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SiteMinder automation · runs daily

Fill SiteMinder gap nights by lowering minimum stay

A 3-night minimum protects your weekends, until a cancellation leaves two open nights between two bookings. Those nights cannot sell on any channel, and nobody notices until the date has passed.

Cotlet does it in your own SiteMinder account with list_room_rates, get_inventory, list_channels and update_restrictions, called by your AI agent, an n8n workflow or a script.

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Hosted · nothing to install or maintain

Official options

Can SiteMinder do this on its own?

SiteMinder has no API a hotel can use to change minimum stay (checked 12 Oct 2026). SiteMinder Help describes two manual fixes for gap nights, a derived rate plan with a shorter minimum or editing Min Stay on the affected dates, and no feature that finds gaps for you.

By hand

How you do it in SiteMinder today

  1. SiteMinder Help defines a gap night as an open pocket between two reservations that is shorter than your minimum length of stay, so no guest can book it.
  2. To find one, scroll Distribution > Inventory date by date and compare the availability row of each room type with the Min Stay value on the room rates.
  3. For each gap, open the room rate's channel rates, click the Min Stay cell for the first night of the gap, enter a lower value and Save.
  4. SiteMinder's other fix is a second rate plan with a lower minimum, derived from the standard rate and mapped to each channel that should sell it; most channels also need the rate created in their extranet.
  5. New bookings and cancellations open fresh gaps every day, so the scan has to be repeated. A gap spotted after the date has passed is a lost sale.

With an agent

How to fill SiteMinder gap nights by lowering minimum stay

Prompt 

Every morning, find single and two-night gaps between bookings in the next 60 days that our minimum stay blocks, and lower the minimum stay on those nights so they can sell.
  1. 01

    Find the gaps

    The agent reads get_inventory for the window you set, 60 days by default. A gap is a run of nights with rooms left for a room type, closed on both sides by sold-out nights, and shorter than the minimum stay on its first night.

  2. 02

    Ignore what is not a gap

    Open runs that touch today, runs already at a 1-night minimum and room types with plenty of rooms left are skipped, since only a sold-out night on each side makes the pocket unbookable. Past dates are never read: SiteMinder shows only today and later.

  3. 03

    Check how each channel counts the stay

    list_channels gives the enabled channels, and the agent asks once which of them have Use stay through switched on, then remembers it. For arrival-based channels it lowers the first night of the gap; for stay-through channels it lowers every night in the gap, or the restriction would still block it.

  4. 04

    Lower to the gap length, not to 1

    A 2-night gap gets min_los 2, so the pocket sells as exactly what fits. Each update_restrictions call is listed with the room rate, dates and old and new value, and waits for your OK unless you switched confirmation off for this job.

  5. 05

    Stop when a PMS owns restrictions

    If restrictions come from a two-way PMS or RMS, SiteMinder would overwrite the change. The agent then only reports the gaps, so you fix them in that system.

What you get back

Example data 

Gap scan, 12 Oct to 10 Dec
Deluxe King, 17 to 18 Oct: 2 open nights, min stay 3. Lowered to 2 on Booking.com, Expedia, Direct Booking
Standard Double, 31 Oct: 1 open night, min stay 2. Lowered to 1 on all channels
Family Suite, 21 to 22 Nov: 2 open nights, min stay 3. Booking.com uses stay through: lowered both nights
No change: 4 open runs with 3+ rooms left

Other ways to ask

  • Only report gap nights for the next 30 days, do not change anything.
  • Fill gaps on weekends only and never go below a 2-night minimum on Saturdays.
  • Every Monday, list the gap nights you filled last week and which of them sold.

Before you automate it

What SiteMinder allows, and what to know first

  • SiteMinder Min Stay and Max Stay are arrival based by default, while Min Stay Through applies to every date a booking covers, even when the guest arrives earlier.
  • Booking.com can switch between arrival-based and stay-through minimum stay in its SiteMinder channel settings (Advanced settings > Use stay through); Trip.com always receives minimum stay as stay through.
  • SiteMinder Direct Booking supports only minimum stay on arrival.
  • To remove a minimum stay in SiteMinder, enter 1 instead of leaving the cell blank.
  • SiteMinder notes that Expedia may not accept inventory updates for package, derived and linked rates, because those rates inherit pricing and restrictions from the main rate inside Expedia.

update_restrictions asks for your OK by default. To run it daily without you, switch confirmation off for that tool in your dashboard.

Sources: SiteMinder Help: manage gap nights · SiteMinder Help: minimum and maximum length of stay restrictions

REST

Call update_restrictions from a script

curl 

curl https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/siteminder/update_restrictions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"room_rate_ids":["rr_48213"],"from":"2026-10-17","to":"2026-10-17","restrictions":{"min_los":2}}'

Example response 

{
  "status": "updated",
  "room_rates": 2,
  "dates": 3,
  "channels": [
    "Booking.com",
    "Expedia",
    "Direct Booking"
  ],
  "skipped": [
    {
      "channel": "Agoda",
      "reason": "CTA not supported by this channel rate"
    }
  ]
}

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the tool is siteminder_update_restrictions. Example data.

Schedule it in n8n, Make, Zapier or cron

Tools

SiteMinder tools this automation uses

Cotlet SiteMinder tools used to fill SiteMinder gap nights by lowering minimum stay
Tool Parameters
list_room_rates none
get_inventory from, to, room_type_ids, channel
list_channels none
update_restrictions room_rate_ids, from, to, restrictions, channels, days_of_week
All 12 SiteMinder tools with descriptions

Frequently asked questions

Is a derived rate plan with a shorter minimum stay better?

SiteMinder Help suggests it as a way to prevent gap nights, priced a little above the standard rate. It needs a new rate plan, mapping to every channel and, for most channels, the same rate created in their extranet. Lowering Min Stay only on gap dates needs no new rate.

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