Bookingrid gifts in Mayfair - some more style

We are happy to announce that four more elegant and attractive London restaurants have recently started using our service. Please meet Michelin starred Alyn Willams at the Westbury, Brasserie Chavot, Tsukiji Sushi and Polo Bar at The Westbury!

Moreover, Online Gift Vouchers exchangeable for posh dinners at Alyn Willams, stylish meals at Tsukiji Sushi Restaurant and relaxed food from Michelin chef Eric Chavot are available now.





Posted by Sergey

A new generation of Bookingrid front-end interface

Meet oFrames based on Bookingrid public API.

Some time ago we started to develop a new generation of consumer front-end interface. Our experimental frames, which we call eFrames, have proved themselves a very reliable tool. But they lacked versatility...

Now a new generation of 'open frames' - oFrames - is introduced. At first glance (try this...), they look just identical to eFrames. However, in contrast to eFrames, oFrames allow several new options. Firstly, our brand new tool for Bookable Gift Vouchers is implemented on oFrames (have a look). Secondly, the look of oFrames can be tuned to specific needs of a particular supplier - good bye frames with knives and forks for spa sessions!

Bookingrid public API allows customers of Bookingrid Web Platform to use custom applications tailored exclusively for them.

Posted by Sergey

Bookable Gift Vouchers

We are going to present Bookable Gift Vouchers soon.

New frames will allow users to choose between booking a meal at available time or buy a gift voucher online.

Preview of the design of the entry frame for Bookable Gift Vouchers

Posted by Sergey

Gift meals are being booked online from abroad

April gift bookings amounted to £500 this month. Geography of bookings was quite intriguing as users from abroad paid for their relatives' celebration dinner.

Now we can say that customers are quite ready to prepay for gift meals booked online.

Posted by Sergey

Now you can give (and receive) a meal at Pied à Terre as an online gift!

Posted by Sergey

The one and only Russian Banya in London offers online bookings with Bookingrid

We have proposed our online booking engine to the one and only Russian Banya in London. Now authentic Russian spa sessions can be booked in real time.

So we now offer bookings of not only restaurant meals but also spa sessions on Bookingrid Web Platform.


Posted by Sergey

Bookingrid: how we handle your payments

Bookingrid accepts payments with PayPal.

Such solution makes our booking system incredibly safe and anonymous because we do not require your personal details other than your email address to confirm your booking.

We don’t need your payment card details and we do not store your personal data other than your ID in our system. We are able to make refunds to the same source you use with your PayPal account. Such solution makes our booking system incredibly safe and anonymous!

Regardless when you make a payment to us, we transfer your money to the restaurant in lump sums before or after it happens. Hence there is no need to wait until your money reach the restaurant. Our fees payable by restaurants are also regularly invoiced to the restaurants and offset against the bulk payments.

If you are unsatisfied with the service provided by the restaurant, we refund your money and withhold the payment to the restaurant. 

If you are unsatisfied, we settle your claim. We refund your money and retain our payment to the restaurant.

Posted by Sergey

Bookingrid: club for those who deserve more and get more

All our partner restaurants are ready to encourage those customers who prepay. The least they can do for you is to offer more for your money. 

Working with Bookingrid, all our partner restaurants are ready to encourage those customers who prepay. Being guaranteed from no-shows, restaurants prefer making rewards to those who trust them. Restaurateurs can compliment loyal customers in several ways.

You can come late and still get the booked table, which is virtually impossible for free online bookings.

The least that they can do for you is to offer more for the same money. For the same price you can enjoy better wine and finer dishes. You can also come late and still get the booked table, which is virtually impossible for free online bookings. Chef’s tables and first-class tables are offered for prepaid bookings with us as well.

For the same price you can enjoy better wine and finer dishes. Sometimes this looks like an impressive discount.

You can easily find amounts of savings highlighted in Bookingrid services. 

Best available offer with savings - for a particular date - as shown in the calendar

Example of offer with savings

Bookingrid: at your service

We base our service on agreements with restaurants. Restaurants publish their offers in our system and entitle us to receive money for them. To make it possible, we strive to build open and straight relations with our partners.

We remove the risk that loyal customers pay extra for those who book and never show up. 

We plug the economic leverage which motivate restaurants to make offers to their customers. If you pay for your booking in advance, you’re rewarded because the restaurant eliminates the risk of no-show. Otherwise, customers eventually pay extra for those who book and never show up.

Also, if the restaurant charges higher prices for booking at busy times, it can offer lower prices during quieter times. Discount coupons are not suitable for this. With us restaurateurs can continuously vary prices to fill their dining halls.

With us restaurateurs can continuously vary prices to fill their dining halls, rather than discount their services.

With us restaurants do not drop the quality of their services. You receive more for the same money. 

The offer price - i.e. the price you have to prepay to make your booking - can be different from the price of the meal. The latter is the advertised price redeemable against the booked service, meal & drinks. Restaurateurs can easily vary the sums of required prepayments making them different from the advertised prices stated in the titles of their offers.

Fully booked? Again?!

Paying bookings with us, you can get - even at short notice - those tables which are fully booked otherwise.

This is an effect of variable pricing as well. 

We have agreed with all our partner restaurants that the entire advertised price is always deducted from the bill. This enables you to pay the bill decreased by the advertised price of your meal. Such deductible price is stated in the title of any paid offer. For instance, for ‘Dinner £100 for 2 at…’ the amount redeemable against the offered service, meal and drinks is £100. 

The advertised price - which is deductible from the bill - is stated in the title of an offer, e.g. ‘Dinner £100 for 2 at …’ 

Academic Research: Dealing with No-shows

A recently published piece of academic research by two PhD candidates at Wharton School aims at offering restaurants a recommendation on how to deal with problem of no-shows.

"The average no-show rate for restaurants in big cities is around 20%, and for an industry with margins as low as 3% to 5%, no-shows can lead to significant losses especially when restaurants are turning away customers waiting outside." (Reddy, 2012)

Two possible remedies were considered in this paper: to punish no-shows by charging fees and to encourage show ups by giving discounts.

As a result of their paper the researchers make three main suggestions to restaurants.

1. "First, we suggest that restaurants should charge no-show customers a penalty equal to the price they charge customers who show up". There are already high-end restaurants such as the Chef's Table in Brooklyn Fare that currently charges a no-show penalty equal to the price of the meal.
2. "Second, we advise that incentives should be given to reservation customers to encourage them to show up. In other words it is optimal for restaurants to give discounts to customers who commit to pay the now show penalty by making a reservation [...]."
3. "In particular, when the market size becomes greater than a certain threshold, it is optimal for the restaurant to operate as a pure walk-in restaurant."

Implementing these three recommendations will result in an economic benefit for restaurants.

"In numerical examples, we found that a combination of the no-show penalty and price discrimination strategies brings about a 20% profit increase for a realistic range of parameter values."

Download the research

Posted by Wlad

First Class Restaurant Bookings

New publication on the GoalEurope

Recently there has been published a new article about us on the GoalEurope, a company which provides advisory services in the area of nearshore software development in Eastern Europe.

First of all the article gives a short overwiev of about Bookingrid's variable pricing model and the opportunity to sell reservations on the secondary market. Moreover the author of the article points out that from her point of view the discount system might work well not only in big cities like London, but also for example in Germany too, "where even upper-middle-class citizens carry brick-size voucher books with them just in case to get discounts in various places."

To read the full article, please click here.
Posted by Wlad

First booking sold

The first booking has been sold for restaurant Maurizio's at Rickmansworth during a marketing campaign through Facebook which was initiated to find the ideal pricing strategy for this class of restaurants. Consequently this fact gives us the awareness that our interface is handy for consumers' usage. We will carry on collecting statistics which will help us to find the most beneficial pricing schemes for our users.
Posted by Wlad

Bookingrid on BBC Radio

Bookingrid was recently on BBC Radio. To listen, please click here. The interview starts from 0:31:48.




Posted by Wlad

Next Up in Fine Dining: Pay in Advance

Nick Kokonas got the idea for his new reservation system while listening to phones ring off the hook at his current bastion of haute cuisine, Chicago's Alinea. "If you sit in that room for a day, you'll think of it," Kokonas says. "All you have to do is hear Emily and Amanda say, 'Sorry, we're full. Sorry, we're full.'"

Instead of paying reservationists to perform customer relations that were inadvertently "pissing customers off," Kokonas came up with a revolutionary concept: an entire restaurant that wouldn't piss anyone off. There would be no hounding for reservations, and no bill dropped at the end of the meal. Kokonas has now built that restaurant - and he's even figured out an algorithm to determine the price of dinner. 

Next Restaurant, which opens this month in Chicago's hip West Town neighbourhood, is his second collaboration with the 36-year-old star chef Grant Achatz. Their six-year-old Alinea is basically the best thing that's happened to the city since Oprah: It's one of only 93 restaurants in the world to have received three Michelin stars and is ranked seventh on S. Pellegrino's list of top restaurants worldwide. Unlike Alinea, where reservation strivers have to beg to sign up to take advantage of rare last-minute cancellations, Next sends people who want to eat there to its website. There they'll be asked to pay in advance for a non-refundable meal ticket that includes food, drinks, tip, and tax. Next will serve one the matic prix fixe meal each night for a period of three months before moving on to a menu with a new theme. The first dinner - based on the cuisine of Paris, circa 1906 - will cost $65 to $110 per person (not including drinks), depending on the desirability of the reservation date and time.

By making diners do things his way, Kokonas thinks he can deliver exciting food at a lower price. Still, this worries Achatz and the other chefs, who believe in serving customers what they want. It is, however, more cost-effective not to listen to such diners. "If somebody walks in and says, 'I'm a vegan,' then there [has to be] a whole different menu," Kokonas groans to Achatz. "We lose money on that person." What about vegetarians, Achatz asks. "We're not going to serve vegetarian meals for Paris, 1906!" Kokonas says. "Come when we do Indian food!"

To get to the full article click here.
Posted by Wlad

Michelin starred restaurants Pied à Terre and Rasoi By Vineet Bhatia offer tables with Bookingrid

Two Michelin-starred Restaurants Pied à Terre and Rasoi By Vineet Bhatia have started to offer tables with Bookingrid. 

 

Posted by Wlad

New Zelandian press publishes an article about Bookingrid

Below you will find an article which the New Zelandian press has published about us.

"A new online booking system for restaurants has been designed to eliminate no-shows and maximise profit making opportunities.

Based on the established airline ticketing systems that reward early secure bookings, bookingrid.com plans to develop a centralised marketing facility for restaurants as well as better management of table reservations.

The system provides an easy-to-use plan of restaurant tables with real time status updates of reservation status. It provides a number of reservation options, primarily a booking with deposit that transfers the deposit to in-restaurant payment at the conclusion of the meal, with no fees, and meals at lower fixed prices.

Customers unable to make their booking are able to offer these reservations to other diners, recovering their deposits, with the incentive being the lower than the no-reservation price. Restaurants also have the opportunity to manage turn-ups with a proportion of free tables that are sold on the night for a higher price.

Implicit in the system is the development of the site as a gateway to restaurants for customers, with the bonus of it becoming a place for extra marketing of last minute deals and other on-the-hoof sales techniques."

Posted by Wlad

The London Evening Standard publishes an article about us

Yesterday the London Evening Standard published an article about us with the title: "The latest experience in London dining: Pay for your meal before you eat it".

London venues are looking at introducing an “airline-style online reservation system called Bookingrid — where customers pay in advance for a table, spending more the closer they book to the time they want to turn up. Restaurateurs say it could revolutionise their industry. Under the new system, dining rooms “sell” tables with a minimum non-refundable spend per head — for instance £100 for a table for two. Customers pay by credit or debit card at the time of booking.

Indian restaurant The Cinnamon Club, in Westminster, is among those considering the new system. Marketing manager Priyanka Sharma said: “It could revolutionise the whole restaurant booking system. It could be good from the customer’s point of view because if they don’t have much time, they won’t have to waste it ringing around to see if they can get in somewhere, they can simply use the site to buy the table they want.

“Of course not everyone will want to put all their money up front, but we do get no-shows every day and this could make a difference.”

To get to the full article click here.

Posted by Wlad

First Public Appearance and Big Success!

The first ever article about Bookingrid was published on http://www.bighospitality.co.uk, the most reputable ressource for news in the UK restaurant industry. Without any understatement we can say that this article was a great success. Luke Nicholls, the writer of this article, pointed out that high-end restaurateurs and industry experts are heavily complaining about no-shows. As the quotation from the article shows the writer sees Bookingrid's potential to solve this problem and become an industry standard for online restaurant bookings.

"Bookingrid could finally be the innovation that restaurants have been waiting for to stop operating on a first-come, first-serve basis and begin taking full control of their revenues."

We highly recommend to read the whole article. To get to it click here.
Posted by Wlad

Partnership with Qype signed!

This is a part of an article which was published by Qype announcing our new partnership.

"Qype is happy to announce that we’ve partnered with Bookingrid to offer you, restaurant owners, even more booking alternatives.

Tired of no-shows? Eager to increase you average bill? Want to attract cash-rich, last-minute decision makers? Then Bookingrid is your solution.

Bookingrid is an innovative booking widget that is now available on Qype. Designed to increase your revenue from pre-booked tables – it secures payment upfront which allows you to reduce those annoying no-shows and maximize your average bill at the same time. There are no sign-up fees, no listing fees, and no booking fees (for free bookings).

What’s the big deal – isn’t it just another booking system?"

To get to the full article click here.
Posted by Wlad