Booking requests

A booking request is a booking you accept before it’s confirmed. It holds the pitch while it waits, and shows as To confirm until you answer it.

When you get requests

• When a guest books on your website and will pay when they arrive. If When do guests pay? is set to Pay when they arrive, every online booking comes in as a request. With Let guests choose, only guests who choose to pay on arrival send a request; guests who pay by card are confirmed straight away. Change this in Payments & billing › Guest payments. On Pay As You Go, PootlrHost’s £1 for a pay-on-arrival request only goes on your monthly bill once you confirm it.
• When a guest pays by card and you check guests before confirming. Their payment is held on their card, not taken, until you answer. See Checking guests before confirming below.
• When a group asks for several pitches together. See Group bookings.

Bookings you add yourself are always confirmed.

What the guest is told

The guest gets a “request received” email, which doesn’t say they’re booked in. Their stay page doesn’t say so either, and reminders before arrival only go once the booking is confirmed.

When their card payment is held, the booking page, the confirmation screen, the email and their stay page all tell them: “This is a request. £60 is held on your card, not taken. Holly Bank Farm will call or message you, usually within a day or two. If they can’t take you, the hold is released.” (With your site’s name and the amount held.)

You get the new-booking email, asking you to confirm it.

Where requests show

• Under Needs you on your Today page, with Decline and Confirm buttons. A request with a card payment held shows how much is held, the day it’ll be declined for you, and the guest’s phone number to call.
• Under To confirm in the Bookings list.
• On the calendar, with a dashed outline.
• Under Arriving on On site today, on the day they’re due.

Confirming a request

Tap Confirm on your Today page, or Confirm booking on the booking. The guest gets their confirmation email, and from then on it’s like any other confirmed booking.

If their card payment is held, confirming takes it. If Stripe can’t take it (for example, the guest’s bank turns it down), the request isn’t confirmed and you’re told why.

If the pitch has been taken or closed since the request came in, it can’t be confirmed yet. Move it to another pitch or other dates first.

Declining a request

1. Open the booking and choose More › Decline request, or tap Decline on your Today page.
2. If the guest has paid anything, choose how much to refund. A card payment that was only held is released instead, so there’s nothing to refund.
3. Leave the box to email them ticked to send a polite decline.
4. Tap Decline request.

The pitch is free again. The decline email isn’t a cancellation email, and it only mentions a refund if there is one.

Checking guests before confirming

You can have guests who pay by card come in as requests too, so you can call or message them before they’re booked in. Choose this in Payments & billing › Guest payments, under Check guests before confirming:

• Off: card bookings are confirmed straight away.
• New guests only: a guest who hasn’t stayed with you before comes in as a request. A returning guest, who has had a stay with you that has ended (or whose earlier stays you imported), is booked in straight away. Guests are recognised by their email address.
• Everyone: every card booking comes in as a request.

The guest still pays by card when they book, and any security check from their bank happens then. But the deposit or the whole stay (whichever you take when guests book) is only held on their card, not taken.

• Confirm takes the payment. If you changed the booking first, it takes what’s due for the booking as it is now, never more than was held. If the booking now costs more (say, extras you agreed on the phone), the difference is left as a balance, collected the same way as any other balance. If it costs less, less is taken and the rest of the hold is released.
• Decline releases the hold. Nothing is charged and there’s no refund to send.
• While a request waits, you get a reminder email once a day.
• After 5 days without an answer, the request is declined for you: the hold is released and the guest gets a polite email. Card holds only last about a week, so this happens before the hold runs out.
• The pitch stays held for the guest while the request waits, as with any request.
• PootlrHost’s £1 booking fee, and any service fee the guest pays, are only taken when you confirm. A declined request costs you nothing.
• Until you confirm, held money shows as held, not paid, on the booking and in Reports.

Good to know

• Pay-on-arrival requests don’t expire. They hold the pitch until you answer, so answer them promptly. A request with a card payment held is declined after 5 days, as above.
• A request has to be confirmed before you can check the guest in.
• If a guest asks to cancel their request, it’s handled as a cancellation rather than a decline. See Cancelling a booking.
• A pitch that’s part of a group’s request is accepted or declined with the rest of the group, on the group’s page.