How to Take Prior Bookings for Courtesy Guests

What is a courtesy with prior booking?

A courtesy with prior booking is a feature of Vórax, Skyline's tool for venues, that lets a restaurant know who is coming and when, before the person shows up at the door with their courtesy. The traveler leaves their WhatsApp and the day they plan to visit, and the venue confirms that booking from its panel, without chasing the conversation.

This solves a specific problem: when a courtesy is handed out with no control, the restaurant has no idea how many people will show up or on which day, and ends up improvising tables or falling short on a service it actually expected to be busy. With prior booking, the venue decides in advance whether it has room that day and at what time.

Here's an example: a seafood restaurant downtown publishes a courtesy for a free starter with the purchase of two main dishes. A traveler sees it recommended by an ambassador in the network, leaves their WhatsApp, and picks Saturday night. The restaurant sees the request in its panel, checks that Saturday has open tables, and confirms. The traveler gets notified and arrives that night knowing they're expected.

How does the full flow work, step by step?

The flow has four moments: the traveler's request, the venue's confirmation, the automatic notification, and the redemption on the day of the visit.

Step 1: The traveler leaves WhatsApp and a day

When someone finds the restaurant's courtesy (through an ambassador in the network, a local creator, or directly in the app), the courtesy can require the person to leave their WhatsApp number and the day they plan to go. This turns a loose courtesy into a prior booking with concrete data.

Step 2: The venue confirms from its panel

The restaurant logs into its Vórax panel and sees pending requests. There, it decides whether to confirm the booking for that day or suggest adjusting the date based on occupancy. The confirmation gets recorded, and from that moment the booking is active.

Step 3: Automatic notification by email and WhatsApp

Once confirmed, both the venue and the traveler get notified: the venue sees the booking reflected in its daily operations, and the traveler gets a notification that their courtesy is confirmed for the chosen day. Nobody has to write manually to give a heads-up.

Step 4: Redemption with QR on the day of the visit

On the agreed day, the traveler arrives at the restaurant with the QR code for their courtesy. The venue scans it (with an optional 4-digit code as backup if the scan fails), and the system marks the redemption instantly, with no possibility of repeating it. This same mechanism of automatic issuing, confirmation and redemption is what Vórax uses for any courtesy, with or without prior booking: what changes here is that the restaurant already knew that person was coming.

Why is booking ahead better than leaving the courtesy open?

The difference is predictability. An open courtesy (without prior booking) works for a venue that has spare capacity almost every day and just wants more foot traffic. A courtesy with prior booking works for a restaurant that needs to organize its service: how many tables to set aside, whether it needs an extra server that shift, or whether a specific day is already full and it would rather not add more courtesies.

A restaurant that's just starting to receive courtesies can survive with manual coordination for a while. But as the number of requests grows, every loose message is a chance to lose control of table space, drink inventory, or the busiest hour of the night.

What does the restaurant need to set up to activate it?

No separate system or new staff is needed. The restaurant needs three things inside Vórax:

1. Publish the courtesy: define what it offers (a drink, an entry, a discount) and turn on the prior-booking option for that specific courtesy.
2. Check the panel regularly: someone on the team should log in to confirm or adjust incoming requests, ideally every day.
3. Have the scanning process ready at the door or the register: whoever greets customers should know there's a QR to scan and, if applicable, a 4-digit code as backup.

No extensive training is needed. The waitstaff or host at the entrance only needs to know there's a list of confirmed bookings and that redemption happens with the customer's QR.

What happens if the restaurant has no room that day?

Here's the honest part: prior booking doesn't create tables out of thin air. If the restaurant checks the panel and sees a day is already full, the natural move is to not confirm that request or offer the traveler another available day. The tool gives visibility to decide in time, but the decision to accept or not still belongs to the venue.

This is different from a courtesy without prior booking, where the traveler simply shows up and the restaurant improvises on the spot. With prior booking, "I have no room today" gets resolved before the person leaves their hotel, not once they're already standing at the door.

What does the restaurant gain compared to a courtesy without booking?

Three concrete things:

• Fewer surprises during service: it knows in advance how many people with a courtesy will arrive and on which day.
• Less friction with the customer: the traveler arrives knowing they're expected, not wondering whether the restaurant will honor their courtesy.
• Less manual coordination work: notifications go out automatically, without someone on the team having to write confirmation messages one by one.

A different example: a rooftop club publishes a free-entry courtesy for groups arriving before 11 pm. Without prior booking, the door team has no idea how many people will show up that Saturday. With prior booking, they already know how many courtesies are confirmed for that night and can plan the entry flow.

How is this different from just sharing a WhatsApp number?

Sharing a loose WhatsApp number to "book" depends on someone at the restaurant checking that conversation in real time, understanding which courtesy applies, and replying before the customer loses interest or forgets. It's a fragile process: if the person handling WhatsApp is busy during the lunch rush, the request can get lost.

Prior booking inside Vórax doesn't depend on someone monitoring the chat in real time. The request stays saved in the panel, with the day the traveler chose, and the restaurant reviews it whenever it has a moment, without the risk of it getting buried among other conversations.

What to do next

If your restaurant already has an active courtesy in Vórax, log into the panel and turn on the prior-booking option for that courtesy. If you don't have a courtesy published yet, first define what you'll offer (a drink, an entry, a discount) and activate it with prior booking from the start, so every request arrives with WhatsApp and a day already set.