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Pending bookings are removed from your calendar automatically after 48 hours

Pending bookings are left for 48 hours to allow time for a guest to pay for their reservation. If payment is not received within 48 hours the booking is removed from the calendar to open dates for another booking.

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You won't notice pending bookings for most bookings

For the vast majority of bookings you won't notice this pending state as the upgrade from pending to confirmed takes seconds once payment is successful.

Introduction to pending bookings

When a guest books via your Uplisting direct booking website, or via Google Vacation Rentals, a pending booking is created as Uplisting awaits confirmation that payment has been received. Once payment is received the booking is set to confirmed with a paid status.

Why do pending bookings exist?

Pending bookings have a couple of benefits:

1. Uplisting captures all booking attempts from guests, even if payment fails.
Rather than failed payment booking attempts being lost in the ether, you and your guests can now act on them.
Your guest may keep the tab open and pay for the booking in a few minutes or hours. You can also reach out to pending bookings offering to help process the booking payment, or provide instructions.

2. Enhanced reliability as all successful bookings are captured
Slightly more technical but previously we relied on the guests browser (via Stripe) to confirm a booking was created and paid for successfully. In very rare cases when a guest loses internet access, or they click away from the payment page before the transaction is complete, Uplisting would not receive this update. In this case, a booking has been paid for by a guest, but it does not appear on Uplisting.

Future benefits

A future benefit of pending bookings is the ability to create automatically expiring bookings (or quotes). You will be able to create a booking on the calendar, send it to a potential guest and if they haven't paid for their booking within your chosen time, the pending booking will be automatically removed.

How can I tell if a booking is pending?

Pending bookings are displayed with yellow diagonal stripes on the calendar. Once open, the Booking payment status is Booking payment pending: Awaiting payment.

FAQs

Do pending bookings block dates

Yes. Pending bookings block dates until they are either confirmed or manually cancelled.

Do automated messages send to pending bookings?

Not currently. We are adding a trigger to the new automated messaging feature so you can create an automated message to follow up with pending bookings asking them to confirm and pay for their booking.

Can I send messages manually to pending bookings

Yes. manual messages send as normal.