We have implemented a Timed Hold feature. You can now set a status to change after X number of hours. This is useful for being able to hold a reservation for a potential guest, but have the units unblock automatically if they don’t reserve (by clicking on the link to pay and paying) in time.
So, for example, the guest is emailed a link where they can make their payment. The reservation is set to a “hold” status. If they pay, the status changes to confirmed automatically. But if they don’t pay within X number of hours, the held reservation status now can change to “cancelled” automatically.
Notes:
1. When changing statuses we make sure the units are still available (such as if you are changing from a status that doesn’t block the calendar to one that does.
2. If any emails are set to be sent when a reservation is changed to the status, those go out. Using this you could set up something like, where the reservation is automatically changed to cancelled, an email could go out saying something like “we’ve cancelled the hold since you didn’t pay, but it is not too late to reserve…” , etc.
3. We run the process every hour, to check whether there are any reservations that need the status to be changed.
The setting is in the Settings tab, Reservation Status.
