Everything you need to know about Request to Book

Updated 2 weeks ago | 4 min read time
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Request to Book is a feature that offers you full control to manage your booking requests. Unlike Instant Booking where guests can book a property directly, Request to Book requires guests to send a booking request that you can accept or decline. 

Request to Book requires more management time than Instant Booking and can result in fewer bookings and potentially less revenue.

What’s in this article:

  1. How Request to Book works
  2. How the pricing and payments work
  3. Setting up Request to Book
  4. Managing booking requests

How Request to Book works

Guests can only view properties using the Request to Book feature if they’re searching for stays with a check-in date in more than three days’ time. If a guest wants to make a last-minute booking, they can only book an Instant Booking property.

Here’s how Request to Book works:

  1. Guests who want to stay at your property in more than three days’ time send you a booking request.
  2. You receive a booking request notification and you have 24 hours to accept or decline the booking.
  3. If you accept the request, the guest has 24 hours to complete their booking and confirm their stay. If they don’t complete the booking in time, the request will expire and no reservation will be made.

You won’t be able to communicate directly with the guest until the booking is confirmed. But you can answer common questions in your extranet’s Property questions and answers section.

How the pricing and payments work

Pricing

The price shown when a booking request is sent is the price the guest would pay if they were to book immediately. This price may differ from the one they’ll pay when they confirm their booking. 

The price may change if:

  • You start offering a promotion
  • You change the rate of your rooms

If the price changes after the guest has submitted their booking request, they’ll be notified of the new price after the request is accepted. If they’re okay with the new price, they can continue and confirm their booking. If they’re not okay with the new price, they can look for another property to book. There will be no penalty if they decide not to complete the booking after seeing the new price.

Payment

The guest can only confirm a booking if you accept their request, but they won’t pay until after they confirm the booking. When precisely this payment occurs depends on how you manage guest payments at your property.

Setting up Request to Book

You can set up Request to Book during the registration process of your property on our platform. Here’s how:

  1. When you reach the How you receive bookings page, select All guests will need to request to book to set up Request to Book. If you prefer to set up Instant Booking, choose All guests can book instantly. 
  2. Follow the rest of the instructions to complete the set-up of your property. 

You can start receiving booking requests as soon as your property is live on our platform. 

You can switch between Instant Booking and Request to Book at any time by following these steps:

  1. Log in to the extranet.
  2. Select the Property tab and click on Policies.
  3. Under Other policies, click on Edit in the How you receive bookings box.
  4. Under How can guests book your property? choose All guests can book instantly to activate Instant Booking. Choose All guests will need to request to book to activate Request to Book.
  5. Click on Save.

Managing booking requests

There are several ways you can accept or decline your booking requests.

 

To accept or decline booking requests directly via the extranet, follow these instructions:

  1. Log in to the extranet.
  2. Go to the Reservations tab and select Booking requests.
  3. Under Status, you’ll see reservations with a pending response – click on the link under Guests.
  4. In the Booking request details, click on Accept or Decline to accept or decline a request.

 

To accept or decline booking requests directly via the Pulse app:

  1. Log in to the Pulse app.
  2. Select a pending request from the Home tab or go to Bookings and select Booking requests to find the full list of bookings.
  3. Click on a request with a pending status.
  4. Review the Booking request details and click on Accept or Decline to accept or decline a request.

 

Here’s how to accept or decline booking requests via email notification:

  1. Log in to your email inbox and open the email notifying you about a new booking request.
  2. Click on the Accept or decline request button to open the Request details page of the extranet.
  3. Under Booking request details, select Accept or Decline.

Before declining a booking request, make sure you review our Non-discrimination Policy. Declining a lot of requests can negatively impact how guests experience your property.

 

FAQs

  • Request to Book is available to properties globally. If your property is eligible, you’ll see Request to Book as an option during the registration process or on your Policies page in the extranet.

  • We’ll send you an email if: 

    • You received a new booking request
    • A booking request expired before you took action
    • A booking request expired before the guest confirmed the booking
    • You have too many pending booking requests

    We’ll send you a push notification if:

    • You received a new booking request
    • A booking request will expire soon
    • You have too many pending booking requests

    If you use the Pulse app, make sure your notifications are turned on.

  • To let you choose which booking requests best suit you, we don’t automatically block availability in your calendar when a guest sends a request to book. This means that you may sometimes receive requests with partially or fully overlapping stay dates. In that case, you can choose which booking you want to accept and which you want to decline via the extranet or the Pulse app.

  • Request to Book will soon be available for partners who use channel managers and property management systems. Check with your channel manager or property management system to see if this option is available for your properties.

  • We take discrimination very seriously and expect that you review and follow our Non-discrimination guidelines before deciding to decline a booking request.

  • We recommend that you accept or decline booking requests as quickly as possible to provide travellers with a good customer experience. They’ll appreciate your quick action and have a more positive opinion of you and your property, even if you decline their request. Not taking action on booking requests also means a larger backlog of requests to catch up on for your business, fewer bookings and potentially less revenue.

  • If you don’t accept or decline a request within 24 hours, we’ll notify you that the request has expired and was automatically declined. After it expires, you can no longer perform any action for that booking request. Guests will receive an email explaining that you didn’t respond and asking if they want to send another booking request or choose a different property. A few expired requests shouldn’t greatly impact your business, but too many can result in disappointed guests, fewer bookings and potentially less revenue.

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