Hotel & Airbnb Partner Policy and Payment Terms.

1. Purpose

This policy governs how Elite Traders Lounge partners with hotels, guesthouses, and Airbnb/short-stay hosts to provide babysitting services to their guests. It is designed to:

• Protect the company from unpaid debt/credit risk.
• Let babysitters (independent freelance contractors) get paid promptly.
• Keep babysitters classified as independent contractors under South African labour law, not employees.

This page keeps the public detail light on purpose. The full, signed Partner Agreement — every clause in detail — is generated automatically and emailed to your business once your CIPC registration (or listing) and business email are verified. See Section 10.

2. How the partnership works

Elite Traders Lounge operates as an introduction agency — the same legal shape already used in our Family Service Agreement, extended to hotel/Airbnb-sourced bookings:

• The actual childcare arrangement is a direct agreement between the guest (parent/guardian) and the babysitter.
• Elite Traders Lounge's role is to verify, match, and process payment — it does not supervise the day-to-day delivery of care and disclaims liability for it.
• The hotel/Airbnb host is verified as a business (CIPC registration / active listing) but does not vet or verify individual guests — hotels already perform their own guest check-in KYC as a legal requirement, and the platform relies on that rather than duplicating it.
• The hotel/host is not a party to the childcare agreement and must not directly operate or supervise the babysitting itself.
• Airbnb-specific note: Airbnb's AirCover for Hosts covers the host for certain guest injury/property-damage claims, but does not extend to the acts of a third-party childcare vendor. That liability sits with the sitter's own coverage and the platform's verification standard, not with Airbnb.

3. Payment terms

Full payment is required at booking confirmation, before the sitter is dispatched — never on invoice, never on credit. This applies identically whether the client is a direct family, a hotel, or an Airbnb host: there is no "pay later" tier and no net-30/net-60 invoicing for any partner, at any volume.

• Payment is made via Paystack at the point the booking is confirmed, then follows the same dispute-hold and release process used for every other booking on the platform.
• What the hotel/host does on its own side is up to it — add the charge to the guest's room folio, charge the guest's card directly, or absorb/resell it as part of a package. Either way, Elite Traders Lounge is paid at booking confirmation regardless of how or when the partner recovers the cost from its guest.
• The contracted fee must always be paid through the platform, never handed to the sitter in cash. Guest tips, if offered, may still be given directly and in cash — tips are not part of the contracted fee.

Full detail on payout timing is in the Partner Agreement (Section 10).

4. How payments are processed

All booking payments are processed through Paystack. Payment is collected upfront, before a babysitter is dispatched. The babysitter's net share is paid out to her own South African bank account, and Elite Traders Lounge retains its commission.

Where a dispute is opened on a booking, no payment is released to any party until it is resolved.

5. Independent-contractor babysitters

South African courts and SARS apply a "dominant impression test" to distinguish an employee from an independent contractor (see also the Code of Good Practice: Who is an Employee?, gov.za). To stay firmly on the independent-contractor side for hotel/Airbnb jobs:

• Opt-in, not automatic assignment. A sitter must actively opt in to hotel/Airbnb-sourced jobs and may decline any individual job offered.
• No exclusivity. Sitters remain free to babysit independently, for other families, or through other platforms.
• Piece-rate only. Pay per completed booking — never a retainer or standing fee for hotel availability.
• No supplied equipment. Sitters use their own transport and basic supplies.
• Sitter-controlled scheduling. Sitters set/accept their own available hours; the company does not assign a shift roster.
• Tax is the sitter's own responsibility. Sitters register with SARS as provisional taxpayers if their income qualifies — no PAYE or UIF is withheld by Elite Traders Lounge.

6. Partnership commission

Hotel/Airbnb partners that refer bookings to Elite Traders Lounge earn a referral commission per booking, funded by a modest partner-rate premium above the standard family rate — this keeps the sitter's payout and the platform's own margin identical to a normal direct family booking, so the commission never comes out of sitter pay. Commission is tiered by referral volume — new partners start at an entry rate, and partners who send higher volumes move up to better rates automatically as their completed-booking count grows. Commission is paid once a referred booking is completed with no open dispute against it, not simply once it's booked or paid for — a cancelled or disputed booking doesn't earn commission or count toward your tier. A partner who goes a full 12 months with no completed booking is moved back to the entry rate until referrals resume — a higher tier reflects active, ongoing volume, not a one-time achievement. The exact commission percentages for each tier, how volume is counted, and how payouts are invoiced are set out in the Partner Agreement (Section 6), sent once your business is verified.

7. Booking & verification requirements

• Hotel/Airbnb partners must be verified as a legitimate business before activation: valid CIPC registration (hotels/guesthouses) or an active, verifiable listing (Airbnb/short-stay hosts), plus a confirmed business email.
• Individual hotel guests are not personally vetted or ID-verified by the platform — verification applies to the hotel/host entity only.
• Bookings are only confirmed once payment is received and a verified, background-checked sitter has accepted.
• Booking hours: 18:00 cut-off and an absolute 22:00 limit. No booking may finish later than 22:00, and that limit does not move. Care needed past 22:00 must be booked as an overnight booking, where the sitter remains at the property and does not travel home at night at all.
• A booking finishing between 18:00 and 22:00 is matched only to a Level 3 or higher sitter, and the partner arranges and pays for her journey home. The partner must pay for door-to-door e-hailing (Bolt, Uber or comparable) to her home address. It is never at the sitter's expense, is not deducted from her fee, and Elite Traders Lounge takes no part of it. The sitter's own vehicle is not an option on a partner booking, because we match the sitter after the request is submitted, so there is no specific sitter at that point whose vehicle we have verified. Partner bookings carry a minimum length of three hours for a day booking, and no booking may finish after 22:00, so the latest a partner day booking may start is 19:00.
• Partner bookings keep the minimum booking length set out in the partner rate card. The five-hour evening minimum charge that applies to family bookings does not apply to partner bookings.
• A sitter is always entitled to decline a booking finishing after 18:00, whatever her level and whatever transport is offered. Declining carries no penalty.

8. Cancellations & refunds

Because hotel and Airbnb guest requests are usually made same-day or a few hours ahead — unlike family bookings, which are typically planned days in advance — hotel/Airbnb-sourced bookings use hour-based notice windows rather than the day-based windows in the main Refund & Cancellation Policy. In summary:

• Cancelling with plenty of notice before the booking start gets a full or high partner refund with no cost to the babysitter; cancelling very close to (or after) the babysitter is dispatched carries little or no refund, since the sitter has already committed their time.
• A guest no-show is treated the same way as a family no-show, with a short grace period before it becomes a chargeable no-show.
• If Elite Traders Lounge itself fails to match a sitter in time, that is a platform-side service failure and the partner is refunded in full automatically.
• Repeated short-notice cancellations by a babysitter can suspend or end their hotel/Airbnb eligibility.

The full hour-by-hour refund tiers and compensation table are set out in the Partner Agreement (Section 10), sent once your business is verified.

9. Disputes (hotel/Airbnb-sourced bookings)

The platform's core rule is unchanged and applies without exception: if a dispute is raised, no funds are transferred or refunded to any party until the dispute is resolved by Elite Traders Lounge, regardless of who paid (family, hotel, or host) or which side raised it.

• The hotel/host is the formal complainant of record for any guest complaint, since guests are not Elite Traders Lounge account holders.
• Elite Traders Lounge acknowledges receipt within 24 hours, investigates within 5 business days, and issues a written decision within 10 business days.
• Dual-party check-in/check-out timestamps from the check-in tool are the primary evidence of hours worked.
• Either party may escalate an unresolved dispute to independent arbitration or the CCMA/relevant regulator once the internal process concludes.

10. The full Partner Agreement

This page intentionally keeps the public detail light. Once your business is verified — CIPC registration (or Airbnb/short-stay listing) plus a confirmed business email — Elite Traders Lounge automatically generates and emails your business a full, signed Hotel & Airbnb Partner Agreement PDF. It sets out, in full: the exact commission percentage and how it's negotiated, the complete hour-by-hour cancellation and refund tiers, detailed payout timing, the independent-contractor basis on which babysitters are engaged, and the digital-signature process for both sides. Nothing in the Partner Agreement changes any of the rules stated on this page — it only adds the detail.

FAQ

Why can't we just invoice the hotel monthly, like other suppliers?
Because babysitters need to be paid promptly and are not paid until the company itself has been paid. Monthly invoicing would mean fronting sitter pay before receiving the hotel's money — a debt/credit risk the company does not carry.

The guest already paid the hotel through their room folio — why do we need our own payment too?
The guest's folio charge is a matter between the guest and the hotel; it doesn't move any money to Elite Traders Lounge. The hotel pays the platform separately at booking confirmation, then recovers that cost from its guest however it normally bills folio charges.

Are babysitters our employees, or the hotel's employees?
Neither. Babysitters are independent contractors of Elite Traders Lounge, engaged per booking. They are never employees of the hotel/host, who is not a party to the childcare arrangement at all (Section 2).

When do we receive the full Partner Agreement?
Automatically by email, as soon as your business's CIPC/listing and business email are verified (Section 10) — you don't need to request it.

Can a babysitter be assigned to a hotel booking without being asked?
No. Sitters must opt in to hotel/Airbnb jobs and can decline any individual job offered.