Hey, so glad there's finally a group for hostels in here 🙌🏽
Wanted to share something that's had a real impact on our operations, maybe useful for some of you.
We run 5 hostel properties on Mews, all with full prepayment. We always had a pretty streamlined arrival flow and the Mews guest portal for online check-in, but there was always one limitation holding us back: Mews' built-in online check-in doesn't actual start the reservation which for us is crucial to send the key for the capsule. So still manual effort for check-ins even though they already did the online check-in.
What we actually wanted: guest books → pays upfront → gets a link to the Mews guest portal → completes online check-in from their couch → at 14:00 on arrival day their reservation starts automatically → they get their digital pin for their capsule and walk straight in. Zero interaction needed if they don't want it.
So we built a small custom integration on top of the Mews Open API that does exactly that. It checks three things before starting a reservation: online check-in is completed, the room is ready, and the bill balance is 0. Only if all three are true does it start the reservation. Guests then instantly receive their portal pin and can go straight to their capsule.
Result: ~70% online check-in rate across our properties. Staff at the front actually have time for guests who need help instead of processing a queue at 14:00.
If any of you is struggling with the same thing, I'm happy to look into making the integration work for other properties too. Just reach out and we can figure out what that would look like, including the cost side of it.
What is the experience you guys have with online check-in? And how does it affect your operations?
