Prepay or Post pay for Bowling and/or shoes

[Lance Rasmussen]

Whats your policy for open play?

You you pay for bowling ahead of after? Shoes?

I've noticed a trend in talking with centers in that they are more and more forcing bowlers to prepay for bowling to prevent walkouts.

[Kevin Nagle]

Pre-pay for everything. It's really the only way to go. Every center I have worked at has switched to pre-pay, and I can't imagine doing business any other way.

The worst thing that happens with pre-paid bowling is that you lose a pair of shoes. With post paid bowling, you lose the bowling revenue... AND the shoes, too.

Pre-paid bowling also eliminates the end-of-the-night drunken argument of, "we didn't bowl 24 games!" (yes, the eight of you each bowled three games). ...or the argument of, "$85? We didn't do $85 worth of bowling!" With everything pre-paid, they know up front how much they're going to shell out to go bowling and make the (non-intoxicated) decision as to whether or not that's an acceptable amount of money.

The last center I managed was post-paid, and it brought back the awful memories of everything that is wrong with this outdated system. I quickly converted it to a pre-paid system.

[Bob Lanouette]

We prepay for everything. Except for daytime league practice games, we don't even sell 'games' anymore; everything is rent-a-lane. Weekdays $14.00 /hr plus $2 each for shoes; our system holds up to 6 bowlers per lane. Peak times, Fri night (late) and Sat night, $20 /hr, $34 for 2 hrs.... Soo, 5 high schoolers can come bowling for an hour for $24, just under $5.00 per person, a cheap night out really. We do sell fractions of an hour as needed, and in non-busy times, we will give 'free time' for our customers to finish their 9 & 10th frames if necessary. As Kevin said, only way to go.

[Keith Chambers]

I do almost all of my bowling at the three local military centers. All have gone to the prepay system, even when they are running 'specials'. As a coach I usually use the hourly rental rate, but as a bowler I usually pay by the game as I am usually working on a specific phase of my game. My "home" center offers me a special rate as I am both a coach and league official there.
Almost all of the civilian centers are also prepay and hourly rental rates - when there is open play available.