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Discounts

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chico started this discussion 15 years 8 months ago

Here we can discuss about discounts in general

How about discounts to groups??

what is the usual practice??

do you ask these guys to pay in advance or ask them to pay at least some 10% in advance?? I'm asking this because it is not a problem if you have few individuals cancel their reservation two days in advance but if the group does the same than it's hard to get those beds filled.

Do you also give discounts holders of EURO

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Josh Hostels

15 years

We used to have a different refund policy for groups, e.g., no 24 or 48 hour cancellation. I think it's a good idea to take a large non-refundable deposit somewhat in advance to be sure you're not empty at the last minute. Or if the group checks in and then suddenly "doesn't like the hostel" and wants to check out. I think the agreement with the group should address that possible situation.

I think we once had a group of 100 students check in for a few days -- it would be bad to have a booking like that cancel at the last minute.

(Though it's arguably a bad idea to take a booking for 100 students during high season in the first place when you don't have much more than 100 beds :))

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Plakian

15 years

We used to take groups 13 years ago when the hostel was new and needed the business. What a pain in the backside they were and they spoil any communal atmosphere that you have created. By popular demand we stopped taking groups - it was one of our better decisions!

Just for reference we used to allow one leader to stay for free per 10 members of the group - that was their discount.

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Stefan

15 years

back in the days (actually 27 days ;) ) when i worked for a large chain hostel (to santa klaus: guess which one:D ) we made like at least half of our money with groups - even worse it were school groups.
first of all: what is a group? for us it was 12+ people. they had to pay a deposit (definately more then 10%) at least 1 month in advance, it was only refundable if they cancelled the booking 20-30 days before arrival, depending on season/special dates.
We had special prices for them too, e.g. breakfast was included in general and they usually slept in 4-6 bed rooms, but compared to a 12bed dorm with no breakfast there was no big difference.
Overall i'm really happy that i don't have to deal with them anymore - backpackers are pissed off by children running up and down the floors all the time, there is not much atmosphere left if you got 2-5 groups with 30 people each. But if you got 150+ beds you can make a lot of money with it - or at least have some stable numbers to deal with.

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