A hotel rate sheet looks simple until you cost your first family over Christmas. You get a grid of room types and seasons, a few lines of codes, then a block of small print that decides whether your quote makes money. Most margin losses on hotel files start in that small print: a supplement nobody read, or a release date nobody noticed.
This guide walks you through a hotel B2B rates format line by line, using a sample contract for a fictional resort in Phuket. You'll get the codes, the supplements, the "++" tax notation country by country, the difference between net, gross, sell and commissionable rates, and a worked costing that shows how one missed line turns your profit into a loss.
Key Takeaways
- A rate sheet is a contract written in shorthand. Read the terms block before the price grid, because that's where the costs hide.
- B2B rates are trade prices: you see the net cost, add your own markup and set the price your client pays.
- "++" means service charge and tax go on top. In Singapore that comes to about 19.9%, in Thailand usually about 17.7%.
- Over peak dates, compulsory gala dinners, child age bands and minimum stays can move your total more than the room rate does.
- Check the release period before you promise a room. Inside it, the allotment no longer protects you and the booking may go on request.
- Per-night charges such as the Tourism Dirham in Dubai or the Green Tax in the Maldives often sit outside your net rate.
What a hotel rate sheet is, and what B2B rates mean
A rate sheet is the price schedule attached to a hotel contract. The hotel, or a wholesaler holding the contract, sends it to trade partners so they can price rooms for their own clients. It lists rates for each room type, season and occupancy, followed by the conditions that apply to those rates.
When agents ask what "B2B rates" mean for hotels, this is the answer. They're rates offered business to business (to travel agents, tour operators and wholesalers) rather than to the public. They usually sit below the public price because the hotel expects you to add your own margin and do the selling. Most are quoted net. Some are commissionable, which means the hotel quotes a gross price and pays you a percentage afterwards. The section on net and gross rates further down covers the difference properly.
Two things a rate sheet is not. It isn't a price list you can publish, since most contracts forbid showing the rates publicly. And it doesn't guarantee you a room unless you also hold an allotment.
A sample hotel rate sheet, annotated
Every hotel lays its contract out a little differently, but the building blocks repeat. The sample below is for a fictional property, the Tamarind Bay Resort in Phuket. We made up the figures for illustration; the layout follows what you would typically receive from a 4-star resort in Thailand.
Sample contract: Tamarind Bay Resort, Phuket (fictional). Validity 1 November 2026 to 31 October 2027. Rates in Thai baht (THB), net, per room per night, inclusive of 10% service charge and 7% VAT, breakfast included.
| Room type | Season | Single (SGL) | Double (DBL) | Triple (TPL) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Superior Garden | Low (1 May to 31 Oct 2027) | 2,400 | 2,400 | 3,300 |
| Superior Garden | High (1 Nov to 19 Dec 2026, and 11 Jan to 30 Apr 2027) | 3,600 | 3,600 | 4,600 |
| Superior Garden | Peak (20 Dec 2026 to 10 Jan 2027) | 5,200 | 5,200 | 6,400 |
| Deluxe Pool View | Low | 3,000 | 3,000 | 3,900 |
| Deluxe Pool View | High | 4,500 | 4,500 | 5,500 |
| Deluxe Pool View | Peak | 6,500 | 6,500 | 7,700 |
| Pool Access | Low | 4,200 | 4,200 | n/a |
| Pool Access | High | 6,200 | 6,200 | n/a |
| Pool Access | Peak | 8,800 | 8,800 | n/a |
| Supplement (THB) | Low | High | Peak | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extra bed, adult or child 12+ | 900 | 1,000 | 1,200 | Per night, breakfast included |
| Child 0 to 5.99 sharing parents' bed | Free | Free | Free | One free child per room, breakfast included |
| Child 6 to 11.99, no extra bed | 350 | 350 | 350 | Breakfast charge per night |
| Child 6 to 11.99 with extra bed | 700 | 700 | 700 | Per night, breakfast included |
| Half board, per adult | 950 | 950 | 950 | Child 6 to 11.99 at 50% |
| Full board, per adult | 1,700 | 1,700 | 1,700 | Child 6 to 11.99 at 50% |
| Christmas Eve gala dinner, 24 Dec | - | - | 4,500 | Per adult, compulsory. Child 6 to 11.99: 2,250. Under 6: free |
| New Year's Eve gala dinner, 31 Dec | - | - | 6,500 | Per adult, compulsory. Child 6 to 11.99: 3,250. Under 6: free |
Terms block:
- Maximum occupancy: Superior and Deluxe take 3 adults, or 2 adults and 2 children. Pool Access takes 2 adults and 1 child.
- Minimum stay: 3 nights from 20 December to 10 January, and 5 nights for any stay that includes 31 December.
- Allotment: 5 Superior and 3 Deluxe rooms per night.
- Release period: 21 days before arrival, or 45 days during Peak.
- Stop-sale: the hotel may close sales with 24 hours' notice. Confirmed bookings are honoured.
- Blackout: 28 December to 2 January. Allotment isn't valid and all bookings are on request.
- Cancellation: Low and High, free up to 7 days before arrival, then the first night is charged. Peak, free up to 30 days before arrival, then the full stay. No-show: full stay.
- Payment: 14 days before arrival, or within 3 days of booking if made later.
- Market: valid for bookings from Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Not for online display.
That's one page. Now line by line.
Reading the hotel B2B rates format line by line
Validity and seasons
The validity dates tell you which travel dates the contract covers, and the season dates split that period into price bands. Watch for split seasons (High appears twice in the sample) and for a stay that crosses a season change. Most hotels price each night at the rate for that night, so a 5-night stay from 18 December is two High nights and three Peak nights. A few contracts price the whole stay at the season of the arrival date, which is why your sheet should say which rule applies. If it doesn't, ask the supplier before you quote.
Room types
Room names are chosen by the hotel, and you'll find they don't travel well between suppliers. One bedbank calls a room "Deluxe Pool View" and another calls the same room "Deluxe, Pool Side". When you compare rates for one hotel from two sources, compare the size, view and bed type rather than the label.
Occupancy codes: SGL, DBL and TPL
SGL is one person in the room, DBL is two and TPL is three. In much of Asia the single and double rate are identical because you're buying the room, not the bed. The triple is often just the double plus an extra bed, as it is in the sample: 4,500 plus 1,000 gives the Deluxe High triple of 5,500. If a triple works out cheaper than that sum, the hotel is offering a third-person discount, and you should use it when you quote friends travelling together.
Our sample prices are per room per night. Some sheets quote per person per night instead.
Getting that wrong doubles or halves your price.
Meal plan codes
RO is room only. BB is bed and breakfast. HB is half board, meaning breakfast plus one other meal, usually dinner. FB is full board with three meals, and AI is all inclusive, where what "all" covers varies a lot from hotel to hotel. The sample is BB, with HB and FB sold as supplements per person. Our guide to hotel meal plans goes deeper on what each code includes.
Child policy and age bands
Child bands differ by hotel, so don't assume the last contract you read applies. In the sample, under 6 is free sharing the parents' bed, 6 to 11.99 pays a breakfast charge or an extra-bed rate, and 12 and over counts as an adult. Another resort in Kata might set its free band at 0 to 11.99 and charge teenagers as adults from 13. Always quote using the age on the check-in date, and ask your clients for dates of birth instead of "about six".
Compulsory gala dinners
Resorts in Thailand, Bali, the Maldives and Dubai commonly add a mandatory gala dinner to your client's bill on 24 and 31 December, and some do the same for Chinese New Year or Valentine's Day. The supplement is per person and is charged whether your client attends or not. Over the festive period this single line can cost your client more than a night in the room.
Minimum stay
A minimum stay means the hotel won't confirm shorter bookings over those dates. On the sample, any stay touching 31 December needs 5 nights, so a 3-night New Year package for your client simply won't confirm. Check this before you send a quote, not after.
Allotment and release period
An allotment is a block of rooms the hotel holds for the contract holder (you, or your supplier) each night. The release period, also called the cut-off, is the point after which unsold allotment goes back to the hotel. With a 45-day Peak release, a booking you make 36 days before a Christmas arrival is already inside the release window. The allotment no longer guarantees it, and the booking goes on request. We cover the mechanics in more detail in our piece on hotel allotment contracts.
Stop-sale and blackout dates
A stop-sale closes sales for given dates, usually because the hotel is filling up through its own channels. A blackout date means the contract rates don't apply at all for those nights. Both override everything else on the sheet, so check them first whenever you quote a festive or event week.
Cancellation, no-show and payment terms
Read the cancellation clause as a date, not as a number of days. "7 days before arrival" for a 21 December check-in means your free period ends on 14 December, and many contracts add a cut-off time, often noon in hotel local time. A no-show usually costs the full stay. Payment terms tell you when the money is due to the supplier, which matters for your own cash flow and for when you collect from your client. Our guide to hotel cancellation policies covers the trickier cases.
Market restrictions and display rules
Many contracts limit your rates to bookings from certain source markets and forbid showing them online. A rate valid for Asian and Middle Eastern markets isn't meant for your client from Germany or France. Breaking these rules is how agents lose access to a rate, and sometimes to a supplier altogether.
What "++" and "nett" mean: taxes and service charge by country
"++" after a price means two charges are added on top of what you see: a service charge and a government tax. "Nett" (or "net inclusive") means both are already in. The gap is often close to 20%, so you need to be exact about which one your sheet uses.
The order matters too. In most of these markets the tax is charged on the room price plus the service charge, not on the room price alone. This is why 10% plus 9% in Singapore comes out at 19.9% rather than 19%.
| Country | What "++" adds | Worked example | Charges outside the room rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singapore | 10% service charge, then 9% GST on the total | S$200++ becomes S$220 after service and S$239.80 after GST (19.9%) | None per night for tourists |
| Thailand | Usually a 10% service charge, then 7% VAT on the total | THB 4,000++ becomes THB 4,400, then THB 4,708 (17.7%) | None |
| Malaysia | Usually a 10% service charge, plus 8% service tax on accommodation | Ask for the hotel breakdown | Tourism tax of RM10 per room per night, foreign guests only |
| Bali, Indonesia | 5% to 10% service charge, then 10% local hotel tax (PB1); no VAT on hotel rooms | IDR 1,000,000 plus 10% plus 10% becomes IDR 1,210,000 (21%) | IDR 150,000 levy per foreign visitor, paid separately, not on the hotel bill |
| Dubai, UAE | Service charge (usually 10%), a municipality fee (commonly quoted at 7%, some sources say 10%) and 5% VAT | Ask for the hotel breakdown | Tourism Dirham of AED 7 to 20 per room per night by hotel class, for up to 30 nights |
| Maldives | Usually a 10% service charge, plus 17% T-GST since 1 July 2025 | USD 600 plus 10% is USD 660; with T-GST on that total, USD 772.20 | Green Tax of USD 12 per person per night at resorts (USD 6 at small guesthouses); under-2s exempt |
| India | GST on the room: 5% for rooms up to ₹7,500 a night, 18% above that, since 22 September 2025 | ₹7,000 plus 5% is ₹7,350; ₹9,000 plus 18% is ₹10,620 | Check the invoice for any service charge |
Sources for the rates above include IRAS on Singapore GST, KPMG on the Thai VAT extension and the UAE government page on other taxes, which covers the Tourism Dirham.
Two cautions. Tax rules change: Thailand extended its 7% VAT rate to 30 September 2027 under Royal Decree No. 807, and the Maldives moved T-GST from 16% to 17% in July 2025. So check the date on any rate sheet you inherit from a colleague. And per-night charges such as the Tourism Dirham or the Green Tax are often payable at the hotel, outside your net rate, so tell your client before they reach the desk.
Net rate vs gross rate vs sell rate vs commissionable rate
These four terms get used loosely, and the confusion costs you money. In plain language:
| Term | What it means | Who sets it | When you get paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net rate | The price you pay the hotel or supplier | The hotel or supplier | You keep the difference when your client pays you |
| Sell rate | The price you charge your client: net plus your markup | You | When your client pays |
| Gross rate | A price that already includes the agent commission, usually the public or rack price | The hotel | The hotel pays your commission later |
| Commissionable rate | A gross rate on which the hotel pays you a percentage | The hotel | After the stay, often weeks later |
Net rate vs sell rate: a worked margin
Say you buy 4 nights at THB 4,000 net, so THB 16,000. You add a 15% markup and sell at THB 18,400. Your profit is THB 2,400. As a margin on the selling price, that is 13.04%, not 15%: markup is calculated on your cost, margin on your selling price. Mixing the two up is a common pricing error, and at these numbers it quietly takes about two percentage points off every file you sell.
Net rate vs commissionable rate
On a commissionable booking at the same hotel, you might be quoted THB 20,000 gross with 10% commission. Your client pays THB 20,000, and THB 2,000 comes back to you after the stay, assuming the hotel processes it. With a net rate, you set the price, you're paid upfront and nobody has to chase a commission payment. With a commissionable rate, the price is fixed and public, and you wait. For help setting markups by product and season, see our B2B hotel markup strategy guide.
Worked example: costing a Christmas stay from the sample rate sheet
This is where the small print earns its keep.
Your clients are two adults with children aged 5 and 9, staying in a Deluxe Pool View room from 21 to 26 December 2026. That's 5 nights, all in Peak, so the 3-night minimum stay is met. The 9-year-old needs an extra bed.
| Line | Calculation | THB |
|---|---|---|
| Room, Deluxe Pool View, Peak | 5 nights x 6,500 | 32,500 |
| Child aged 5, sharing | Free (0 to 5.99) | 0 |
| Child aged 9, extra bed | 5 nights x 700 | 3,500 |
| Christmas Eve gala, adults | 2 x 4,500 | 9,000 |
| Christmas Eve gala, child aged 9 | 1 x 2,250 | 2,250 |
| Christmas Eve gala, child aged 5 | Under 6, free | 0 |
| Total net cost | 47,250 | |
| Sell price at 12% markup | 47,250 x 1.12 | 52,920 |
| Your profit | 5,670 |
Now the version where somebody skipped the supplements block. Room and extra bed only comes to THB 36,000 net, sold at THB 40,320 with the same 12% markup. The hotel then bills THB 47,250, and your file loses THB 6,930. One missed line turned a planned THB 4,320 profit into a loss.
You should run two more checks on the same booking. The Peak release period is 45 days, so if you book on 15 November (36 days out), the allotment has already been released and the booking goes on request. And 21 to 26 December sits just clear of the 28 December blackout. Shift the stay by three days and the contract rates stop applying altogether.
Mistakes agents make reading a rate sheet
- Reading a per-person rate as per room, or the other way round.
- Missing compulsory gala dinners and other festive supplements.
- Ignoring the release period and promising your clients rooms that have already gone back to the hotel.
- Quoting "++" prices as if they were nett, which leaves a gap of 17% to 21% in most of Southeast Asia.
- Using the age of the child at booking instead of at check-in. A child who turns 6 in the week before Christmas pays the 6 to 11.99 rate.
- Forgetting per-night charges paid at the hotel, such as the Tourism Dirham in Dubai or the Green Tax in the Maldives, and letting your client find out at checkout.
Most of these come from reading your price grid first. Read the terms block first and the grid second, and half of them disappear before you've typed a number into your quote.
How rates look on the DMC Quote portal
For most hotels you won't get a PDF rate sheet from us. Our portal shows live rates instead, and the same building blocks appear in a different form:
- We show rates net. The price you see is what you pay, and you add your margin when you quote your client.
- You'll often see one hotel with several rates side by side from different supply sources, sorted with the cheapest first. Room names may differ between sources, so compare the details as well as the label.
- Each rate tells you whether it's refundable, and the cancellation deadline is shown in Singapore time (SGT). We set it earlier than the supplier deadline on purpose, so you have time to act.
- Mandatory fees payable at the hotel, such as resort fees or city tax, are shown before you pay wherever the supplier sends them, and they print in the "Important Hotel Information" block on your voucher.
- You can't set a hotel markup inside the portal itself. If you build a package with our AI package builder, you can set a markup percentage there and send your client a quotation directly.
For our directly contracted hotels, availability follows the contract: when the allotment runs out or a stop-sale applies, your booking switches to on request instead of failing quietly.
If you want to compare what you pay now against trade rates, registration is free, with no subscription and no minimum volume. Our B2B hotel booking page explains how the hotel side works, and wholesale vs retail rates shows where the price gap usually comes from.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do B2B rates mean for hotels?
B2B rates are trade prices that hotels and wholesalers give to travel agents and tour operators, not to the public. They're usually net, so you add your own markup and set the price your client pays. Some are commissionable instead, with the hotel paying you a percentage after the stay.
What is the difference between net rate and gross rate?
A net rate is what you pay the supplier, with no commission built in. A gross rate already includes the agent commission, so the hotel sets the selling price and pays your share later. With net rates you control the price and keep your margin upfront.
Net rate vs sell rate: which one does my client see?
Your client sees only the sell rate, which is the net rate plus your markup. Never send a client a supplier rate sheet or a screenshot showing net prices; most contracts forbid it anyway.
What does ++ mean on a hotel rate?
It means service charge and government tax are added on top of the price you're quoted. In Singapore that's 10% service plus 9% GST on the total, about 19.9%, and in Thailand it's usually 10% service plus 7% VAT, about 17.7%. "Nett" means both are already included.
What is a release period on a hotel rate sheet?
It's the number of days before arrival after which unsold allotment rooms go back to the hotel. Inside that window, the hotel doesn't have to hold a room for you, so a new booking may go on request or be declined.
Can my client skip a compulsory gala dinner?
Usually not. If the contract lists the gala dinner as compulsory, the hotel charges it for every guest staying that night, whether they attend or not. Put it in your quote from the start so your client isn't surprised at checkout.
Is a triple room cheaper than a double plus an extra bed?
Often the two cost exactly the same, because many hotels build the triple rate from the double plus an extra-bed supplement. When the triple comes in lower than that sum, the hotel is giving a third-person discount, and you should use it for families and friends sharing.
