Bunkhouse
Six short steps
How many of you, the night you arrive, the morning you leave, the room, your details, and pay. Each step is a page of its own, Back keeps everything chosen so far, and it all works on a phone, or with no JavaScript at all.
Online booking for bunkhouses and small hostels
Guests pick their nights and their room, and pay a deposit. The balance, the reminders and the thank-you look after themselves. You open one page in the morning and see who is leaving, who is arriving, and which beds to make up.
See how guests book See the dashboard
For your guests
Only what can be booked
The calendar shows the nights with room for the whole group. Pick one, and the mornings they can leave are drawn on it, as far as the beds hold. Each room is offered with its price for this group on these dates, and the deposit beside it.
Their booking, without ringing you
The link in the confirmation opens the booking: what has been paid, what is due and when. Guests can change the dates or the group, or cancel, and they see the price or the refund before they agree to it.
Letters with a reason
A confirmation, a reminder before the balance is due, a note a few days before they arrive, and a thank-you when they have gone. They go out at an hour you choose, in your timezone. Nothing else: no newsletters, no offers.
The money
- Cards through Stripe. Guests pay on Stripe's own page, so card details never touch the app.
- A deposit now, the rest later. You set the deposit and when the balance falls due. Small bookings, and bookings made close to the date, are simply paid in full.
- The balance takes itself. On the day it is due the balance is charged to the card the guest paid with. If the card is declined the guest is sent a link to pay and you are told, and it is not tried again behind anyone's back.
- Refunds on your terms. Cancellation bands are yours to set, and the terms say the last day each refund holds. A booking keeps the terms it was made under, so changing them later does not change them for guests already booked.
- Changes are priced fairly. A changed booking is priced at today's rates. Anything added is charged; anything given up is refunded under the cancellation terms.
- Three numbers make a price list. A rate for an adult, a rate for a child, and a charge for each bed a private room leaves empty. Every price follows from those.
The whole house, planned at once
A bed in a shared room is not a promise about which room. So each time a booking is made, changed or cancelled, Bunkhouse plans the whole house again: guests who have not arrived yet are moved to bring the free beds together and to give groups a room of their own. Three people booking a bed each get a room each until somebody needs to share. When somebody does, it is in the biggest room.
So a group is not turned away because the free beds are scattered, and what the calendar offers is what can really be booked. From check-in on the day they arrive, guests stay where they are. If someone has to change room part way through a stay, which is the last thing it tries, the staff pages say who, when and where, because there is bedding to make up.
For whoever runs the house
The staff pages, as you would see them
Today, at a glance
Who is leaving and the beds to change, who is arriving tonight, who is in which room, and who still owes. Any day can be opened the same way.
The grid
Every bed on every night, with the bookings drawn across them. Point at a booking to see all of its beds.
Phone calls and walk-ins
Take a booking in the same six steps and take the money as cash, on the card terminal, or with a payment link by email. Past stays can be written in without anyone being emailed.
Closing a room
Close a room for the nights it is not to be let, with a switch on the grid. Nobody can book it, and a bed a guest is already booked into cannot be closed under them.
Every letter kept
See exactly what a guest was sent, and whether it was delivered or bounced. A guest learns their confirmation bounced while they are still there to fix the address.
Bring your old bookings
Import past and future bookings from a spreadsheet. Each row is priced and fitted into the house in a preview, and nothing is written until you say so.
Reports and downloads
Beds taken, arrivals, money earned and money received, by the week, the quarter or the year, and every booking as a spreadsheet.
No passwords
Staff sign in with a link sent by email. Admins decide who is on the staff and who can change the settings.
On the wall
An e-ink display in the hall follows the house's day: who is leaving in the morning, the beds to change once they have gone, the groups arriving tonight and, from check-in, the room each of them is in. Guests find their room without asking, and it asks to be recharged when its battery runs low. It works with TRMNL panels.
In your colours
Choose one colour and the booking pages take it, with the shades worked out for you: the colour when pressed, a lighter one after dark, and white or dark text on it, whichever reads. The pages carry your name and a mark drawn in your colour. Or the booking pages can sit inside your own website, reading your prices, terms and privacy statement from the same settings the app charges by, so they never disagree.
Private by default
Guests do not make accounts. There is no tracking and no cookie banner, because there is nothing to ask about. A guest's name, address, phone number, card and copies of their letters are deleted a set time after they leave, a year unless you choose otherwise. The stay and the money are kept, so the accounts still add up and the booking no longer names anyone.
When somebody asks you to remove their details, that is one button on their booking. Every bunkhouse has an app and a database of its own, not a corner of somebody else's. The pages follow the reader's light or dark setting.
Pricing
Not decided yet. What we can say now.
If you run a bunkhouse or a small hostel and would like to try it, write to bill@logicalcobwebs.com.
Lately
- Before paying, guests are asked about an email address that looks mistyped, and one that cannot receive mail is refused. Straight after booking, their booking page shows whether the confirmation arrived or bounced.
- The day page has a new card, Who's in which room, showing every bed and who is in it. The guests in the house that night are listed by letter, with how many beds each has and the day they leave.
- The day page says how many beds are free tonight rather than how many there are, and beds closed on the grid appear there too.
- Each booking in the list starts with a circle showing where the stay stands: still to come, in the house, left, or cancelled. It turns red when money is overdue.
- A group is counted as adults and children under 16. The separate count of children under 4 has gone.