How to Set Up One-Way or Point-to-Point Events

When you create an event in SeatMax, the first thing you choose is the trip type. Not every event is a fly-in, stay, fly-out:

Round Trip — The classic: airport → venue for arrivals, venue → airport for departures. Two-leg events with full flight tracking on both ends.

Airport Pickup — One-way: airport → venue only. Great for events where attendees arrange their own departure (e.g., they'll drive home or take a different mode of transport back).

Airport Dropoff — One-way: venue → airport only. For events where attendees arrived on their own but need coordinated transport to the airport on the last day.

Point to Point — No airports, no flights. Origin → destination. Perfect for hotel-to-venue shuttles, office-to-offsite transport, or any scenario where you're grouping people by time rather than by flight.

Select "Airport Pickup" when you only need to get people from the airport to the venue.

The setup wizard asks for incoming dates but skips outgoing dates entirely. SeatMax tracks arrival flights, groups by terminal and landing time, assigns Ride Captains, and coordinates pickup — exactly like the incoming leg of a round trip event.

Common use case: a one-day conference where everyone flies in the morning and flies home that evening on their own schedule. You want coordinated airport-to-venue transport, but departures are too scattered to group.

Select "Airport Dropoff" for the reverse scenario: coordinating venue-to-airport transport.

SeatMax asks for outgoing dates and departure flight information. Travelers are grouped by departure time and airport — not by terminal, since everyone departs from the same venue. The 2-hour airport buffer ensures travelers arrive with time to spare.

Common use case: a multi-day retreat where attendees drove or took different transport to arrive, but all need rides to the airport on the last day. Or an event where incoming transport was handled by a charter bus, but departures are staggered.

Select "Point to Point" for ground transport between two locations with no air travel involved.

There are no flight fields, no airline lookups, no terminal grouping. Instead, SeatMax groups travelers by their requested pickup time at the origin location.

Common use cases:

• Hotel to conference venue — Morning shuttle groups from the hotel block to the convention center
• Office to offsite — Company all-hands at an off-campus venue, grouping employees by departure time
• Venue to dinner — Evening transport from the main event to a restaurant or after-party

Point-to-Point events still get all of SeatMax's core features: automatic grouping by time window, vehicle optimization (UberX vs. UberXL), Ride Captain assignment, savings calculation, and SMS coordination.

Pick the type that matches what you're actually coordinating:

• People flying in and out → Round Trip
• People flying in only → Airport Pickup
• People flying out only → Airport Dropoff
• No flights → Point to Point

You choose the trip type when creating the event, and it determines which fields SeatMax shows during setup — dates, airports, flight info, and grouping parameters all adapt to the type. No unnecessary fields, no confusion.

If you're unsure, Round Trip is the most common and covers both legs. You can always skip adding outgoing dates to effectively make it arrivals-only.