Makes sure the “Starting at” and lowest/average rates shown on your property cards and booking widget only count dates a guest can actually book, so guests never see a teaser price that turns out to be unavailable.
What it does #
By default, the price your booking widget advertises (for example “Starting at $275/night”) can be pulled from a date that is blocked or already booked. The guest sees an attractive number, tries to book it, and finds it does not exist, which erodes trust right at the moment of decision.
Lowest Rate Availability closes that gap. When enabled, it forces the underlying “exclude unavailable calendar dates” setting ON, so every lowest-rate and average-rate calculation skips unavailable and booked dates. The price guests see is always a price they can actually book.
This module was built after a real incident where a site advertised a lower nightly rate than the cheapest bookable date, because one unavailable date held the lowest price.
How to turn it on #
1. Enable the module #
Go to HomeRunner Toolkit in your WordPress admin and switch on Toolkit: Lowest Rate Availability.
That is all that is required. The module immediately forces the correct behavior site-wide. Switching the module off restores the previous setting.
Settings #
There is nothing to configure. The settings panel is a status view that confirms enforcement is active:
- Enforcement Status – shows Enforced (yes) when the module is doing its job, or Not enforced otherwise. (The underlying option is
homelocal_exclude_unavailable_calendar_dates.) - Why this matters – a short explanation that, when off, the advertised “Starting at” price can include blocked or booked dates, and when on, all pricing lookups only consider available dates.
Tips #
- Turn this on for any site that displays “Starting at” or lowest-rate pricing on property cards or listing grids. It is a quiet but high-value safeguard against guest frustration.
- After enabling, spot-check a property whose calendar has some blocked dates near the low season, and confirm the advertised rate matches the cheapest bookable night.
- Pair this with Rate Plan Control so both the price and the rate plan a guest sees first are accurate and bookable.
See the full module list in the Toolkit overview.