Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with booking

I want to book lesson 2 on Tuesday, is it free?

mooreeasyvibe — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:52:30 -0800

How can the teachers at my school book a lesson in our ICT suite online? Does anyone know of a simple app or anything that will allow us to do this? At the moment staff have to lug themselves across the school to check if it's free, sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. For example, Mrs. Hawking wants to book it for lesson 3 on a Wednesday. She goes on the site, puts her name there and that's it. She's booked.

Hope you guys can help.

One Event. Two Times Listed On Advertisements. One Ass Potentially Handed To Me.

Anonymous — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 12:34:36 -0800

Wow, I royally screwed up the booking of an expensive program at the public university where I work. The program's in a week. Two other parties are involved, and the only way I can halfway make this right is to lie my ass off. Help! Long-- sorry!

As part of my (full-time, professional) job, I do activities programming on campus. After courting a local celebrity for months, I got him to agree to host an event that promises a good turnout (about 200). His fee is reasonable, but the headlining act at the event is pretty pricey.

By working in conjunction with him and the headliners, I got everything running very smoothly-- good communication, good promotion, good buzz-- until a few days ago. That's when I noticed the Really Bad Thing.

Due to an oversight on my part, promotional material that will probably bring out about 1/3 of the audience listed one start time for the event, but promo for the other 2/3 of the draw listed another start time (same date, 2 hours later). In a panic, I emailed the two parties as soon as I spotted the mistake, asking them if we could just move the time up 2 hours because of "unforeseen circumstances."

Here's where I'm stuck: I really, really need to hang on to the local celeb for future contacts and networking (the headliners are from out-of-state, and are just interested in showing up, performing at whatever time, and collecting their fee). The reason I've had to court him for months to get him to do this gig is because he's had bad experiences (at least two) with hosting activities at our school; he turned down several other invitations from me to host other events, before suggesting this one himself, so it's something that means a lot to him personally, and one that he feels will go well. All this to say that it would be very bad for him to hear that there's a wrench in the gears over a stupid misprint that was my fault.

Another catch: he's only seen the promo that will bring 1/3 of the crowd, but he probably thinks it's bringing the bulk of the audience. I'm pretty sure that if he had seen the time discrepancy, I would've heard about it from him directly.

Just got an ambiguous-sounding voicemail from him, to the effect of "Ummmm... got your email. Let's talk about this, gimme a call." Here are my options, as I see them now, along with their potentail drawbacks:

1) Just tell him what happened, and roll with it. Risk: hear myself say the words, "Despite trying my best not to be another idiot you deal with here, I made an idiotic mistake." Losing the boost he can give my reputation and success at this job. Having to explain to boss and colleagues why I can't "just call Mr. X" in the future.

2) Try to convince him that yeah, it's worth just bumping the time 2 hours (for whatever vague reason I come up with), doing my best to do the proper "Corrected Time" re-promotion, and hoping the people who show up 2 hours early will be interested enough to come back at the correct time. Risk: he finds out about the mistake I made, and my attempt to cover it up. Early people might not come back. Potential benefit: even with the slightly smaller crowd, the "later start" promo, should he discover it, will look like I did a kickass job of promoting the show after changing the time.

3) Tell him the circumstance behind my panicked email has been cleared up, and keep the original start time. Risk: 2/3 of the crowd will show up just as the performance is ending. I really, really don't like this option, and he won't either.

4) Do something insane like pay the headliners to perform twice in a row-- once with him hosting, and once without, at the times listed on both sets of promo materials. This would almost certainly get back to my boss, though, which is worse than getting back to the local celeb. And at the very least, the celeb will want to know why the hell the performance is happening twice in a row.

Any feedback would be appreciated. At this point, I just need to consider the angles of each option (and any others you might offer) to work up the nerve to just Do This Shit. Even just damage control advice would be welcome. Thanks!

Need help booking travel for two people - different return dates.

Towelie — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:06:32 -0800

Two people traveling, want to travel together, one needs to return on a different day. How to do so? Online? Phone? My GF + I are traveling from Philly to Vegas next month - we need to book our tickets (and soon!) Problem: Online doesn't get you seats next together...nor books both people easily.

We want to travel together on the leg out to Vegas (and sit together!) - she needs to return earlier (several days earlier) for work.

I'm familiar with most of the travel sites (like Kayak) - but I couldn't find a way to book both of our tickets (and get seats next to each other) at the same time (instead of book the first person then the second.)

What's the best way to go about this?

I think I want to use United - they seem to be cheapest - when I called their phone # - it was $25/ticket extra to talk to a human.

Bonus: We're using an Amex to pay for it - should we call Amex's travel services for the best deal? United? Book online?

What's a fair rate to charge for booking events for Yoga/Meditation training?

Mr. Gunn — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:43:28 -0800

What's a fair rate to charge for booking events for Yoga/Meditation training? My friend has begun booking events for several nationally known meditation teachers and Kirtan performers. She does this mostly because she knows them and has great contacts nationwide, but she isn't certain whether she's pricing herself appropriately. Based on a typical literary agent fee of 12%, she's in the ballpark, but is that really relevant for this work?

Looking for hotel booking software.

davebush — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:56:57 -0800

If someone wanted to build a website that allowed online booking for multiple hotels, what inexpensive off-the-shelf software/CMS could be incorporated? The business idea: cheap hotel rooms (from one geographic area) are resold online.

The site would need to:

1. Present room options and availablity via calendar.

2. Allow automated and manual inventory management (removal and addition of available hotel rooms) by the site administrator.

3. Allow the addition and removal of participating hotels by the site administrator.

4. Generate a comfirmation email for each booking.

5. Accept PayPal.

All suggestions will be warmly accepted and appreciated.

Has anyone ever heard of southtravel.com ?

thewalrus — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 05:23:54 -0800

Has anyone had a good or bad experience with a UAE based travel agency known as SouthTravels.com? They appear to be an agency similar to asiatravel.com, a Singaporean company with which I've had good experiences. I've been looking at their selection of hotels and guest houses in Pakistan, specifically Islamabad. Here's their Pakistan page and the page for Islamabad.

In the past when I have booked budget hotels in the UAE through asiatravel, the reception desk at the hotel has had a printout ready with my name and passport number when I check in. At one place it was in a folder with printouts from 3-4 other booking agencies. It looks like this is emailed or faxed to the hotel once per day. Is this sort of arrangement also common in Pakistan? Southtravel appears to be a legit organization, I'm not too paranoid about giving my VISA card number to them, but I'm looking for any good or bad experiences out there on the net before making a booking...

Asset booking for cars

dance — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:53:47 -0800

My organisation has entasked me with installing a computer-based car booking system. We have roughly 14 cars. We currently use a huge whiteboard to manage this. But we imagine it could be easier to manage if people used a computer to query a database via an asset booking GUI. At least one of the computers ought to be a touchscreen installed somewhere central with a super easy GUI for those who are not so computer-literate. Access control an advantage (registered users, etc). Ability to leave messages about what's wrong with the cars - and equally see what others have reported - a wonderful thing. Also a real boon could be the ability to tell the system, I want a car from then to then - what's available? So..does such software exist, and if not, are my only options coding it myself or using a rentacoder site? Could existing software be modified to this purpose? How does one build a GUI for a touchscreen? Just make big buttons?

Hope someone has tried this before. Thanks as always for any and all help.

Legalfilter: I need advice if we should sue or not!

freddymetz — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:59:02 -0800

Legalfilter: I need advice if we should sue or not! We booked a hotel online, received our booking/reservation confirmation and arrived at the hotel in DC.
They then told us that we didnt have a reservation and they were sold out.

We then called the central office and the woman there could only give us a generic excuse to do with the credit card (but if we have received the confirmation, they have received the money..right?).
What i suspect, is that they made a mistake and dont feel they can admit it and now blame it on a generic credit card error.

They also said that they cancelled the booking an hour after we booked it but we received NO information of the cancellation what so ever.

We drove 300 miles to get to the hotel where we had a reserved room and they just left us standing there in the middle of the night.
I dont think this is acceptable behaviour from a top class hotel, so what do you guys think?

If you need any more information, feel free to ask!

Book 'em Danno

Iteki — Sat, 17 May 2008 05:18:01 -0800

Suggest an offline booking system, no wait... Suggest a one-click WAMP solution, no wait... Flash and flat files mebbe? Scroll right down to skip the rambling details and answer the short version of this question.

Situation:
I have 25 computers each handed out for up to an hour twice per am and twice per pm.
I have 500 users competing for these resources on a first come first served basis.
I am required to know who was using what computer when for legal purposes.

Present solution::
At present the doors open and people come and queue for a "ticket", we hand them the ticket for their computer and then choose their name from a dropdown in this excel file(screendump).
This was fine when there was 50 of them, but the list is getting a little nuts now, and we sometimes get a ticket back in less than an hour and so pass it out again, so there is a lot of farting around in the file basically. The only actual problem with this system (apart from it being insane!) is that it takes too much time.

Suggested solution?
We are looking at various long-term solutions, but in the meantime I need a better short-term one than the one we patched together above. I like the aspect of the physical tickets as people don't forget they have booked, and also it gives me a physical notification that they are done at their machine when they hand it back (I am not, nor want to be, deskbound). Giving each person a user-id and password is probably what the long-term solution will be, and installing some sort of internet-café/library software, but that's outside my perogative. I also like the aspect of having the userlist as I learn each persons name, and I also would like to use that to tie to some other aspects of the users account, for example "needs help" or whatever.

What I ideally want is to have a user-database with a few fields, and then drop it into a similar setup as we have, but where I can just start typing their name to get the list (as opposed to having to click in excel), and where I can see a clear visual representation of the entire fleet of puters and their status. I rekon I can do this myself easily as a web-based solution, but I absolutly cannot have this online, the userbase is confidential, and yet myself and my colleauge both need to be able to access it from our own computers at work. We have a common folder on the server where the excel file presently sits. Is that something I can do with xampp or easyphp or wamp5 or what? WITSuite looks like the smallest all-in-one solution, but is it safe to run like this and can it be run in the way I am describing?

I am also open to the thought of doing it in Flash as a standalone, and am also happy for suggestions of actual software to deal with this in a simple way, I don't want the bells and whistles that I have seen on some cafe/library/resourse management progs.

EXTREMELY SHORT VERSION
What is the smallest, best, lightest, oneclickiest version of a local WAMP solution that I can keep offline and run from a shared folder on our server for a simple ajax based site. Xampp, easyphp, WITSuite?

Are fully booked hotels holding back?

andraste — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:30:56 -0800

Do hotels keep rooms in reserve even when they claim to be fully booked? I arrived at midnight in a strange city and went to my hotel only to be told that I'd been booked in as arriving the next evening (this is what happens when you don't book your own travel!) The people in front of me had been told the hotel was fully booked and had no rooms available. However, the guy on the desk said to me "Ahh, you've got a function with us, don't you? OK, we can work around it." Hey presto, a room was found in the fully booked hotel, for which I was profoundly grateful. But now I'm curious; Mefites who've worked in hotels; is this a common thing? Do hotels keep a room or two in reserve as a matter of course?

Booking international travel...how?

ilikecookies — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:07:45 -0800

Is there an international version of sidestep? I'm trying to price several flights that neither originate or terminate in the United States. Unfortunately this knocks out several of my favorite flight searching sites. Kayak and Expedia seem to be able to find some flights but the prices they bring back are super super high. Any suggestions for international bargain hunting? I'm particularly interested in finding flights in and out of Bangladesh, China, Italy, and the Czech Republic.

Where to (indie) rock on the west coast?

ludwig_van — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 11:51:02 -0800

My east coast tour is ending. That means it's time to start booking the west coast tour. Please suggest cities and venues for a touring indie rock band to hit in NV, CA, OR, WA, and AZ. We're looking to plan way ahead for this one, so I'm thinking we'll hit the road in late September or early October. The tentative plan is to begin in Las Vegas, head to the CA coast, go north up to Seattle, then do something in eastern WA and work our way back down through northern CA, NV, possibly hit AZ, and then end up back in Vegas.

We're looking for small to medium sized indie rock clubs. We'd like to avoid really tiny places, no-name bars, places not known for music, and anywhere we aren't likely to find a receptive audience and make money - but we'd also like to keep travel distances in the 300 miles or less range.

Of specific interest - places between LA and San Francisco? Places in northern CA? Places in eastern OR and WA? Anywhere in NV besides Las Vegas?

I'm looking for venues to book, not general advice on how to tour, but lay it on me if you think it's really good. If you know someone who books at a venue, that'd be double-plus good. Link to music is in my profile, but the live show falls closer to the rock side of the spectrum than the album.

Help me be a better DJ!

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 05:30:46 -0800

Help me be a better DJ. I've been doing college and pirate shows for years now, but over the last year I've started playing at bars and parties. I've been asked to do all the live shows that I've done so far. My first question is...

HOW DO I BOOK MY OWN SHOWS?

I've always been really shy about that sort of thing, and it's kept me from trying before being asked. I figure that, with a few tips, I might go in with some more confidence.

Also, over the last year, I've switched the format of my show from a regular, freeform, whatever-I-feel-like set to a Funk and Soul show. My question here is...

HOW DO I GET FREE MUSIC FROM RECORD COMPANIES?

I know that if I start reporting to CMJ, I will be reporting my existence to the world, but how do I do that? And how do I (how do you) contact record companies directly. I don't wanna look like a beggar, but it'd be nice to have some music sent my way before I stumble upon it.

Where do you go to see the rock action? (BYOFL)

safetyfork — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 10:21:08 -0800

What are your favorite venues to go see a rock, indie, or punk show? Why? For those who can answer, the flipside is appreciated as well: What venues are your favorite places to play a show? Why? I'm trying to get a sense of some of the places people like to go see (and/or play) these kinds of shows, particularly in the US (but not exclusively so). I've included some hastily written examples...

Example: Northsix. The room is big enough to book bands with a decent draw, but small enough that it still has a close-to-intimate feel. I always manage to get a good spot to see the band play, and the sound is usually well done. However, I don't like the bathroom set-up and paying for bottled water.

Example: It's not really at one place, but the shows that Todd P books are often in smaller venues. There's nothing I enjoy more than seeing up-and-coming bands playing their hearts out in a small venue.

Example: I like to play Southpaw in Brooklyn. Good sound, nice room, friendly staff, and there's a curtain. It's all about the curtain.

Most closely related thread I could find from the archive.

Thanks.

H2G2 in London

gentle — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 20:51:08 -0800

I'm planning on hopping on a plane to London to see the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film next weekend, either Friday or Saturday. Not being familiar with the city's cinemas, I need to know a couple of things. First of all, I want to see it on the best possible screen/sound system; I am willing to pay extra for "first class" features like adjustable comfy chairs, extra legroom and so forth. What are London's finest offerings?

Secondly, I want to book a ticket as far in advance as possible, to ensure that I do get a seat, and if possible that I get the best possible seat. In my country (Norway) I can book tickets online, three days in advance. I can also choose the exact seating arrangement. Do any such services exist in the UK?

Those are the essentials. For bonus points:

I'm trying to find the cheapest flight (I'm traveling from Oslo, round trip); using a generic search engine, probably hooked up to Amadeus, the cheapest I found was a British Airways flight at £150 (€207), which seems a mite expensive. Where else might I look?

I'm also trying to find a cheap, clean, modern hostel that provides online booking. Recommendations would be welcome.