By the end of this guide, you'll know which mode fits your property, where to set it, and how the host-side review flow works for request bookings.
What you'll need
- A property under Places or a service under Services, with Booking behavior set to Accept bookings
- ~3 minutes
- An honest answer to: "Do I want to vet every booking, or do I trust the widget to take them?"
- The right mode for your situation
- A clear understanding of what guests see in each mode
- A workflow for reviewing pending requests
Step 1: Open the property
Sidebar → Places → your property (or Services → your service) → Bookings section.
The Bookings section only shows the instant/request toggle when Booking behavior is set to Accept bookings. Two cases where you can't pick:
- Availability only — guests can't book at all, so the toggle is irrelevant.
- Accept payments — the mode is locked to instant. Guests pay to confirm; that's the vetting.
Step 2: Pick a mode
Two choices:
Instant bookings
When a guest submits a booking through the widget, it's immediately confirmed and the dates are blocked on your calendar. You get the email; the booking is live.
Use it when:
- You take a lot of bookings and want minimum friction.
- Your guests don't need vetting — same-day stays, low-risk service, etc.
- You're already filtering through pricing or terms.
The guest sees: "Booking confirmed. Thank you, your booking is confirmed."
Request bookings
When a guest submits, the booking arrives as pending. The dates stay open for other guests until you confirm. You decide whether to accept or not.
Use it when:
- You want to know who's coming before you commit.
- You have a mix of guests and want to screen them.
- You don't mind a manual step per booking.
The guest sees: "Done! Your request has been sent. We'll be in touch soon."
Click the toggle, click Save at the top of the page.
What changes between the two modes
| Instant | Request | |
|---|---|---|
| Status on submit | confirmed | pending |
| Dates blocked immediately? | Yes | No — stays open until you confirm |
| Host email on submit | Yes (if email notifications are on) | Yes (if email notifications are on) |
| Guest confirmation email | Sent immediately | Sent after host confirms |
| Other guests can still book those dates | No | Yes — until you confirm one |
Step 3 (request mode): review and confirm
Open Bookings in the sidebar. Pending requests show in their own Pending reservations section, separated from confirmed bookings.
For each request:
- Click the booking to open the detail page (or use the inline status dropdown on the list).
- Read the guest details, dates, custom-field answers.
- Change the status from Pending to Confirmed to accept it. The dates lock; the guest gets a confirmation email.
- Or change the status to Cancelled to decline. The dates stay open for someone else.
There's no separate "approve" or "reject" button — status is the action.
Pending requests don't auto-expire. Cabintale doesn't time out a request after 48 hours or anything like that. If you don't action one, it stays pending forever. If you want a manual sweep policy, sort by date and decide.
What about overlapping requests?
Because pending requests don't block dates, two guests can both submit a request for the same dates. You'll see both in the Pending section.
When you confirm one, the dates block. If you then try to confirm the second, the system doesn't auto-reject it — but it will overlap with the first booking on the calendar. The clean move: cancel the second yourself before confirming the first, or pick whichever you prefer and cancel the other.
Per-property, not per-widget
The mode is set on the property (place or service), not on individual widgets. All widgets pointing at the same property share the same mode. If you want one widget to take instant bookings and another to take requests, you'd need that to be a feature request — today it's a property-wide setting.
Recommendation by use case
| Your situation | Pick |
|---|---|
| Self-check-in cabin, you trust automatic | Instant |
| Boutique property, every guest matters | Request |
| Tour service, you need to confirm staffing | Request |
| You take prepayment | Instant (it's forced — see Accept payments) |
| Mix of weekend rentals and long stays | Request, then confirm fast |
| First weeks on Cabintale, want to see who books | Request while you observe; switch to Instant later if you trust the mix |
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Toggle is greyed out | Booking behavior is Accept payments — mode is forced to instant | Switch booking behavior to Accept bookings if you want a choice |
| I'm in request mode but the dates are already blocked | Something else is blocking — an iCal-imported booking, a manual block, or another confirmed booking | Open the calendar; the dates will be marked with whatever booked them |
| A pending request is sitting there for days | No auto-expiry — pending requests stay until you action them | Sweep the Pending section weekly; cancel anything that's stale |
| Confirmed a request but dates were already taken by another booking | Cabintale didn't catch the conflict because pending requests don't enforce blocking | Cancel the conflicting one, or contact the guest to reschedule |
| In request mode, guests still see a "confirmed" message | Possibly cached widget — the guest is seeing yesterday's version | Clear the widget cache by refreshing the embed page |
Related guides
- Booking deadline — Booking deadline
- Property basics — Property basics
- Email notifications — coming soon
- Booking dashboard — coming soon