Making a booking

The full checkout flow — picking a package, the booking fee and remaining balance, group bookings, 3DS, and what to expect after you click Confirm.

This page covers the booking itself — the screens you click through from "I want this lake" to "booking confirmed". For what to do before (finding a lake) and after (arriving), see the sibling pages.

The booking model in one sentence

You pay a 10% booking fee online now to secure your booking; you pay the remaining balance to the host, in person, at the lake. The fee counts toward the total — it isn't extra. That's it. Everything below is detail on top of that.

The flow, screen by screen

Screen 1 — Pick a package

On the lake page, browse the packages the host has set up. A package bundles one or more swims with everything that comes with them — accommodation (if any), equipment rentals, additional-guest rules, and the time blocks (billing units) you can book it in. Each package card shows:

A photo (often the swim, sometimes the cabin or the boat).
The swims it includes.
Capacity (number of rods / anglers).
Suggested method (e.g. "carp / coarse", "fly only", "lure only — no live bait").
Any package-specific rules.
The billing units available and their prices.

Open the package you want. A simple lake might have one package per swim ("Day Ticket — Swim 1"); a richer setup might have packages like "Weekend Carp Retreat", "Catfish Week", or "Family Stay with Cabin".

Screen 2 — Pick a billing unit and date

Pick the billing unit (12h, 24h, 60h, 168h, or whatever the host offers). The calendar opens to the next available date for that combination.

Unavailable dates are greyed out, with one of three reasons on hover:

"Already booked" — another angler has it.
"Host blocked" — the host has blocked the date (maintenance, private use, fish welfare close season).
"Outside booking window" — too far in the future. Most hosts open the calendar 90 days ahead; some carp lakes open 12 months.

Pick the date. The calendar will show the end time too (start + the billing unit's hours), so you can sanity-check.

Screen 3 — Add party details and extras

We ask for:

Lead angler name (the person on the booking — used at the gate). Defaults to your account name.
Number of anglers in the party. Bounded by the package capacity.
Extras the package allows — additional guests (non-fishing companions), extra anglers, extra rods, or equipment rentals and additional services (rod hire, boat hire, catering, etc.). Each extra has its own price and rolls up into the total.

Anything the host should know (free text, optional). A polite line saying you'll arrive 30 minutes late beats a phone call from the car park.

For most packages we don't ask for the other anglers' names — that's between you and your friends. For packages marked "ID at gate for all anglers" (rare, mostly high-value carp waters), we do collect names.

Screen 4 — Payment

Here's the screen where the booking-fee / remaining-balance split makes itself visible. The fee counts toward the total — you're not paying anything extra:

Line	Amount	When
Total booking value	€X	—
Booking fee due today (10% of total)	€Y	Paid now, online, by card
Remaining balance at the lake	€(X − Y)	Paid to the host on arrival

The booking fee is always a flat 10% of the total; the exact amount for your booking is on the line, never hidden.

Card payment uses Stripe. We don't see card numbers — they go straight to Stripe in encrypted form. First-time international cards and any payment above €300 will trigger 3D Secure (your bank's app or SMS code) — that's a Stripe / bank requirement, not ours, and it cuts chargebacks dramatically so we're glad it exists.

Screen 5 — Confirmation

Booking is confirmed instantly for instant-book swims. For request-to-book swims, the screen says "Waiting on host (up to 24h)" and the host gets a notification.

A confirmation email arrives within a minute. It contains: the booking ID, the swim photo, the dates, the total broken into the booking fee paid and the remaining balance due at the lake, and a calendar invite (.ics) you can import.

Things you can do after confirming

Reschedule. To change dates, cancel and rebook. More than 48 hours before check-in the booking fee is refunded in full, so a reschedule costs nothing; within 48 hours the fee is not refunded (see Refund Policy).

Add a note to the host. The booking detail page has a message thread with the host. Use this for "we'll be in two cars" or "we'd like to bring a small dog" — not for changes that need approval.

Cancel. The Cancel button shows the refund amount on screen before you confirm. See Refund Policy for the schedule.

Add another party member. If your party grows, you can update the count (within the swim's capacity) up to 24 hours before. Beyond capacity, you'd need to book an adjacent swim — see Group Bookings below.

Group bookings (coming soon)

Group bookings — 2–6 adjacent swims under one booking, with split payment — are in active development. Today the workaround is: each angler books their own swim, then you message the host and they can link you as one party on their calendar.

The group bookings rollout will add a single shared booking ID, automatic Stripe payment-splitting (each angler pays their share by card), and a single combined arrival window.

What the host sees

For transparency, here's what we tell the host about you:

Your name (the lead angler name).
Your phone number — but only 24 hours before the session. Until then, communication runs through the platform.
The billing unit, dates and party size.
The payment status — usually "booking fee paid" — and the remaining balance they're expected to collect on arrival.
Any note you wrote at checkout.

The host does not see your email, address, or any payment details.

Things that look like bugs but aren't

"Total session price" sometimes differs from the lake's headline price. Headline prices show the cheapest billing unit at base rate; peak / off-peak overrides or non-default billing units can produce a different total. The breakdown at checkout always wins.
A 60h "weekend" billing unit starts at Friday evening, not Friday morning. Hosts define the start window for each billing unit; the calendar respects it. If you want different hours, look for a 24h × 3 booking instead.
Cancelling close to arrival keeps the booking fee. Cancelling still works right up to the start, but within 48 hours of check-in the booking fee is not refunded. The cancel dialog states the outcome before you confirm. See Refund Policy.