FAQ

A tour fills up, and a spot held by someone who never arrives is a spot nobody else could take. The deposit is £2 per person in London, €2 in euro-priced cities such as Barcelona, Lisbon, Porto and Paris, and R$2 in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It is refundable under the same cancellation policy as any other booking — it is a promise to turn up, not a ticket price.

Choose “maybe” instead. You keep a provisional place and pay nothing, but someone who does pay a deposit can take it if the tour fills. You can upgrade to a guaranteed spot any time before the tour leaves.

Yes. Cancel more than 24 hours before the tour and the deposit comes back in full. After that it does not, because by then the guide has turned other people away.

You are refunded in full straight away and notified. That applies whatever the reason and whenever it happens.

Water, and a hat or a light layer depending on the weather — the tours are outdoors. Bring cash for a tip if you can; if not, you can scan your guide’s QR code at the end.

Whatever the walk was worth to you. Guides make their living from tips rather than a wage.

Every tour lists its meeting point with a landmark, and your guide meets you there. Open the itinerary — it works with no signal, so roaming charges are not an excuse to get lost.

Message your guide from the inbox. They can tell you where the group will be, but they cannot hold twenty-four people on a square indefinitely.

Block them. They will not be able to message you again, and they are not told. If it needs more than that, report them — that goes to a person who can act on it.

Your chat with a guide is between the two of you. The group chat for a departure is visible to everyone who joined it, so treat it as public.

No. You can browse, search and save tours without one. Booking needs an account so your ticket, your meeting point and any change of plan can actually reach you.

A 15% discount on paid tours and access to partner offers from hotels, restaurants and activities around the city. It renews automatically and you can cancel any time.

Account → Delete account. Upcoming bookings are cancelled and the spots released. Past bookings and reviews are kept but stripped of your name: the guide needs a record of who was on a walk, and reviews cannot be erased by deleting an account, or nobody could trust a rating.

Yes, if you sign in with email and password: Account → Email → Change. We send a confirmation link to the new address, and the change only takes effect once you open it. Google or Apple sign-ins manage their email with the provider. Your bookings and any guide or venue access carry over automatically.

Apply at /become-guide, or accept an operator's invite — an email invite, or a link that makes you a guide as soon as you sign in. You keep 100% of your tips; on paid tours you keep 87.5% and Spot takes 12.5%, paid out after the tour runs.

A flat €5/month subscription to guide on Spot. Your tips are always yours, and card tips reach your bank once you set up payouts. See /partner/guides for the full breakdown.

Register at /partner/companies, subscribe, then manage everything from the console: your branding, your tours (with your own prices and schedule), and your guides as listings. Your tours appear on Explore, on the map and on your own partner page. See /partner/for-companies for how it works.

12% on tours that are booked and paid through Spot — you keep 88%. Tours you take on your own booking link pay no commission.

Set up payouts in the console (Stripe Connect — bank details handled by Stripe). When a traveller books and pays for one of your tours in Spot, Spot charges them, keeps the 12% commission, and transfers your 88% share to your account after the tour has run.

Yes. You set the price per person, how many seats each date has, and the dates, times and which of your guides runs each one. Leave the price at zero to send travellers to your own booking link instead of selling through Spot.

No — a company's guides are profiles you create and manage. The arrangement you have with your own guides stays entirely yours; Spot only lists your company.

Yes. Open Plan a trip, say which city, how many days, whether you're solo or a group and what you're into, and Spot's AI planner builds a day-by-day plan from things that really exist: walking tours, partner experiences, clubs, events and local tips. It only uses real listings, so every item links to something you can open.

Save it to your account and open it again any time under Plan a trip. You can ask the planner chat to swap things around (“make Saturday slower”, “add something for food lovers”); save again to keep the new version.

Spot finds a real time for each tour on its planned day and part of the day. Tick the ones you want and press Book & pay: you confirm and pay for each in turn, and Spot brings you back to the plan when you're done. Tours that aren't sold on Spot link to their own page.

Yes — the trip plan bundle. Book two or more paid tours from the same saved plan and every paid tour after the first is 5% off. Spot pays for the discount, so guides and tour companies get their full share. It applies when you book on Spot (not with a deposit, and not on a tour company's own website).

A free, recurring group activity in your city — a run club, a cycling crew, a swim group. Join the club once, then say whether you're going to each session. Clubs are about doing things together regularly, not one-off tours.

Yes. Any member can start a club from the Clubs page: give it a name, the activity, where you meet and how often. Tour companies can run clubs too.

Each club has a group chat for its members. Anyone can report a message, and reported messages are hidden while we look at them. You also get a reminder the day before a session you said you're going to, and your clubs are listed under Your clubs.

No. When a company sells through Spot Book on its own website or a shared link, you book with just your name and email. You get a ticket with a QR code by email, and a link to manage the booking.

Yes, if the company's cancellation policy allows it: use the manage link in your confirmation email to cancel (you're refunded what the policy says) or move to another time. The policy you agreed to is the one that applies, even if the company changes it later.

On a company's own website or link, Spot adds a 1% booking fee and passes on Stripe’s card fee (about 1.5% + €0.25), each shown as its own line at checkout; the company keeps its full price. Bookings made on Spot's own site have no booking fee.

Join the waitlist on that time. If a place frees up you're emailed straight away, so you can book it before it goes again.

If the company offers it, you can choose to pay a deposit now. The balance is paid later through a payment link or at the start of the experience.

Yes. Type the code at checkout. Gift cards are bought on the company's gift card page, work across that company's experiences, and keep any balance you don't use until they expire.

Some activities (boats, bikes, climbing) ask every traveller to sign the company's waiver before the trip. Your ticket and confirmation email have a link to sign it online; otherwise you sign it at check-in.

If the experience offers pickups, choose a pickup point (or type your hotel, if the company allows it) at checkout. Your pickup time is on your ticket.

English, Spanish, French and German. Your booking window, emails and ticket follow the language you booked in. The experience's own description is in the language the company wrote it in.

Spot's booking system for tour and activity companies, like FareHarbor or Rezgo: your availability, online checkout on your own website (a Book now button and a booking window), a booking desk for walk-ins and phone bookings, tickets with QR check-in, reports, and connections to resellers. See /spot-book.

On your own website or links, customers pay a 1% booking fee plus Stripe’s card fee on top, each shown as its own line, and you keep your full price. On Spot's marketplace your usual Spot commission applies. Bookings you take at the desk (cash, card or unpaid) have no Spot fee.

Yes. Experiences → Import from FareHarbor reads your public FareHarbor page and brings over your experiences, photos, prices per customer type and weekly times as drafts. Nothing changes for your customers until you switch on Spot Book for each experience.

Prices per customer type (adult, child…) or one price per group size, private bookings, seasons, automatic rules (busy times cost more, last-minute or early bookings cost less), a price for one departure from the desk, extras, deposits, promo codes, gift cards and combos (a discount when several of your experiences are booked together).

Yes. Invite staff by email as managers, front desk or guides. Guides only see the departures they're on. Put the desk on your phone (Add to Home Screen) for check-in at the door; it scans ticket QR codes.

Yes: the desk can show the customer a payment link or QR to pay by card on their own phone, or you record cash or card taken another way. Card readers and tap-to-pay aren't available yet.

Yes. Connect GetYourGuide and Viator in Settings (you finish the connection in their supplier portals), and give resellers like Klook, Headout or Tiqets a key for the OCTO standard. They book straight into your Spot Book departures, so nothing is double-sold, and their bookings show on your desk and in your reports.

Yes. Add an agent and they get a booking link and widget that earns them commission. Agents you trust can book on account from their own login at /agent; you invoice them and mark commission paid.

Reports shows bookings, revenue, fees, taxes and payouts by day, experience, channel and agent, with spreadsheet downloads, plus a printable pickup list for each departure. Taxes (VAT, IVA, sales tax) can be included in your prices or added at checkout.

The connection is built and switching on soon: once a day Spot will post a journal of your Spot Book sales (sales, tax, commission, refunds and what you receive). Until then, download your bookings and tax summary from Reports.

Yes. Make an API key in Settings to read experiences, availability and bookings and to add bookings taken elsewhere, and add webhooks to be told the moment a booking is made, changed or cancelled. See /spot-book/api.

Yes. Add your own words to the confirmation and reminder emails, and a “before you go” note per experience. Customers get a reminder email the day before, and a review request afterwards if you add your review link.

Yes: the console, booking desk, check-in, reports and agent portal are in English, Spanish, French and German. Switch with EN · ES · FR · DE at the top.

Yes. Ask Spot to put your company in test mode: payments go through Stripe's test system, your experiences are hidden from the marketplace, and nothing is charged. Ask again to go live.

Built and switching on soon. Until then, every customer gets a reminder email the day before.

You can sign up in Settings now; your experiences go on Google once Spot's connection with Google is approved, with nothing more for you to do.

Coming soon (see above). Use the spreadsheet downloads in Reports in the meantime.

Not yet. Customers can pay by card on their own phone from the desk, or you record a payment taken another way.

Spot's own words are in English, Spanish, French and German, but your experience descriptions, customer types and extras show as you wrote them. Automatic translation of your own text is on the list.

No direct connection yet. Many resellers connect through the OCTO standard, which Spot supports; ask them whether they use OCTO.