Booking speed

Where you set it

In the rule builder, choose Booking speed (recommended) in the Metric dropdown. Three fields appear:

• Speed: the level, from Stalled to Surging. It starts at Faster Than Normal.
• Measured over: the window MAYA counts in, Past day, Past week or Past month. It starts at Past week.
• Then waits (advanced): how long the rule leaves a night alone after acting on it. It starts at 1 week.

There is no Compare dropdown for this condition: the level you pick already says which way the rule looks (see Picking a level). A "?" beside Measured over opens a panel titled How booking speed works. It says in a few lines what this page says, with the same example: about 5 bookings expected, 1 reads much slower, 5 or 6 normal, 10 much faster.

How a night reads

Say your rule measures Past week, and the night is Friday, November 13, 2026, 40 days away. MAYA counts the bookings made for that Friday in the past 7 days. Then it takes similar Fridays from your own history and counts what each of them received in the 7 days when it, too, was 40 days away. Their average is the night's "expected" count.

It is Sunday, October 4, 2026. Five similar Fridays at The Harbour Inn received 4, 6, 5, 3 and 7 bookings over those 7 days. The highest and the lowest are set aside, and the average of 4, 6 and 5 is 5. So 5 bookings are expected. Here is how the Friday reads, depending on how many bookings it received itself:

Small gaps read as Normal on purpose. With 5 expected, anything from 2 to 8 is inside the ordinary ups and downs, which is why Slower Than Normal never shows at this size. The smaller the numbers, the bigger the gap has to be, so a rule stays quiet on small numbers rather than acting on them. With fewer than five similar nights to compare with, the reading stays within one step of Normal (Where the lines fall).

This is a comparison with your own past. Booking speed does not say how many bookings a night will end up with, and it does not look ahead. It says whether the bookings so far are ahead of or behind what your own similar nights had at the same point.

Booking speed in detail (advanced) has the fine print: exactly which bookings count on each property system, how expected is worked out, and the exact lines between the levels. Which past nights your rules compare with (advanced) explains how the similar nights are chosen.

Picking a level

You pick one level. The rule acts when the night reads that level or anything beyond it on the same side of Normal. Normal matches Normal only.

The "?" beside Speed, labelled "Which speeds this matches", opens What each speed matches, which says it in three lines:

• "A slower speed means that speed or slower. Slower Than Normal also matches Much Slower Than Normal and Stalled."
• "A faster speed means that speed or faster. Faster Than Normal also matches Much Faster Than Normal and Surging."
• "Normal means exactly Normal. For a rule on "Normal or faster", add a second rule set to Faster Than Normal."

A rule saved to match a level in another way keeps it, and the panel adds a line such as "This rule was saved to match exactly Slower Than Normal, and keeps that until you pick another speed." The starter rule Slow-date trim is one: it matches exactly Slower Than Normal. Your starter rules lists every starter rule's speed, window, wait and amount.

The rules list shows the condition as "booking speed at least Much Faster Than Normal (past week), then waits 2 days". A level picked below Normal reads "at most". A rule that matches one level exactly, such as Normal or the starter rule Slow-date trim, shows no word.

At a small property, or on nights far out, expected is small and the strongest levels are rarely reached. Faster Than Normal and Slower Than Normal act more often, because they include everything beyond them. Two recipes use them: Cut prices on nights booking slowly and Catch a sudden rush.

Normal or faster

To match "Normal or faster", build two rules with the same change: one with Speed Normal, one with Faster Than Normal. Between them they match every level from Normal up. Each acts on its own, like any two rules, so both changes can apply: a night that reads Normal and later Faster Than Normal can carry both. "Normal or slower" is the same with Slower Than Normal.

Measured over

Past day, Past week and Past month are 1, 7 and 30 booking dates, counting today. A short window reacts to a burst within a day and is noisy on quiet nights. A month smooths the count and reacts later. The starter rules use Past day to catch a spike, Past week for a surge, and Past month for the slow-date rules and the warm-date bump.

The similar nights are read at the same distance from arrival, and never over a shorter stretch than this night, so a long window never compares a month of this night with a week of another. After a change the two stretches can differ: read Counting after a change.

A rule that cuts counts full days only, ending yesterday: 1, 7 or 30 whole days, on the night and on the nights it is compared with alike. A rule that raises counts today so far too. So a day that has only just begun never makes a night look slow.

Then waits

After a booking speed rule adjusts a night, it leaves that night alone for the wait you chose: 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, 1 week or 2 weeks. It starts on 1 week, and a rule saved before the choice existed waits 1 week. If the same rule also has a Pickup count (advanced) condition with a longer wait of its own, the rule waits that instead, and the shorter options say so, for example "(pickup holds it to 3 days)".

The wait counts whole days at your property, for each night and room type, and when it is over the rule counts only the bookings made since its latest change, so it never acts twice on the same bookings. Once three of a rule's changes are on the same night, an amber banner asks you whether to keep going. After a rule acts goes through it step by step.

Why a rule stays quiet

A booking speed rule stays quiet on a night when:

• There is not enough history. No similar nights could be found and there was nothing nearby to read momentum from. Read Not enough history.
• The night is near a holiday and the rule asks for a stronger level. A night near one of the 17 US holidays is compared with at most 3 past nights, one a year, so it reads only Slower Than Normal, Normal or Faster Than Normal. Rules set to Much Faster Than Normal, Surging, Much Slower Than Normal or Stalled do nothing on those nights, roughly 64 to 70 a year, and that includes three of the starter rules: Slow-date rescue, Hot-week surge and Sudden-spike catcher. Any night with fewer than five similar nights is kept within one step of Normal the same way. Read Holidays and Where the lines fall.
• The rule is waiting. Its wait on that night and room type is not over.
• A stronger rule holds the night. A stronger rule that is waiting, and would be true again on the bookings since its own latest change, keeps a weaker one from acting under it. Read Which one fires when several match.
• Nothing new to count. Too few bookings have come in since the newest change on the night by the rule or a stronger one. A rule that cuts has nothing to count until a full day has passed since the day of its cut. Read Counting after a change.
• The price is already at its limit. A raise doesn't act on a night at the room type's ceiling, and a cut doesn't act on a night at its floor. Read Floors and ceilings.
• You stopped it on that night. You answered Stop for this night on the amber banner. Let it run again on the Rules tab undoes that.
• The night has no price to start from: on Mews, any night you haven't typed a price for (Where a night's starting price comes from); on Cloudbeds or ThinkReservations, a rate of 0. No rule acts on an unpriced night.
• The rule is switched off, or does not change that room type. Rules you build have no dates or days, so a rule that is on covers every night in the window.
• Every room type the rule measures is unticked as a room. The rule measures nothing. Read Measure one set of room types, change another.

Standard rules (rules with no booking speed or pickup count condition) work from day one. Booking speed needs your history: on Cloudbeds and ThinkReservations, MAYA imports it as soon as you connect. Mews has no history import yet, so a Mews reading stays within one step of Normal until enough similar nights have built up. Read The history import.

Questions people ask

Does a wedding or a group booking count as lots of bookings? It depends on how it was booked. A booking with several rooms counts once for booking speed, and so does a group your property system links, such as a Cloudbeds allotment block or a ThinkReservations group, once MAYA has read your history with those links, unless Count a group as up to in Settings is above 1. Guests who each book their own room with nothing in your system linking them count one by one, and on Mews each room is its own reservation. With Count bookings made together as one on in Settings, 3 or more separate reservations for the same room type and dates, made within 3 hours of each other, count as one booking too, on any property system; it starts off. Occupancy and pickup still count every room. Read What is counted.

Is booking speed a forecast of demand? No. It describes how a night has booked so far, against your own similar past nights at the same point, and says nothing about where the night will end up. There is no forecast of occupancy or demand anywhere in MAYA. Read No forecasts.

Why did it raise a night that is still empty? Booking speed does not look at how full the night is. On a quiet night far out, 2 bookings against an expected 0 reads Much Faster Than Normal, and a raise rule acts. That is what a far-out rush looks like, for example after a concert is announced months ahead. If you want raises only on busy nights, add a Sellable occupancy (%) row to the same rule, so both must be true.

Why did it cut a night that is nearly full? For the same reason. A cut rule reads the pace of recent bookings, not the total. A nearly full night that received nothing this month, against similar nights that received 6, reads slow. Add an occupancy row (Less than 70, say) to keep cuts away from full nights. The two cut rules MAYA builds during setup come with that row; ones built before it was added do not. Read Your starter rules.

Why does MAYA say Faster Than Normal from only two bookings? Because similar nights had almost none at the same point, so 2 is a real change. With five or more similar nights behind it, 2 bookings against an expected 0 reads Much Faster Than Normal. With fewer than five, the reading stays one step from Normal, at Faster Than Normal.

Why does it say Normal when we got far more bookings than usual? Usually one of three things. The difference is still small in bookings (with 3 expected, anything from 1 to 5 reads Normal). The bookings came in before this rule or a stronger one last raised the night, and the rule now counts only the ones since (Counting after a change). Or the similar nights were as busy at the same point, so this night is keeping pace rather than running ahead. Show the numbers in the change log shows the counts.

Can I see a night's booking speed before a rule acts on it? Not yet. The calendar does not show it, and the Rate Simulator works on a night you make up, so it counts nothing. A real night's reading shows under Show the numbers in the change log, under a change on that night, when a booking speed rule was checked there. To watch for a level while your property is in simulation, add a rule set to that level: when a night reads it, the rule acts there (unless a stronger rule holds the night), and the change log shows the reading without sending anything. Delete the rule before you go live. Read When the reading shows.

Can bookings that later cancel move my prices? For a while, and only inside your floors and ceilings. Every booking still on the books counts for booking speed, whatever channel it came from, so bookings that are made and later cancelled (speculative bookings, test bookings or fake ones) can make a raise rule act before they cancel. On Mews, enquiries and optional reservations count too. Here is what keeps that in check:

• A cancelled booking leaves the count on the next read, as if it had never been made. It never counts as a negative, so making and cancelling bookings cannot make a night read slower than it would have. One exception: with Count bookings made together as one on, a group of reservations made together stays a group when one of them cancels, so the ones left still count as one booking.
• With the undo box ticked, a raise comes off once cancellations mean its rule is no longer true (Changes after cancellations).
• The slow pace itself never takes a cut off: cancellations only make a night slower. A cut that also needs occupancy above a number, fewer rooms left, or pickup above a number can come off when cancellations break that row. A pickup rule set to Less than reads cancellations as negative pickup, so a wave of cancellations can make it cut.
• Every price stays between the room type's floor and ceiling. Read Floors and ceilings.
• Once three of a rule's changes are on the same night, the amber banner asks you whether it should keep going.

Booking speed or pickup count

Both count what a night gained recently. Booking speed compares the count with your own past nights, so the same three bookings can read as a rush in February and as normal in August. Pickup count compares with a fixed number you type, and counts room nights (or revenue) rather than bookings. That is why the builder labels them Booking speed (recommended) and Pickup count (advanced).

Pickup suits a fixed line you already trust, a property with no history yet, or a rule that should watch revenue. Booking speed suits everything else. Read Pickup count (advanced).

Booking speed or booked so far vs usual

Booking speed asks how fast bookings are arriving right now, and counts a group as one booking. Booked so far vs usual asks where the night stands overall: every room on the books, a group's every room included, against what similar nights had booked by the same point. On a small property, where a few bookings a week move booking speed a lot, it reads more steadily. Both can be in one rule.