What are allotments?
An allotment is a group of sales channels that you give a share of your availability for selected dates. Allotments help you:
keep units for direct bookings and lower-commission channels,
meet contracted quotas for agencies and tour operators,
show fewer free units on OTA channels to prompt guests to book sooner.
1. Turn on distribution
Go to Yield → Settings.
Turn on Distribution for your property.
Once distribution is on, the Distribution tab appears in Yielding. If you turn it off, all allotments become inactive and channels go back to receiving the shared availability.
When you turn it on again, you need to activate your allotments manually.
When all properties are selected, distribution tab is shown only when distribution is on for every selected property.
2. Manage allotments
Click Manage allotments to open the list of all your allotments.
Create a new allotment
Click Create new allotment.
Enter a Name.
In Select one or more sales channels, choose the channels.
Click Create allotment.
An allotment needs at least one channel to be saved.
Example: an allotment called “OTA group” with Booking.com and Expedia. A booking on either of them uses the same allotment.
Channel rules:
Wubook, SiteMinder and Phobs can belong to only one allotment. If you try to add one to a second allotment, you will see a message naming the allotment it already belongs to.
Other channels can be added to several allotments. In that case the lower limit applies for each night, both in the PMS search and on the channels.
Phobs appears in the list as one “Phobs” channel that stands for every OTA behind it.
A channel that is not in any allotment receives full availability.
Edit an allotment
Click the pencil icon next to the allotment. You can change the name and the channels.
Activate and deactivate
The toggle next to an allotment turns it on or off.
An allotment without channels cannot be activated.
You cannot remove all channels from an active allotment.
When you deactivate an allotment or change its channels, the channels immediately receive the new availability for all future days.
Change the order (priority)
Drag the four-dot icon to the position you want. Changes apply automatically.
Delete
Click the bin icon. The channels of that allotment go back to receiving the shared availability for all future days.
3. The distribution calendar
You can view the calendar by Year, Month or Custom period. With Change calendar view you switch between Allotment and Unit type view. Filter by Unit types and Allotment.
How to read the numbers:
(1) Total availability (top number): how many units are still free that day, summed across the selected unit types.
(2) Room count (bottom number): the total number of units you have, regardless of bookings.
(3) Allotment cells (e.g.
30/30): remaining/allocated. Hover over a cell to see the tooltip.(4) Dot in a cell: no allocation/max availability shown is set for that day.
(5) Red cell: no allocation is set at all for that allotment.
Collapse all collapses the allotment rows.
Hovering over an allotment’s availability cell in the calendar opens a breakdown for that allotment and date. It shows how the number sent to the channel is calculated.
Allotment allocation (this allotment’s share)
Allocated: the share of availability set aside for this allotment.
Allotment booked: reservations sold through this allotment.
Remaining: Allocated minus Allotment booked.
Physical capacity (the whole unit type)
Room count: total inventory for the unit type.
Booked: reservations sold across all sources.
Availability: rooms still available to sell.
Remaining → Max availability shown → Availability sent
This row shows the steps from the allotment’s remaining allocation to the number actually sent to the channel.
Max availability shown is the cap on how many units the channel displays at once.
Availability sent can’t be higher than the physical availability.
Summary message: the box at the bottom states how many of the remaining units are being sent. Rentlio automatically replenishes availability on the channel until the remaining allocation is used up.
4. Set the allocation and the cap
For each day you can set two values:
Assign availability: how many units the allotment receives.
Maximum shown availability: the most units a channel is allowed to see, regardless of the allocation. This is optional.
For one day or a range of days (in the calendar)
In the unit type row select one or more days by dragging. The tooltip shows the range and the number of nights.
In the window that opens, under Allocate availability, choose an action and enter the number of units:
Set: sets an exact number.
+ / −: increases or decreases the existing number.
Clear: removes the allocation.
If you want, do the same under Set max shown availability.
Click Save.
For many days, unit types or allotments at once (Bulk edit)
Click the blue Bulk edit icon to the left of the Manage allotments button.
Choose a mode:
Period: enter a start and end date. Under “Which days of the week do these changes apply to?” you can exclude weekdays.
Seasons: choose a season. This also works for seasons that cross into the new year.
Day: individual days.
Select one or more unit types and one or more allotments.
Set Assign availability and/or Maximum shown availability (Set, +, −, Clear).
Click Save changes.
If several properties are selected, each allotment changes only the unit types of its own property.
A date more than two years away cannot be selected.
5. What happens when a reservation comes in
The booked count updates automatically when a reservation on a channel from the allotment is created, changed, shortened, moved to another unit type or cancelled. This applies to reservations from the PMS, OTA channels (through the channel manager), Wubook, SiteMinder and Phobs. Reservations created by an import are counted when the import finishes. Day-use reservations do not change the booked count.
When an allotment is used up
When a day is booked to its allocation, the cell shows 0/10 with a red shading.
6. Allotments in the PMS
The PMS offer search takes the allotment of the sales channel into account. If it is used up for a night, the unit type is shown as unavailable with the message “No availability left in sales channel allotment”. Day-use search is not limited.
When editing a reservation, its own units stay bookable, and an extra unit is not offered.
With Change stay, Extend and Move from the calendar, and add more days, the extra nights are limited by the allotment of that reservation’s sales channel. If the channel has rate plans linked to it, only those rate plans are offered.
In the booking sidebar, Extend, Move and Duplicate warn you before saving when the allotment is used up.
Good to know
Reservations created or cancelled through the public API are not counted in the allotment’s booked count.
Moving a reservation to another property is not supported for allotments.
A reservation whose rate plan is not linked to its sales channel cannot be extended, moved or duplicated from the booking sidebar or the calendar shortcut until you link the rate plan or change the channel.
If saving fails because the service is unavailable, the message will say the change may or may not have been saved. Refresh the page and check.
FAQ
What does a channel that is not in any allotment see? Full availability.
Can I show a channel fewer units than I allocated? Yes, set Maximum shown availability.
What if I turn distribution off? Allotments become inactive and all channels receive the shared availability.