Request to book

A guest asking to reserve your property, which only becomes a booking once you approve it.

The alternative is instant book, where a qualifying guest reserves without asking and the reservation is confirmed the moment they pay.

Requests give you a screening step. You see the guest, the dates and the party size before committing, which is why many operators keep them on for larger properties, higher-value stays or anywhere house rules need checking.

The cost is speed, and a deadline. A request to book expires if you do not answer it, usually within 24 hours on Airbnb and Booking.com. An expired request is a lost booking, and it is the most invisible kind of loss in this business: it never appears in a report as a cancellation or a decline, because nothing ever happened. The dates just stay empty.

For that reason, expiry reminders are worth setting up wherever your PMS offers them. Some systems now send an email and an SMS before a pending request runs out, timed to local waking hours, with the stay value and a direct link so you can answer quickly.

Related: [[Booking window]]