time, with its time zone), not the last send. Problems, and only problems, appear in the change log as "Prices not reaching Cloudbeds".

To check a night, compare its Current price in MAYA with the rate in your system. On Cloudbeds they should match within a minute of a send. On ThinkReservations, allow a little longer. For "is it working right now?", start at Start here: the four questions people ask first.

Inside my system, how can I tell which rate changes MAYA made and which a colleague made? MAYA writes through the connection your property approved. On Cloudbeds that is the MAYA app connected from the Marketplace, and on ThinkReservations the ThinkReservations login used to connect it. It sends only the rate for each night, with no note or tag. How your system's own rate history or audit log labels those changes (by the app's name, or by the person who connected it) is up to your system, so look there for which name appears beside them. MAYA's change log is the record of what MAYA set: each change with its night, room type, price and reason. A rate that matches the change log's latest price for that night came from MAYA. On Mews, MAYA writes nothing, so every rate change there is someone else's.

Questions people ask

Does MAYA pick up new bookings instantly? No. A booking made in your system is read on the next cycle, within about five minutes. The rules price that night again on that cycle, and any price that changes is sent on the same cycle.

Why did MAYA send a night again at the same price? Either the rate plan behind that room type changed in your system, so MAYA sent the night to the new plan, or, with MAYA's price wins on, someone changed or removed the rate there and MAYA sent its own price back.

What does "Last sync" mean? The time of the last successful read of your bookings. It says nothing about sending. The PMS tab: connection health explains the rest of that tab.