Playbook
How to Add a Loyalty Program to Your Golf Simulator Booking Software
The short answer
Your golf simulator booking software is brilliant at one thing: getting a customer through the door, paid up and into a bay. What it doesn’t really do is the next bit — making sure they come back. That’s the job of a loyalty program, and it’s the cheapest lever most indoor golf venues still aren’t pulling.
The good news is you don’t have to rip out your booking system to add one. You layer loyalty on top. Run a simple, visit-based reward — collect stamps, earn a free hour — on a digital card that lives on the customer’s phone, and let it tick over by itself off the bookings you’re already taking. Here’s how to do it properly, and why BookMyBays pairs so neatly with a loyalty card from Cuppacard, its sister product from the same team.
The 5 building blocks of a golf simulator loyalty program
- 1. Reward the visit, not just the receipt
- 2. It lives on the phone they booked on
- 3. It works for members and walk-ins alike
- 4. It runs itself, off the back of the booking
- 5. It shows you who your regulars actually are
Why your booking software isn’t a loyalty program
Booking systems and loyalty schemes get muddled up because they touch the same customer, but they answer different questions. Your golf simulator booking software answers “can I get this person paid and into a bay tonight?”. A loyalty scheme answers “will they still be picking me in three months, or the new place that’s opened down the road?”.
Memberships sit somewhere in the middle, and a decent system — BookMyBays included — handles them well: monthly plans, recurring billing, member pricing. But a membership only works on the golfers who are ready to commit money up front. It does nothing for the much bigger group of casual visitors who had a great time once and just… drifted off. Closing that gap is what a loyalty scheme is for.
The 5 building blocks of a golf simulator loyalty program
1. Reward the visit, not just the receipt
A membership rewards people up front: pay every month, get member pricing. A loyalty scheme rewards what they actually do, and gives the once-a-month golfer a reason to come back this fortnight instead. They’re two different jobs, which is why you want both, rather than one pretending to be the other.
The version that works is the oldest trick in hospitality with the cardboard taken out: play a round on the sim, get a stamp; collect enough and the next hour’s on the house. What you’re really buying is frequency, and frequency is the thing that quietly decides whether your bays are full on a wet Tuesday.
Green flag
Stamps or points earned per visit, redeemable for sim time
Red flag
A “loyalty” scheme that only kicks in on big one-off spends
2. It lives on the phone they booked on
Your customer booked their bay on their phone. They paid on their phone. So handing them a paper punch card on the way out asks them to keep track of their loyalty on the one thing they’ve stopped using. It goes through the wash, lives in a coat pocket, or, once in every venue owner’s career, genuinely gets eaten by a dog.
A digital loyalty card sits in Apple or Google Wallet, or in an app, right next to the booking confirmation. No cardboard, no reprinting a batch every time you tweak the logo, and no “I’m sure I had nine stamps” at a busy counter. Same idea, just living where the customer actually is.
Green flag
A digital loyalty card in the customer’s phone wallet
Red flag
Paper punch cards, or a spreadsheet of stamps kept by hand
3. It works for members and walk-ins alike
Your members are sorted — they’ve already got a reason to come back. The people a loyalty scheme really earns its keep with are the casuals: the stag do that had a brilliant night, the mate someone brought along once, the couple who “must do that again sometime”. Those are the bookings that quietly disappear without a nudge.
A loyalty layer catches exactly those people. It sits over the top of your golf simulator booking software and turns a good first visit into a second, third and fourth, without asking a casual golfer to sign up to a monthly plan before they’re ready.
Green flag
Loyalty layered over bookings, so casuals get pulled back too
Red flag
Rewards locked behind a membership most first-timers won’t join
4. It runs itself, off the back of the booking
If collecting loyalty means a staff member remembering to do something at a heaving counter, it won’t happen on the nights it matters most. The whole point is that the reward attaches to something that already happens — the booking, the visit, the tap of a phone — and the system keeps score by itself.
Get it right and loyalty becomes a quiet engine bolted onto your golf simulator booking software. It adds the stamp, spots when someone’s a visit away from a reward, and sends the “you’re nearly there” message that turns a someday booking into a tonight one. You get on with running the place.
Green flag
Automatic stamps and “one to go” reminders, no staff admin
Red flag
Loyalty that depends on someone remembering at the till
5. It shows you who your regulars actually are
Your booking software already knows who books and what they spend. A loyalty scheme fills in the rest: who’s on their way to becoming a regular, who’s gone quiet, and which reward actually drags people back through the door. Suddenly “Tuesdays feel slow” becomes “here’s a Tuesday reward for the forty people who are one stamp off a freebie”.
That’s the gap between running your venue on a hunch and running it on what’s actually happening — and it’s something a paper card has never once told anyone.
Green flag
Visit frequency and reward data you can actually act on
Red flag
No idea who’s becoming a regular until they’ve already left
What one extra visit a year is actually worth
Loyalty schemes sound like a nice-to-have until you do the sums, so let’s do them.
Say 400 customers book the simulator on and off across a year, at £25 a booking on average. If a loyalty scheme nudges each of them into just one extra visit a year, that’s 400 extra bookings — £10,000 of sim time that would otherwise have wandered off to the pub or the sofa. Get the average regular from once a month to once every three weeks and it stops being a rounding error and starts being a real line on your accounts.
Winning a brand-new customer is slow and pricey. Getting one you’ve already got back next fortnight costs you a single push notification.
And the reward you give away — a free hour here and there — comes out of slots that were probably quiet anyway, usually midweek. You’re paying for repeat visits with stock you were struggling to shift at full price. As marketing spend goes, that’s hard to beat.
How it works alongside BookMyBays
Here’s the split. BookMyBays runs the operation: 24/7 online bookings, payment taken up front, automatic bay and simulator access, memberships and reporting. It’s the engine that gets people booked, paid and playing without anyone behind the counter lifting a finger.
Cuppacard — built by the same team — adds the loyalty bit: a digital loyalty card in the customer’s wallet, a reward you set (every tenth hour free, a free coffee at five visits, whatever suits your venue), automatic stamps, and the “you’re one visit away” reminders. And it isn’t confined to the bays: Cuppacard started life stamping coffees — the clue’s in the name — so if you run a café or bar alongside the sims, the same card covers the flat whites as well as the sim time. You’re not bolting on a second booking system or learning a new bit of jargon; you’re giving the customers BookMyBays already brings in a reason to keep coming back.
The two run alongside each other rather than being wired together — that’s the honest way to put it — but because they come from the same stable, it’s built to feel like one thing to your golfers: book on their phone, play, collect a stamp, come back. And while we’ve written this for indoor golf, the same pairing works for the driving range, the darts oche or the lesson slot — anywhere repeat visits pay the bills.
Your golf loyalty program scorecard
Before you launch anything, run your plan down this list. The more of it lands in the green column, the more your loyalty scheme will actually shift how often people visit, rather than just look good on a poster.
| Building block | Green flag | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Reward visits, not just spend | Stamps or points earned per visit, redeemable for sim time | A “loyalty” scheme that only kicks in on big one-off spends |
| Lives on the phone | A digital loyalty card in the customer’s phone wallet | Paper punch cards, or a spreadsheet of stamps kept by hand |
| Works for everyone | Loyalty layered over bookings, so casuals get pulled back too | Rewards locked behind a membership most first-timers won’t join |
| Runs itself | Automatic stamps and “one to go” reminders, no staff admin | Loyalty that depends on someone remembering at the till |
| Shows who’s loyal | Visit frequency and reward data you can actually act on | No idea who’s becoming a regular until they’ve already left |
Where to start
You don’t need a grand plan. Pick one reward that drives frequency, put the card on the phone rather than on paper, and let it run by itself off your existing bookings. If you’re still choosing the booking layer underneath it all, our guide to the best golf booking system walks through what to check, and our piece on golf membership models that work covers the commitment side of the same coin.
Get the bookings sorted first
BookMyBays runs your bookings, payments, access control and memberships — the engine a loyalty scheme sits on top of. 30 days free, no card, cancel any time.
Frequently asked questions
Does golf simulator booking software include a loyalty program?
Most golf simulator booking software is built around bookings, payments and access control, and plenty add memberships on top. A loyalty scheme — rewarding repeat visits with stamps or points — is a separate job, and it’s usually best added as its own layer. BookMyBays handles the bookings, payments, access control and memberships; for a stamp-style digital loyalty card, it pairs with Cuppacard, its sister product from the same team.
What is the difference between a membership and a loyalty program?
A membership is paid up front — a monthly or annual plan that usually unlocks member pricing or priority booking. A loyalty scheme rewards people after the fact: come back often enough and you earn something, like a free hour on the sim. Memberships reward your committed regulars; loyalty schemes pull the casual and occasional golfers back in. Most healthy venues run both.
How do I add a loyalty program to my golf simulator venue?
Start with what already happens: the booking. Pick a reward that drives frequency (say, every tenth hour free), put the card on the customer’s phone instead of on paper, and automate the stamps and reminders so there’s nothing for staff to remember. BookMyBays runs the bookings, memberships and access control; pairing it with a digital loyalty card like Cuppacard adds the rewards on top.
Do customers need to download an app to use a digital loyalty card?
Not necessarily. A digital loyalty card can drop straight into Apple or Google Wallet from a QR code with no app at all, or live inside an app if you want extras like push notifications. Either way it sits on the same phone your customer booked and paid with — far harder to lose than a bit of cardboard.
Is a loyalty program worth it for an indoor golf venue?
For most venues, yes. Winning a brand-new customer costs a lot more than getting an existing one back, and indoor golf lives or dies on repeat visits and quiet midweek slots. A loyalty scheme is a cheap way to lift how often people visit, and it tells you who your regulars really are.
Does BookMyBays integrate with Cuppacard?
BookMyBays and Cuppacard are sister products from the same team, and they’re designed to run alongside each other: BookMyBays for bookings, payments, access control and memberships, and Cuppacard for the digital loyalty card that rewards repeat visits. The card isn’t limited to sim time either — if your venue has a café or bar, the same card can stamp coffees and food too, so one loyalty scheme covers the whole venue. Set your reward up in Cuppacard and run it over the customers BookMyBays is already bringing in.
Written by The BookMyBays Team. BookMyBays builds booking and access-control software for indoor golf venues, driving ranges and golf courses. Cuppacard, from the same team, builds the digital loyalty cards that keep customers coming back — so the two pair naturally for venues that want both the booking and the loyalty side handled.
Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we’ll fix it. Last updated 9 June 2026.