Setting a listing booking policy: Request to book or instant booking

A listing’s booking policy determines whether a reservation is approved instantly or sent as a booking request for you to confirm.

The booking setting options may differ for each booking channel. Learn more about the two booking policies, and how to configure or change them for each booking channel.

Instant booking

Choosing an instant approval policy saves you time and effort. A booked reservation is automatically approved if the listing is available for booking, and the guest enters their payment details. If you set payments by credit card, and you collect the channel payments via Guesty, you also need to connect a payment processor to Guesty.

When a reservation is approved, its status will be set to  “Confirmed”, and the listing’s calendar will be blocked in all connected channels.

Request to book

Choosing a request to book policy is helpful when taking payment "on location," or if you want to pre-approve your guests.

In most cases, when a request to book policy is set,  guests don’t need to provide their payment method when they book. Reservations are received in “Reserved” status, and the calendar dates are blocked for a limited time (in most cases, 24 hours). Approve or decline the booking request before it expires. 

Set or change a listing’s booking policy per channel

Read the following prerequisites and limitations per booking channel, and how you can set or change a listing’s booking policy for the channel. 

Airbnb

A request to book policy allows you to add a verification step for your guests before they can book. You have 24 hours to approve or decline the booking request. 

An instant booking policy, however, can benefit your Airbnb response rate, contribute to your listing ranking in Airbnb search results, and increase your chances of becoming an Airbnb super-host. In some cases, instant booking allows you to cancel an instant reservation without violating Airbnb’s cancellation policy.

Regardless of your booking policy, a reservation is instantly approved when you pre-approve a guest’s inquiry. Also, there are cases when a reservation will always be received as a request to book. 

With both booking policies, you’ll need to connect your payment processor to Airbnb, and guests must add their payment details when they book. Learn about the reservation flow for both policies.

When importing a listing from Airbnb, its approval policy will automatically be set to instant booking. When publishing a listing to Airbnb, you can set your desired policy. 

When a listing is connected between Guesty and Airbnb (either by importing, linking, reconnecting, or publishing it) you can change its booking policy. Follow these steps:

ֿStep by step:

 

Vrbo

You can apply an instant booking or a “Quote and hold” policy (equivalent to request to book) for your listings. Under “Quote and hold”, you have 24 hours to accept or cancel a reservation. After 24 hours, the reservation is canceled automatically. 

Vrbo charges a tiered partner fee when the host is responsible for a cancellation. Additional actions, such as a temporary listing suspension, may also be imposed. Exceptions to this policy can be made for cancellations outside the partner’s control. Thus, we recommend using instant bookings for your Vrbo listings.

Lite users connected to Guesty after 19 FEB 2024: Set your booking policy directly in Vrbo.

Pro users, and Lite users connected to Guesty before 19 FEB 2024:

When connecting a Vrbo account to Guesty, you can set its default booking policy as instant booking or “Quote and hold”. When publishing a listing to Vrbo, you can select the account’s default policy or use the alternative.

You can change a listing’s booking policy after it is connected to Vrbo. The update syncs to Vrbo within 24 hours. Follow the instructions below.

Step by step:

1. Sign in to your Guesty account.
2. In the top navigation bar, click the mode selector and select Growth mode.
3. Click Distribution.
4. Click Vrbo.
5. In the Vrbo integration page, click the relevant Vrbo account.
6. Click next to the relevant listing.
7. Select Instant booking or Non-instant booking (Quote and hold).
8. Click Save.

Guesty Booking Engine (Booking Website for Lite users) & Google Vacation Rentals (Pro only)

You can set an instant booking policy or request to book when creating a Guesty Booking Engine (Booking Website for Lite users).

With a request to book policy, guests are not required to enter their payment details. Additionally, with request to book, you can choose whether to block the calendar for booking requests for 24 hours, indefinitely, or not at all. Reservations are received in a “Reserved” status when the calendar is blocked and in “Inquiry” status when it is available. 

If you select an instant booking policy, guests must pay via credit card when they book. Guests can use the following cards:

• Visa
• American Express
• UnionPay
• Discover
• Diner's club
• JCB
• Mastercard

The list of supported cards cannot be changed. To allow payments by credit card, connect Stripe or Guestypay as your payment processor in Guesty. Once a reservation is made, its status is instantly changed to "Confirmed". The payment processing is done separately and does not affect the reservation's confirmed status. 

Beta users can set instant booking by bank transfer or payment apps. In this case, when a reservation is booked, its status automatically changes to Confirmed and the payout status updates to “Payment failed”. Send payment instructions to your guests and collect their payment manually. Once payment is made, manually update the reservation payout status to “Fully paid”.

If you’re using Message automations, differentiating between reservations paid via bank transfer and via credit card in message automations is not possible. Therefore, we recommend addressing both payment options in the content of your messages.

To change a listing’s booking policy for the Guesty Booking Engine, follow the steps below.

Step by step:

Guesty Booking Engine API (Pro users)

Refer to the information about Guesty Booking Engine to learn of the channel prerequisites and limitations. 

When creating a Booking Engine API instance, you set its booking policy. To update it, follow the steps below.

Step by step:

1. Sign in to your Guesty account.
2. In the top navigation bar, click the mode selector and select Growth mode. 
3. Click Distribution.
4. Select Guesty Booking Engine API.
5. To the right of the relevant API instance, click .
6. Select Edit API key.
7. Under “Booking options”, select Requests to book, Instant bookings, or Both. 

If you choose “Both”, the guest can decide which option to use. You can also code the booking engine to allow booking with or without a credit card token.

Agoda, Expedia, Homes and Villas by Marriott Bonvoy (HVMB), Misterb&b, and Booking.com

Guesty’s integrations with these channels only support instant booking. 

Booking.com (In pilot): You can select between instant booking and request to book when connecting a listing to Booking.com. All other users: Instant booking will automatically apply to your connected listings.

Additional booking channels

Guesty’s integrations with additional booking channels only support instant booking. The policy is automatically applied when connecting a listing between Guesty and the channel.