Dashback is the Melbourne-founded service making it easier for hotel guests to get back the belongings they leave behind.
Working with courier partners including Mail Plus and Pack and Send, the platform gives hotels a fast, hands-off way to return lost items, while giving guests a simple, one-click way to get them back, both domestically and internationally.
Founded in 2022 by Andy Brain, Dashback has grown from a single idea into a national operation, now working with more than 300 hotels across Australia and handling more than 1,000 returns each month.
With an international returns service now live, the business is preparing for its first offshore launch in New Zealand.
Here’s how it works:
- The guest contacts the hotel asking about their lost item.
- The hotel checks the PMS and if they have the item, directs the guest to www.dashback.com.au.
- The guest enters their details and payment on the site.
- Dashback sends the hotel a pickup alert for one of its courier partners.
- Dashback confirms the pickup with the guest and sends a tracking code.
The item is delivered to the guest the next business day.
Dashback began as an idea Mr Brain (above) shared with his late business partner and friend, Jake Kogakis, for moving urgent items between cities. That idea never found traction, but it led Andy to the real problem: lost property.
Andy put on a suit and cold-called hotels down Collins Street and by the time he reached the Westin Melbourne, the story had flipped: hotels were losing hours chasing guests who had checked out and gone home and what they needed was a simple way to get items back to them.
The guest arranges and pays and the hotel does little more than print a label.
“I get as excited switching on a 40-room hotel as I do a 400-room one,” said Andy.
“Hotels now come to us before they have even opened, so Dashback is running from day one.
“It is becoming the first port of call for lost property across the sector and the fact that we are still here and growing every week, four years on, still amazes me.”
Dashback’s network now spans boutique hotels through to major properties including W Sydney, The Langham, The Ritz-Carlton, Perth, Crown Promenade and Crown Metropol in Melbourne.
Dashback also holds national partnerships with car-rental operators Avis Budget and Europcar and has earned five-star reviews from industry bodies including Les Clefs d’Or, the invitation-only international association of hotel concierges.
“Some doors take longer to open than others,” Andy said. “We spent three years talking to Meriton before going live across all 24 of their properties and that patience is how this business has grown, one relationship at a time.
“There’s a hotel version of this story everywhere you look: a lost watch, a set of keys, a kid’s toy that a whole family is losing sleep over.
“We built Dashback so hotels could hand that problem to us, and guests could get on with their day instead of chasing an item down themselves.”
Next up is New Zealand, where Dashback will launch with Pack and Send at the start of 2027, with plans to expand through Pack and Send’s global network from there.
Images courtesy Brian Doherty
