--- title: "Court Booking Windows: How Far Ahead Should Members Book? | SportyPlus" description: "How to choose a booking window for your club, differentiate it by membership type, and avoid prime-time courts disappearing weeks ahead." lang: "sr" canonical: "https://www.sporty.plus/sr/blog/how-far-in-advance-should-members-book-courts" --- 1. [Почетна](https://www.sporty.plus/sr) 3. [Блог](https://www.sporty.plus/sr/blog) 5. How Far in Advance Should Members Be Allowed to Book Courts? ![How Far in Advance Should Members Be Allowed to Book Courts?](https://www.sporty.plus/_og/r/blog/how-far-in-advance-should-members-book-courts.png) # How Far in Advance Should Members Be Allowed to Book Courts? How to choose a booking window for your club, differentiate it by membership type, and avoid prime-time courts disappearing weeks ahead. There is no correct booking window. There is only the window that matches how far ahead your members actually plan, and most clubs have never chosen theirs deliberately — it is whatever the software defaulted to. It is worth choosing on purpose, because this one number decides who gets the best courts. ## What the booking window actually controls The booking window is the maximum number of days ahead a player can reserve. It looks like a convenience setting. It is really an allocation policy. Court time is not scarce in general — it is scarce between roughly 17:00 and 21:00 on weekdays. Everything outside that band is usually available to anyone at any notice. So the booking window does almost nothing for off-peak play, and almost everything for prime time. Set it long and prime-time slots go to whoever plans furthest ahead, which in practice means the same dozen well-organised members every week. Set it short and members struggle to arrange a match with three other people's calendars. ## The two failure modes **Window too long.** A member opens the calendar on a Monday evening and every 19:00 court for the next three weeks is taken. They are not competing on availability, they are competing on diary discipline. Newer members conclude the club is full and stop looking. **Window too short.** With a two-day window, organising doubles becomes a scramble. Members cannot commit to a weekly game, coaches cannot plan, and everyone opens the app at the same moment each morning — which produces a booking rush rather than fair distribution. Both failures look like a capacity problem. Neither is. ## Choosing your number ### Start from how your members plan Ask how a typical match gets arranged at your club. If members agree a game a few days ahead by message, a 7-day window covers it. If your club revolves around fixed weekly groups, a longer window matters less than you would think — those groups are better served by recurring bookings than by racing to rebook every week. A rough starting point: Club type Typical window Members' club, social play 7 days Commercial padel or pickleball centre 14 days Club with strong coaching and league programme 7 days for members, longer for coaches Facility with plentiful off-peak capacity 14–30 days Treat these as somewhere to start, not as a recommendation. The measurable test comes later. ### Differentiate by who is booking A single window for everyone is rarely right, because members, guests and coaches are not competing for the same thing. User type Window Why Members 7 days The core allocation decision Guests / non-members 3 days Members get first claim on prime time Coaches 30 days Lessons are scheduled, not spontaneous Club activities and leagues unrestricted Fixtures are set a season ahead Administrators unrestricted Maintenance, events, exceptions Giving guests a shorter window is the cleanest way to protect member value without banning guest play — which clubs often do instead, losing the revenue and the recruitment channel along with it. If you sell membership tiers, the window is also one of the few benefits that costs the club nothing to grant and that members genuinely feel. A premium tier booking 10 days out while standard members book 7 is a real, visible difference. ### Decide how the window opens Two clubs with a 7-day window can behave completely differently depending on how it rolls. **Rolling by time** — at 19:00 today, next Tuesday 19:00 becomes bookable. Availability trickles out through the day, which spreads demand. **Rolling by day** — at midnight, the whole of next Tuesday opens at once. Simpler to explain, but it creates a rush at a fixed moment, and it rewards whoever is awake. Rolling by time is usually fairer. Rolling by day is easier to communicate. If you choose rolling by day, at least avoid opening at midnight; a mid-morning release is kinder and just as fair. ### Protect prime time separately if you need to If prime time is the only real contention, consider a shorter window for those hours only — members book 14 days ahead generally, but 5 days ahead for 18:00–21:00 slots. It keeps planning flexibility for the quiet hours where nobody is competing, and tightens the rule exactly where it matters. This is more complex to explain, so reach for it only if a single window is not working. ## A worked example A club with six courts moves from a 21-day window to 7 days for members and 3 for guests. Before, the 19:00 and 20:00 courts were fully booked about two weeks out. The same members appeared in those slots most weeks, not through any unfairness but because they booked the moment the window allowed. After the change, prime-time courts fill roughly two to three days ahead instead. The same number of courts is sold — the window does not create capacity — but a different and larger set of members gets into them, and the club stops receiving "there is never anything available" messages from people who were looking three days out. The complaints the club does receive come from the members who lost their standing 19:00 slot. That is the real cost of the change, and it is worth answering directly: those groups should be moved onto recurring bookings, which is the right tool for a fixed weekly game. ## How SportyPlus can help In SportyPlus the booking window is part of the club's [court booking](https://www.sporty.plus/modules/court_booking) rules rather than a single global number: it can differ by user type, so members, guests and coaches each get their own, and it works together with the other rules that decide access to prime time — booking limits, included hours from [membership plans](https://www.sporty.plus/modules/memberships), and prices that vary by time of day. Because the rules are checked when the player picks a slot, members simply do not see times they are not yet allowed to book, rather than being refused after choosing one. ## Practical recommendations - Write down what problem you are solving before changing the number. "Prime time is gone too early" and "members cannot plan" need opposite adjustments. - Change one thing at a time. If you shorten the window and add booking limits in the same week, you will not know which one worked. - Always give guests a shorter window than members. It is the least contentious rule in this entire article. - Announce the change at least two weeks ahead, and explain it in terms of access for more members rather than as a restriction. - Move standing weekly games to recurring bookings before you shorten the window, or you will convert your most loyal members into your loudest critics. - Re-check after a month: how many days ahead do prime-time slots now fill, and how many distinct members played in them compared to before? ## Related questions **Is a longer window better for a commercial centre?** Usually yes. A pay-per-play padel centre wants certainty of demand, and customers planning two weeks ahead is good for the business. The fairness concern that drives shorter windows is a members' club concern. **Should the window differ between weekdays and weekends?** Only if your contention differs. Many clubs are busy on weekday evenings and quiet on Saturday afternoons — in which case the weekend does not need a tight window at all. **What stops one member booking the same slot every week?** Not the booking window — that is what [booking limits](https://www.sporty.plus/blog/prevent-players-booking-too-many-courts) are for. The two rules solve different halves of the same fairness problem. **Do we need a window at all?** If prime-time courts do not fill up, no. An unlimited window is perfectly reasonable for a club with spare capacity, and it is one fewer rule to explain. --- **Set the rules once and let the system apply them.** SportyPlus supports booking windows per user type, alongside booking limits, membership benefits and pricing. See [court booking](https://www.sporty.plus/modules/court_booking), or read the full guide to [court booking management](https://www.sporty.plus/blog/court-booking-management). ## Повезани SportyPlus водичи - [How to Manage Court Bookings Without Spreadsheets, Messages and Manual Work](https://www.sporty.plus/sr/blog/court-booking-management) A complete guide to replacing spreadsheets, WhatsApp groups and manual scheduling with booking rules the system enforces on its own. - [How to Prevent Players From Booking Too Many Courts](https://www.sporty.plus/sr/blog/prevent-players-booking-too-many-courts) A few members holding most of the prime-time slots is rarely bad behaviour. It is usually a missing rule.