Guest EV charging, sorted: GuestCharge partners with Bookalet

If you let a holiday home, you've probably noticed the question creeping into more of your enquiries: "Is there somewhere I can charge my car?"

A few years ago it was rare. Now, with around a quarter of new UK cars being fully electric, it's fast becoming one of the first things a certain kind of guest checks before they book. And for owners, it opens up a surprisingly awkward problem: how do you let a guest charge their car without either eating the electricity cost yourself or turning changeover day into a meter-reading exercise?

That's the problem we built GuestCharge to solve, and it's why we're pleased to be partnering with Bookalet.

The awkward middle ground most owners get stuck in

When a guest asks to charge, owners usually end up picking from a set of options that all have a catch:

• Say no. Simple, but you lose the booking to a property down the road that says yes, and the EV-driving guest tends to be exactly the kind of guest you want.
• Let them charge for free. Generous, until someone arrives on 5% battery and leaves on 100%, and you're quietly subsidising their motoring on your own electricity bill.
• Charge a flat fee. Feels tidy, but it's rarely fair, light users feel overcharged and heavy users get a bargain, and it sits awkwardly with how UK electricity resale rules are heading.
• Read the meter manually. Accurate, but nobody wants to be reading a sub-meter at 11pm when a guest arrives late, or chasing payment after they've already driven home.

None of these is a good answer, which is why most owners just avoid the question. The result is a growing amenity gap: guests increasingly expect charging, and owners increasingly don't have a clean way to offer it.

How GuestCharge works

GuestCharge is a UK-built billing platform that turns a smart EV charger into something a guest can pay for themselves, fairly and automatically.

The flow is simple:

1. You set it up once. GuestCharge connects to your existing smart charger (it works with most modern OCPP-compatible chargers, including Easee, Zappi, Wallbox and Pod Point).
2. Your guest scans a QR code at the charger. No app to download, no account to create. They just scan, see the price per kWh, and pay by card.
3. You get paid automatically. The money for the electricity they used lands in your account via Stripe. Owner stays can be excluded automatically, so you're never billing yourself.

Guests pay for exactly what they use, at a rate you set, and you stop absorbing charging costs or chasing payments. It's the fair version of guest charging that the manual options never quite manage.

Why now: the rules are changing too

There's a timing reason this matters beyond guest expectations. The way EV charging is billed at rental properties is moving up the regulatory agenda. Ofgem is reviewing how its resale rules apply to guest charging, with a decision expected this year, and UK metering standards are tightening from 2027 onward. The short version: billing guests fairly, per kWh, off a compliant meter is becoming the safe default, and flat fees and rough estimates are looking increasingly exposed.

GuestCharge is built around those UK rules, so getting set up now means you're already on the right side of where things are heading rather than scrambling to catch up later. If you'd like the detail, we've written a deeper reference on MID-meter compliance for UK holiday let EV chargers.

What the Bookalet partnership means for you

If you manage your bookings through Bookalet, you can now get started with GuestCharge through a dedicated partner page, with no setup fees to begin. It's the same platform, set up to slot in alongside the way you already run your properties.

More EV-driving guests are coming whether or not the charging question is solved. This is a way to turn that question from an awkward "er, I'm not sure" into a simple "yes, just scan the code."

See how it works for Bookalet hosts →

GuestCharge is a UK-built EV charging billing platform for short-term rental and holiday let operators. Bookalet is a long-established booking and property-management system for UK holiday let owners.