Early bird offers: fill the first sitting

The five-thirty sitting is the hardest table in the room to sell and the easiest one to give away well. An Early Bird offer attaches something to it and shows it to the diner at the moment they are choosing a time.

Where diners see an early bird offer

On the slot itself. A diner picking a time sees the offer badged against the early ones, which is the only moment it can change their mind. An offer discovered after booking has cost you the discount and bought you nothing.

How is an early bird offer redeemed?

There is no deposit, no ticket and no code. The diner books the slot, arrives, and staff honour what was promised. Mosey takes nothing on it, because there is nothing to take: no money changes hands through us.

That is the whole design. An early-bird is a perk you are giving to fill a table, not a product you are selling, and wrapping it in a payment flow would make it worth less to both sides.

The wording is frozen onto the booking

When a diner books an offer slot, the offer's wording is copied onto the booking. Edit the offer next month, or delete it, and that booking still says what was actually promised.

This is not a detail. Without it, a diner arrives in three weeks expecting a glass of wine, the offer has since been changed to a dessert, and your floor staff have no way to know which is right. Frozen wording means the ticket in front of them is the agreement.

Choosing what to offer

The instinct is a percentage off the bill. Usually the better offer is a specific thing (a glass on arrival, a side, the dessert), because it costs you less, feels like more, and does not train customers to wait for a discount.

How to set up an early bird offer

1. Account → Features → Reservations, then open offers.
2. Pick the slots. The genuinely quiet ones, which your booking data will show you rather than your memory.
3. Choose the days. A Tuesday five-thirty and a Saturday five-thirty are not the same table.
4. Write the perk in one line, in the words your staff will read on the night.
5. Brief the floor before the first booking arrives, not on the night.

Features that work with early bird offers

• Reservations: offers attach to booking slots, so they need bookings turned on.
• Deal Hours: the same idea for the menu rather than the table, and they work together.
• Get discovered: a badged slot is visible to a diner browsing times.
• Loyalty: the early sitting is where a first-timer becomes a regular, if the meal is good.