Sell Session Packages with Addon Sessions

Addon Sessions let your guests add a second (or third) experience to their booking in one go — one booking, one payment, and a table reserved for every part of the evening. Think dinner followed by a wine tasting, welcome drinks before an escape room, or axe throwing followed by a private karaoke room.

When a guest picks their time, BookingNinja works out exactly when each addon would run — an addon after the main session begins the moment it ends, an addon before it finishes just as the main session starts — and only offers experiences that are genuinely available at those times.

How It Works

A few things are worth understanding before you set it up:

• Addons are configured on the main session. You choose which other sessions can be "added on" to it. In our example, the Dinner session offers a Wine Cellar Experience and a Garden Nightcap as addons.
• Each addon gets its own real reservation. Behind the scenes, every addon a guest selects becomes its own booking with its own table, checked against that session's own availability rules — capacity, opening hours, everything. You'll see it on your calendar just like any other booking, marked as part of a package.
• Timing is automatic. You decide whether each addon runs before or after the main session, and everything chains back-to-back from there. Addons after the main session start the moment it (or the previous addon) ends; addons before it finish exactly as the main session begins. If a guest books Dinner at 6:30pm for two hours, an after-addon is offered at 8:30pm and a before-addon at a time that ends at 6:30pm. The guest never has to pick a second time.
• One payment. Whatever each part of the package costs is combined into a single checkout. The guest pays once.

Setting It Up

1. Go to Sessions → Manage Sessions and open the session you want to offer packages on (your "main" session).
2. Open the Features tab and find the Addon Sessions card.
3. Turn on Enable Addon Sessions.
4. Click Add Addon Session and choose which session guests can add on. Only repeating sessions can be offered as addons.
5. Use When to choose whether this addon runs before or after the main session.
6. Optionally give it a Display Label and Description — this is what guests see on the booking form, so a little marketing goes a long way ("Add a Wine Cellar Experience" reads much better than the session's internal name).
7. Save the session. That's it — the new step appears in your booking flow automatically.

You can add several addons. The order you list them in is the running order if a guest picks more than one: before-addons lead into the main session in list order, and after-addons follow it in list order.

Settings Explained

Guest Mapping

This controls how the booking's party carries over to the addon session.

• Carry total guests over — the whole party is booked into the addon. A dinner for 4 becomes a wine tasting for 4. This is the right choice for most venues.
• Map guest types — if your sessions use guest types (Adults, Children, etc.), you can decide how each type maps across, and what happens to guests whose type doesn't apply. For example, adults might carry over to a wine tasting while children are left out of it.

Count guests as lets you put the carried-over guests into a specific guest type for the addon session's pricing — useful when the addon session prices per guest type but your main session doesn't use them.

Pricing

By default, an addon charges its own session pricing — whatever deposit or ticket price that session would charge if booked on its own. If your Wine Cellar Experience charges £15 per person, a party of 4 sees £60.

Turn on Override pricing to charge something different when the session is bought as part of a package:

• Free (included) — the addon costs nothing extra. Great for "book dinner, get a welcome drink experience included" offers.
• Fixed price per booking — one price for the whole table, however many guests.
• Price per guest — a per-person price that replaces the session's own pricing.
• Price per guest type — set a package price for each guest type individually.

What Your Guests See

After picking their date and time, guests get a new Add an experience step. Each addon shows its own start and end time — already worked out from the guest's chosen slot — along with the price for their party:

Selecting an addon is one tap. If they select more than one, the times update live so everything stays back-to-back — notice how the Garden Nightcap has moved to follow the wine tasting:

If an addon isn't available at the time it would need to run — its tables are taken, or it's not open then — it shows as unavailable rather than disappearing, so guests understand why.

At checkout, everything is combined into a single payment:

And the confirmation (and confirmation email) lists the full itinerary:

Use Case Ideas

• Restaurants — dinner + wine tasting, welcome drinks before dinner, brunch + bottomless drinks hour.
• Experience venues — a briefing or welcome drinks before an escape room, axe throwing + street food session, immersive game + themed bar experience.
• Activity centres — climbing session + party room, go-karting + pit-lane pizza session.
• Upsell a quiet space — offer your lounge or garden as a "warm up" before or a "wind down" after your main experience, at a table price.

Managing Package Bookings

• On your calendar and booking lists, a package's main booking shows a Package badge and each addon shows an Addon badge — click it to see what it's linked to.
• Cancelling the main booking cancels its addons too, automatically. Guests can't cancel just the addon part themselves.
• If a guest changes their main booking's time from your admin panel, the addons move with it — and if an addon no longer fits at the new time, it's removed from the booking so you can re-add or adjust manually.
• Need to cancel just the addon? Cancel the addon booking from your admin panel, then use Refund package share on its badge to refund that part of the payment — the main booking and its payment stay untouched.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if the addon session is fully booked at the time it would run? The addon shows as "Not available at this time" on the booking form, and the guest simply can't select it. Their main booking is unaffected.

Can an addon happen before the main session? Yes — set When to "Before this session" on the addon. It's scheduled to finish exactly when the main session starts, so welcome drinks before dinner or a briefing before an escape game just work. Keep in mind a before-addon needs the addon session to be open earlier than the guest's chosen time.

Can guests book the addon session on its own? Yes — unless you mark the session as Hidden, it stays bookable on its own like any other session. Addon Sessions just adds another way to sell it.

Do addons take real tables? Yes. Each addon reserves a table in the addon session's own areas, following that session's capacity rules — exactly as if it had been booked directly. You won't get double-booked.

What if the guest's dinner runs long — can I add a gap before the addon? Addons start when the previous session's booked duration ends. If you want breathing room, add buffer time to your main session using its duration or "additional duration spacing" setting.

Can an event or ticketed session be an addon? Not at the moment — only repeating sessions can be offered as addons, because their times can flex around the main booking. Event and ticket sessions have fixed times.

How are refunds handled if I cancel one part? Cancelling the whole package refunds through your normal process on the main booking. If you cancel just an addon, use the Refund package share button on the addon's booking card — it refunds exactly what the guest paid for that part.