Provider: How do pickup lists work?

A pickup list specifies which hotel your guests will be picked up from and at what time. It’s always part of a schedule, not the event itself—because the start times are listed in the schedule, and the pickup times are derived from those.

Two things must be in place beforehand: Your event offers pickup, and the schedule has at least one start time.

📱 Open pickup times

Open your event and select Manage Pickup Times
You’ll see each schedule for the event as its own section
Tap the three dots on the right side of the section and select “Add Zone”
Give the zone a name—for example, North or Costa Calma—and save

A zone is a group of hotels that your driver visits in a single trip. If you drive once to the north and once to the south in the morning, those are two zones.

On each zone map, the three dots take you to “Rename Zone” and “Delete Zone.” When you delete a zone, all pickup times for that zone are also deleted.

📱 Enter hotels and times

Tap “Edit Times” on the zone map
Tap “Add Pickup Point” and search for the hotel
For each hotel, select the meeting point: Hotel Reception, In Front of the Hotel, Bus Stop, Taxi Stand, or Other. If you select “Other,” enter the exact location in the field below
Tap “Save” in the top-right corner

A newly added hotel is initially marked as “Unplanned.” You can enter the time manually or have Google calculate it for you.

📱 Calculate the route

At the top of the Edit screen, you’ll see Arrival, Buffer (min.), and Stops.

Tap the gear icon—it opens “Customize Schedule”
Under “Arrival at Event,” enter when the bus should arrive at the event. The default is 30 minutes before the earliest start time of the week
Under “Buffer per Stop (min.)” are the minutes spent at each hotel for boarding and alighting. Values between 1 and 60 are allowed
Tap Save
Tap “Calculate Route”

Google calculates the travel times between the hotels and sets the pickup times based on the arrival time. After that, it will say “Times imported—not yet saved.” — You must tap “Save” in the top-right corner to finalize them.

You can still adjust each time individually afterward. Two hotels cannot have the same pickup time.

Multiple start times in the schedule

Pickup times are not saved as fixed times, but as intervals relative to the start time. A list therefore applies to all start times in the schedule: If a pickup is at 8:10 a.m. for a 9:00 a.m. start, it will be at 1:10 p.m. for a 2:00 p.m. start.

If the schedule has multiple start times, there’s a toggle button above the list. This lets you see the same times for each start time—it doesn’t change anything; it just changes how you view the list.

Fixed Times or Specify Individually

If there are many start times throughout the day, a fixed list often isn’t practical. In that case, tap the three dots in the section and select “Specify times manually.”

When booking, the customer will see: The provider will notify you of your pickup time after booking. You’ll contact the provider yourself after booking. Your hotels and meeting points remain saved.

To go back, tap the “Plan Times Manually” button in the info box—your fixed lists will then take effect again.

If it doesn’t work

“This schedule doesn’t have any start times yet.” Enter the start times in the schedule; you can’t plan pickup times until you do.
“Add hotels first—Google uses them to calculate the route.” The zone is still empty.
“The route needs to be recalculated: a pickup time is still missing for …” One hotel is marked as unplanned. Enter the time or tap “Calculate Route.”
“… have the same pickup time.” Assign a unique time for each hotel.
“The pickup must take place before the start at …” The time entered is after the event’s start time.
“This time fits the selected slot, but not the earliest start time in the schedule…” The list applies to all start times. For the earliest start time, this pickup would be before midnight—select a later time or set the arrival time later.
“Too many hotels for a route calculation.” Split the zone into two zones.
“No location has been specified for this event.” First place the event location on the map; otherwise, Google won’t know where the trip is going.
“Today’s quota for route calculations has been used up.” Enter today’s times manually or try again tomorrow.