Guest Categories and Policies
Guest age categories and hotel policies decide who counts toward a room's capacity, how extras are priced, and what guests are told about cancellations and rules. Getting these right keeps quotes accurate and prevents awkward corrections later.
Guest categories and age bands
Define the guest categories your hotel prices by and give each one an age range. Typical categories are:
- Adults — always enabled; open-ended at the top.
- Children — set the age range to match your pricing.
- Infants — often stay free or use a crib.
- Teenagers / young adults — optional, for hotels that price teens separately.
- Pets — no age range; enable if you accept pets.
The age ranges are yours to set, with one rule: they must connect without gaps, so every age from newborn to adult falls into exactly one category. When a guest says "two adults and a 10-year-old", your ranges decide which category the child belongs to — and therefore how the quote is priced.
How categories affect quotes
- Occupancy: each room type has separate limits per category (for example, up to 2 adults and 2 children), so set them to reflect what each room can really hold.
- Pricing of extras: products can apply to specific categories — breakfast might be paid for adults but free for infants. Category ranges therefore change the quote total.
If you change an age range, review your per-category product prices and room occupancy limits at the same time, so all three stay consistent. Quotes built from these settings are covered in Creating and Sending Quotes.
Cancellation and other policies
Each hotel maintains its own set of policies, and each option in a quote carries a cancellation policy. For every policy, provide:
- A clear name guests will recognize (for example, "Flexible" or "Non-refundable").
- A plain-language description of the terms — deadlines, charges, exceptions. This text is what guests see when they ask "Can I cancel for free?".
- A link to the full policy document, if you have one, so guests can read the complete terms.
- Payment instructions — what the guest should do to secure the room, such as paying a deposit or guaranteeing with a card. Guests see this once their reservation is Tentatively Booked. If your hotel has a connected PMS, this text is generated automatically from your PMS's payment terms and refreshes whenever those terms change; edits you make by hand are kept as long as the PMS terms haven't changed since. If your PMS doesn't specify payment terms, the field stays blank until you write your own.
Guests are shown the policy attached to the option they are considering, so keep descriptions and payment instructions honest and unambiguous — vague wording leads to disputes.
Rate descriptions
Each rate your PMS offers (for example, "Room Only" or "Bed and Breakfast") carries its own description of what is included, and that description becomes part of what guests are told about the option — so write it the way you would want a guest to read it, covering meals, packages, and any conditions, not as internal shorthand. An empty or vague description means guests get a vague answer; an inaccurate one means guests get told something that is not true, so keep it complete and correct — if it says breakfast is included, guests will be told so.
Staying in sync with your PMS
If your hotel has a connected PMS, treat it as the source of truth and mirror any policy, rate, or category changes in Brixa promptly. A mismatch — for example, a stricter cancellation deadline in your PMS than in Brixa, or a rate description that no longer matches what the rate includes — means guests get told one thing and charged another. After changes, send a test question about the policy or rate to confirm the answer matches what your PMS enforces. Payment instructions are the one exception: for connected hotels, they sync and overwrite automatically whenever your PMS's payment terms change, so you don't need to mirror those by hand.
Related setup
Categories interact directly with room occupancy and product pricing — see Rooms, Products, and Amenities — and with the core details in Setting Up Your Hotel Profile.