Hotel Policies

In Juno, hotels are selected based on configurable selection “strategies.”

Unlike an employee travel booking tool, where a traveler typically selects from a list of in-policy hotels, Juno intelligently selects the best hotel for your guests based upon your configured strategies.

This prescriptive, guided booking process ensures guests get the best hotel for their visit while optimizing T&E spend.

For any given saved address, Juno can use one of three different hotel selection strategies:

• Default Hotel Policy: Uses your global hotel policy settings (selection process + room policy) to find hotels based on star rating, price limits, preferred chains, refundability, and room types
• Stack Rank: Books the first available hotel from a priority-ordered list, rather than the cheapest or closest one
• Best of Preferred: Selects the best hotel from a specific list of approved hotels, optimizing for price or distance to the search location (normally the event location)

You can define location-specific strategies that override the default, and if a location-specific strategy fails to find available hotels, the system will automatically fall back to your Default Hotel Policy.

Default Hotel Policy

The Default Hotel Policy defines your global hotel settings that automatically find and book hotels based on configurable criteria. This policy includes both selection process settings (star rating, price limits, preferred chains) and room policy settings (refundability, room types).

Selection Process determines which hotels to consider:

• Searches for hotels within a radius of the search location using coordinates (the event location, unless a coordinator or agent searched near another place)
• Applies the minimum star rating to hotels with a reported rating and enforces the maximum price per night
• Can optimize for preferred hotel chains with configurable price and distance buffers
• Serves as the fallback when location-specific strategies don’t find available hotels

Room Policy determines booking preferences:

• Controls when to book non-refundable vs. refundable rooms
• Defines acceptable room type configurations

This unified policy ensures consistent hotel selection and booking preferences across all destinations.

Selection Process Settings

Minimum Star Rating

Set the baseline quality standard for accommodations (1–5 stars).

Juno applies this minimum to hotels with a reported star rating; a reported rating below the minimum is out of policy. Hotels without a reported star rating can remain eligible for default hotel selection and are still evaluated against the rest of your hotel policy, including price limits and room requirements.

Considerations:

• Higher ratings typically mean higher costs
• Consider traveler comfort vs. budget constraints
• Different ratings may be appropriate for different regions

Maximum Price Per Night

Set the spending limit for hotel accommodations to control costs.

Configuration:

• Dollar amount - Maximum nightly rate
• Currency - USD, EUR, etc.
• Taxes Included - Whether limit includes taxes/fees
• How the nightly limit applies to multi-night stays - Choose Average across the stay (the default) to compare the limit with the average nightly price, or Every night individually to make a stay out of policy when any night exceeds the limit.

This choice applies to all hotel price limits in the policy, including location, city, and preferred-hotel limits. When complete nightly prices aren’t available, Juno uses the stay’s average nightly price.

With Every night individually and split payments enabled, a guest pays only the amount above the limit on the affected nights. Juno can’t offer that split-payment option without complete nightly prices. Instead, Juno compares the stay’s average nightly price with the limit; the stay requires approval only when that average exceeds the limit.

Best Practices:

• Research average rates for key destinations
• Consider seasonal pricing variations
• Account for currency fluctuations

Excluded Properties

Use Excluded properties to identify hotels that require approval whenever they are selected. Search by property name or address, then select the matching property from the catalog. To remove a property, select the trash icon beside it.

If a property does not appear in search, expand Advanced: add a property manually, enter the property name and Juno global hotel ID, and select Add. Manual entry identifies the property for policy evaluation but does not confirm that it is currently available to book.

Excluded properties remain visible and selectable in hotel search results. If a guest or coordinator selects one, Juno continues the booking through the standard approval process rather than blocking it. Guests see a general out-of-policy message rather than the configured exclusion reason.

You can override the excluded-properties list in a policy variant when a group of travelers needs a different policy.

Optimize for Preferred Chains

Enable selection that favors preferred hotel chains while considering price and location.

When Enabled:

• System prioritizes preferred chains
• Uses buffer percentages for price and distance
• Falls back to non-preferred options when needed

When Disabled:

• System selects purely based on price and location
• Ignores brand preferences
• May result in lower costs but less consistent experience

Room Policy Settings

Room policy settings control the type and refundability of rooms that Juno will book. These settings are configured alongside your selection process settings as part of your Default Hotel Policy.

When should Juno book a non-refundable room?

This setting controls when Juno will choose non-refundable hotel rates over refundable ones.

Available Options:

• When cheaper - Juno will book a non-refundable room when it’s cheaper than a refundable room
• Never - Juno will never book a non-refundable room
• When both cheaper and meeting certain conditions - Juno will book a non-refundable room if it’s cheaper and meets specified conditions (requires condition configuration)

When your policy requires a refundable room, Juno may check full room availability for a limited set of candidate hotels before excluding them. This can allow a hotel whose lowest advertised rate is non-refundable to qualify when it also offers a refundable room that meets the rest of your policy.

Considerations:

• Non-refundable rates can offer cost savings but limit flexibility
• Refundable rates provide booking flexibility but typically cost 10-30% more
• Conditional booking allows for sophisticated rules based on trip characteristics

What room types should we consider when booking?

Define which room configurations Juno should consider when searching for accommodations. This setting helps ensure guests are booked into appropriate room types based on your organization’s preferences.

Stack Rank Strategy

The Stack Rank strategy books hotels from a specific priority-ordered list, selecting the first available hotel in your ranked order rather than the cheapest or closest one. Hotels far from the search location are skipped, as described below.

How it works:

• Provide an ordered list of specific hotels for a location
• The system searches for availability among only those hotels
• Books the first available hotel in your specified order
• Respects optional price limits if configured
• Falls back to Default Hotel Policy if no preferred hotels are available

Best for:

• Locations with negotiated corporate rates at specific properties
• Events with recommended or required accommodations
• Destinations where you want guaranteed consistency
• Compliance with client accommodation requirements
• Corporate headquarters with established preferred properties

Configuration Options:

• Hotel list - Ordered list of specific hotels (first = highest priority)
• Price Limit - Optional maximum price per night constraint
• Conditions - Available vs. Available with Price Limit

Best of Preferred Strategy

The Best of Preferred strategy selects the optimal hotel from a curated list of approved hotels, optimizing based on either price or distance to the search location (normally the event location).

How it works:

• Provide a list of approved hotels for a location
• The system searches for availability among only those hotels
• Optimizes selection based on your chosen priority (price or distance)
• Respects price limits if configured
• Falls back to Default Hotel Policy if no preferred hotels are available

Optimization Options:

• Price priority - Selects the lowest-cost option from available preferred hotels
• Distance priority - Selects the closest option from available preferred hotels

Best for:

• Locations with multiple acceptable hotel options
• Balancing cost control with location convenience
• Seasonal rate optimization across approved properties
• Frequent travel destinations where you want controlled flexibility

Configuration Options:

• Priority setting - Optimize for price vs. distance
• Hotel list - Approved hotels eligible for selection
• Price Limit - Optional maximum price per night constraint

Preferred Hotels Far From the Search Location

Stack Rank and Best of Preferred skip a listed hotel that’s more than 100 km (about 62 miles, in a straight line) from the search location. This stops a hotel saved in the wrong place — for example, a property in another city with a similar name — from being chosen for a trip. If Juno doesn’t know where the hotel or the search location is, it doesn’t skip the hotel.

This limit decides which listed hotels can be chosen. Among the hotels that remain, Stack Rank still follows your order, and Best of Preferred still picks by price or distance. If a preferred hotel in your policy is this far from its location, the policy shows a warning: check that you chose the right property, and replace it if not.

Strategy Selection and Fallback

You can define location-specific hotel selection strategies that override your default settings. Here’s how strategy selection works:

Location-specific configuration

• Define a specific strategy (Stack Rank or Best of Preferred) for any location
• Each location can have its own strategy, hotel list, and price limits
• Locations without specific strategies automatically use the Default Hotel Policy
• Coordinators authorized to grant travel policy exceptions can also set Preferred hotels in the trip exception editor: a ranked list of hotels, each with an optional maximum price per night, that replaces the location’s strategy for that invite only

Which location applies

Guests always search near the event location. Coordinators and agents booking on a guest’s behalf can search near another city, address, or landmark. When they do, Juno applies the location-specific strategy for the place they searched (or the Default Hotel Policy if that place has none), and measures distances from it. A Hotel selection for this trip exception is the exception: it applies to that invite wherever its hotel is searched.

Automatic fallback logic

When a location-specific strategy (Stack Rank or Best of Preferred) fails to find available hotels, the system automatically falls back to your Default Hotel Policy. This ensures travelers can always be accommodated even when preferred options aren’t available.

Fallback scenarios:

• No hotels in your preferred list have availability for the travel dates
• All preferred hotels exceed your configured price limit
• Preferred hotels exist but don’t meet minimum quality standards
• Technical issues prevent searching specific hotel properties

Fallback behavior:

• System seamlessly switches to Default Hotel Policy
• Uses your global hotel policy settings (star rating, price limit, preferred chains, room policy)
• Searches all available hotels in the area, not just your preferred list
• Maintains logging of both the failed preferred strategy and successful fallback selection

Related Features

• Custom Fields - Create location or event-based conditional logic
• Policy Selection Rules - Apply different hotel policies based on traveler attributes