The Price Increase Letter
Builds guide sites for a livingPublished July 23, 2026Last updated July 26, 202632 min read
- 12 CFR 1026.9(c)(2)(i)(A) requires written notice of a significant change in account terms at least forty-five days before it takes effect, to each consumer who may be affected.
- The three features worth borrowing are that the notice is written, that it goes to everybody affected, and that it states an effective date.
- For a seasonal business, longer than forty-five days is right, because clients plan in a different quarter from the one they fish in.
- Always honour existing bookings, and say so in the letter, which makes the rest land as information.
- Keep the notice under a hundred words unless the rise is large enough that silence would read as indifference.
- Send it every year whether or not the number moved, so the letter's arrival stops signalling bad news.
Where a regulated industry raises a price on an existing account, it must give written notice at least forty-five days before the change takes effect. Nothing obliges a fishing guide to do that, and copying the discipline removes almost every difficult conversation about a rate rise.
That is the useful frame. A rate rise is not a negotiation and it is not an apology; it is a notice, and notices work when they are early, written and specific. The consumer credit rules show what a considered version looks like: a stated period of advance warning, a written form, and a rule about who has to be told. Below the notice provisions are read from the regulation as a model rather than as a requirement, then the letter follows. Nothing here applies to you as law. This is not legal advice, and rate decisions belong to you. Companion templates are collected at the running the business hub.
| Approach | What the client experiences |
|---|---|
| Announced in October, effective for next season | A notice, with time to plan |
| Announced with the season dates in January | Information alongside a decision they want to make |
| Discovered at booking in April | A negotiation |
| Applied to an existing booking | A dispute |
What does the regulated version look like?
Forty-five days, in writing, to everybody affected.
Section 1026.9(c)(2)(i)(A) of Title 12 provides that for the plans it covers, and subject to stated exceptions, when a significant change in account terms is made, a creditor must provide a written notice of the change at least forty-five days prior to the effective date of the change to each consumer who may be affected.
It adds that the forty-five day timing requirement does not apply where the consumer has agreed to the particular change, and that for such changes notice must be given in accordance with a different timing rule.
Subparagraph (B) sets that alternative: a notice of change in terms is still required, but it may be mailed or delivered as late as the effective date of the change where the consumer agrees to the particular change.
None of that binds a guiding operation. What it demonstrates is the shape of a price change that does not generate arguments: written, early, and to everybody it touches.
Section 1026.9 is carried on the eCFR.
Why the underlying rate should move at all is covered in the inflation piece.
What is worth borrowing from it?
Three features, and the period is the least important.
The first is that the notice is written. A rate mentioned in conversation is a rate somebody misremembers, and a rate in an email is a rate you can point at.
The second is that it goes to everybody who may be affected rather than to the people who ask. Selective notice is how two clients end up on two rates.
The third is that it states an effective date. A rise with no date attached is an intention, and it gets applied inconsistently for a season.
Forty-five days is a reasonable minimum for a guiding operation and considerably longer is better, since the useful moment is before the winter selling period rather than before the season.
Which in practice means October or January rather than March.
Where that sits in the annual cycle is covered in the fall wrap-up piece.
The letter is worth more than the rise it announces. Raising $650 to $695 across 90 trips adds $4,050. Announcing it badly costs perhaps six clients who would otherwise have rebooked, which is $4,170 of trips at the new rate, so a bad announcement can consume the entire gain. Announcing it well costs an afternoon and, on the same assumptions, loses two clients rather than six, keeping $2,780 of the $4,050. The difference between those outcomes is not the number. It is whether the client learned it in October in writing or in April on the phone.
Where does the forty-five day figure come from?
A statute, and it was a deliberate choice.
Section 1637(i) of Title 15 requires the advance notice of a rate increase or other significant change that the regulation implements, and the regulation's own source note records the rulemaking that gave it the current form.
Which matters only in one respect for a guide: the period was set by a legislature weighing how much warning a consumer needs to change their arrangements.
Forty-five days is therefore a considered answer to a question you also face, which is how long somebody needs to absorb a price change before it affects them.
For a seasonal business the honest answer is longer than forty-five days, because your clients plan in a different quarter from the one they fish in.
The statute is at the Law Revision Counsel, and the bureau publishes the regulation with its commentary at its own site.
Why the planning quarter matters is covered in the offseason piece.
Should existing bookings be honoured?
Always, and saying so is half the letter.
Somebody who put a deposit down last autumn for a June date agreed a figure then, and billing them the new one because your card moved is a change to a term they accepted.
Which is a dispute waiting to happen and is worth nothing, since the amount at stake is $45 and the cost is a client.
Stating in the letter that anything already booked stays at the rate booked removes the entire question and makes the rest of the message land as information.
It also means the letter can go to your whole list rather than only to people without bookings, which is the simpler operation.
And it costs exactly the difference on the bookings you already had, which is a small and known number.
How the booking terms should record the agreed rate is covered in the booking terms piece.
The rule described does not apply to you. It governs consumer credit accounts and is quoted here only as a model of how a considered price change is handled. What your market bears, and what your rate should be, are judgments no general account can make. Nothing here is legal advice, and any question about an existing agreement belongs to a lawyer.
How long should the notice be?
Under a hundred words.
The longer a rate increase letter is, the more it reads as an argument, and an argument invites a rebuttal.
Everything necessary fits in four sentences: the new rate, the old rate, when it applies, and that existing bookings are unaffected.
Anything beyond that is you explaining, and explaining hands the client a set of reasons to evaluate.
Which is the single most common mistake in this letter, and it is made from good intentions every time.
A short notice reads as confidence and a long one reads as anxiety, whatever the words say.
How to hold the position if somebody pushes is covered in the discount scripts piece.
The autumn letter
Sent at the end of a season, to everybody who fished.
Subject: Next season, and a note on rates.
Body: Thanks for a good season. From 1 January a full day is $695 rather than $650, and a half day is $450. Any date you have already reserved is unaffected. The calendar for next year opens in early January and I will hold the last week of June for people who fished with me this year. See you on the water.
Note that the rise sits in the middle rather than the opening, that it is stated as two figures, and that there is no explanation.
Note also what surrounds it: thanks, a priority offer, and a sign-off, which is the context that makes a number read as ordinary.
Why the autumn is the right moment is covered in the fall wrap-up piece.
The January version
Folded into the season announcement rather than sent alone.
A separate letter about a rate rise, arriving in January with nothing else in it, is a message whose only subject is money.
The same information inside the season announcement is one line among several, read by somebody who is choosing a date.
Line: Dates run from 1 May, a full day is now $695 rather than $650, and any date you have already put a deposit on is unaffected.
Which is two sentences inside a message that is otherwise about fishing, and it produces almost no replies about the price.
The autumn letter and this are alternatives rather than a sequence, and either works.
What the announcement should otherwise contain is covered in the season announcement piece.
The letter for a large rise
Different, because the number is the message.
A rise from $650 to $795 is not an adjustment, it is a repositioning, and pretending otherwise insults the reader.
Body: From next season the rate for a full day is $795. That is a real increase and I have thought about it carefully. I have held rates for four years while costs have not held, and I would rather charge properly and keep the standard than keep the number and cut corners. Anything already booked stays at the rate you booked. If it does not work for you I understand, and I would rather tell you now than in April.
Here the explanation earns its place, because the size of the change makes silence read as indifference.
The last sentence matters most: it gives the client permission to leave, which is the only honest way to present a rise of that size.
Why holding a rate for four years produces this problem is covered in the inflation piece.
What about a client who books every year informally?
Give them a window, and close it.
Somebody who has fished the same week for six years without ever formally booking is not a booking, and applying the new rate to them without notice is the worst version of this.
The workable answer is a stated window: their usual dates at the old rate if they confirm by a date you name.
Line: Your usual week in July is held at $650 if you confirm by 15 January, and after that it goes to $695 like everything else.
That is generous, bounded and specific, and it converts an informal habit into a booking, which is worth more than the $45.
It cannot be allowed to harden into a standing exemption, because two prices in one book reopens every conversation.
Why a split book reopens every negotiation is covered in the pricing piece.
How often should the letter be sent?
Every year, whether or not the number moves.
An operation that writes a rate letter only in the years it raises rates has taught its clients that the letter means bad news.
An operation that states the coming season's rates every autumn, whether they changed or not, has made the letter routine, and a routine notice attracts no argument.
Which is the same principle the regulated version embodies: the notice exists because a change happened, and the practice of noticing is what makes it unremarkable.
In a year with no change the line is shorter: rates for next season are unchanged at $650 for a full day and $425 for a half.
That sentence costs nothing and it removes the tell that a letter arriving means the price went up.
Why annual small steps beat occasional large ones is covered in the inflation piece.
What if a client asks for the old rate?
Answer once, in the same words, and offer a date.
The request will come, usually from a long-standing client, and usually framed as loyalty rather than as a discount.
Reply: The rate for next season is $695 and that is what I am charging everybody. Your usual week is held if you want it, and I would rather have you at $695 than not have you.
The last clause does real work, because it says the relationship matters without saying the number is negotiable.
Where you genuinely want to recognise a long client, priority on dates costs nothing and does not touch the rate.
What does not work is agreeing quietly, since a rate that bends for the people who ask is a rate that bends for everybody who learns to ask.
Holding a number under pressure is the discount scripts piece.
What else should move with the rate?
Every other number you set once.
The deposit, since a $200 deposit on a $650 day prices a lost date differently from the same $200 on a $695 one.
The cancellation ladder, if it is stated in dollars, because the proportions shift when the total does.
The half day, the group rate and any multi-day rate, so the ladder stays consistent and nobody finds an arbitrage.
Anything you recharge, such as a shuttle or a licence bought on a client's behalf, since those costs moved too.
Doing all of them in one session is the difference between a rate card and a set of numbers from different years.
Sizing that deposit properly is the deposit piece.
Where should the new rate appear?
Everywhere, on the same day.
The site, the booking flow, any listing you control, the confirmation template, the reminder template and the quote template all carry the number.
Leave the number right on the site and wrong in the quote template and a client will find the wrong one, which is how most of these go wrong.
Which argues for a written list of every surface the number appears on, made once and reused every year.
That list is short, it takes twenty minutes to work through, and skipping it produces a client quoting your own website back at you.
Any listing you do not control has to be requested rather than edited, so those go first.
What the site needs updating for otherwise is covered in the offseason updates piece.
What goes wrong with this letter?
Five things, and the first is explaining.
Justifying the rise at length, which turns a notice into a debate and hands the reader something to bargain over.
Sending it in spring, when clients have already planned and the message competes with a booking decision.
Applying the new rate to bookings already made, which risks a client over an amount that never justified it.
Telling only the people who ask, which produces two rates in one book and a conversation you cannot win.
And updating the rate in one place, leaving the old number live somewhere a client will find it.
What the quote itself should look like is covered in the quote template piece.
Putting the standing answer on a page is the client FAQ piece.
Who should not receive it?
Anybody who asked not to hear from you.
A rate notice feels administrative, which makes it tempting to treat as an exception to somebody's earlier request not to be emailed.
It is not an exception. A message announcing next season's prices to a list is promotional in substance whatever it is called, and somebody who opted out has opted out of it.
Which means the notice goes to your current client list rather than to every address you have ever collected, and the list has to be reconciled against every opt-out before it sends.
A client with a live booking is a different case, since telling them their own booking is unaffected is genuinely about their transaction.
Drawing that line once, rather than per send, keeps the whole practice clean.
Which messages fall on which side is covered in the trip reminder piece.
What is the working letter?
Four sentences, in autumn or with the January dates.
State the new rate and the old one, both as figures, for every product you sell rather than only the full day.
State the date it applies from, and say plainly that reserved dates keep the figure they were reserved at.
Send it to everybody who fished with you, not only to the people without a booking, since selective notice is what creates two rates.
Add nothing by way of justification unless the rise is large enough that silence would read as indifference, and if it is, give the client permission to leave.
Then update the number on every surface the same day, working from a written list.
Why the whole rate card should be reviewed on a schedule is covered in the inflation piece.
How this was checked. The requirement that, for the plans covered and subject to stated exceptions, a creditor making a significant change in account terms provide a written notice of the change at least forty-five days prior to its effective date to each consumer who may be affected, together with the provision that the forty-five day timing requirement does not apply where the consumer has agreed to the particular change and that notice for such changes is governed by a different timing rule, comes from 12 CFR 1026.9(c)(2)(i)(A). The alternative timing rule, under which a notice of change in terms remains required but may be mailed or delivered as late as the effective date of the change where the consumer agrees to the particular change, comes from subparagraph (B). The provision also directs that increases in a rate due to delinquency, default or as a penalty which are not due to a change in the contractual terms of the account be disclosed under a different subsection. Section 1026.9 was read on the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations on 26 July 2026. That regulation governs consumer credit accounts and imposes no obligation on a fishing guide; it is quoted here solely as a model of how an advance notice of a price change is structured, and no suggestion is made that any part of it applies to a guiding business. No price level, rate rise or market position is recommended, because those depend on facts about an individual operation that no consulted source publishes. All letters are illustrative drafts rather than legal wording, and all arithmetic uses stated illustrative figures.
If your booking calendar has more open weeks than you’d like, I’ll build you a free preview of your booking site before you pay a cent.
Get a free website previewWhat the regulated version looks like, what to borrow from it, and the four sentences that do the whole job
What does the regulated version of a price change look like?
12 CFR 1026.9(c)(2)(i)(A) requires a creditor making a significant change in account terms to provide written notice at least forty-five days before the effective date to each consumer who may be affected, subject to stated exceptions. Where the consumer has agreed to the particular change, subparagraph (B) allows the notice to be delivered as late as the effective date. None of it binds a guiding operation.
What is worth borrowing?
Three features. That the notice is written, because a rate mentioned in conversation is a rate somebody misremembers. That it goes to everybody who may be affected rather than to the people who ask, because selective notice creates two rates. And that it states an effective date, because a rise with no date attached gets applied inconsistently for a season.
How much notice should a guide give?
Longer than forty-five days. The useful moment is before the winter selling period rather than before the season, because clients decide about a summer in the winter. In practice that means an autumn letter at the end of a season, or a line inside the January season announcement.
Should existing bookings be repriced?
No. Somebody who put a deposit down agreed a figure, and billing them the new one is a change to a term they accepted. The amount at stake is small and the cost is a client. Saying in the letter that reserved dates keep their original figure removes the question and lets the letter go to your whole list rather than a filtered part of it.
How long should the letter be?
Under a hundred words. Four sentences carry it: the new rate, the old rate, when it applies, and that reserved dates are unaffected. Anything beyond that is explaining, and explaining hands the reader a set of reasons to evaluate. The exception is a large rise, where silence would read as indifference.
What if a long-standing client asks for the old rate?
Answer once, in the same words, and offer a date. Say that the rate is what it is and that you are charging everybody the same, that their usual week is held if they want it, and that you would rather have them at the new rate than not have them. Priority on dates costs nothing and does not touch the number.
What else should move with the rate?
The deposit, the cancellation ladder if stated in dollars, the half day, any group or multi-day rate, and anything you recharge such as a shuttle. Then the number itself on every surface the same day, working from a written list, because a client will find the stale one.
Sources & methods
- 12 CFR 1026.9 on the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, read for the requirement that a creditor making a significant change in account terms on the plans covered provide written notice at least forty-five days prior to the effective date to each consumer who may be affected, subject to stated exceptions; for the provision that the forty-five day requirement does not apply where the consumer has agreed to the particular change and that notice for such changes may be delivered as late as the effective date; and for the direction that rate increases due to delinquency, default or as a penalty which are not due to a change in contractual terms be disclosed under a different subsection. The regulation governs consumer credit accounts and imposes no obligation on a fishing guide; it is cited as a model of how an advance notice of a price change is structured.
- 15 U.S.C. 1637 at the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, cited as the statutory provision requiring the advance notice of a rate increase or other significant change which the regulation above implements.
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's own presentation of the subsequent disclosure regulation, cited as the agency source for the current text and the commentary published alongside it.
Every figure here is traced to a named public source and checked against it. Licensing, tax, and fee rules change. Verify your state’s current rules with the agency directly before you count on any number here.
Evan Knox
I build booking websites and run the ads and search for owner-run fishing guides, one operation per stretch of water. My first guide client, Bowman Fly Fishing, grew its revenue 4x in a year from that work. Field Notes is where I put the straight numbers on the business of guiding.
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