Booking statuses: the six states
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| Why | Pick the right status and understand what it changes: the booking’s confirmation, the room hold, the cancellation. |
| Who | Front desk staff and administrators who manage bookings. |
| What you’ll get | A “status → when to use it” table and a working grasp of unguaranteed bookings: there is no auto-release — you change the status by hand. |
| Limitations | How statuses travel to sales channels is outside the scope of this article. The product has no automatic release of tentative bookings. |
A status is the one word a booking uses to answer the question “is it real?”. You pick it under “Booking Conditions” when the booking is created, and afterwards it lives in the card header as a button with the current value — for example “Confirmed ▾”. There are six states, and each comes with its own handling of the room, its own moment to be used, and its own icon on the Planner.
The six states
Section titled “The six states”| Status | What happens to the room | When to use it | How it shows on the Planner |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Confirmed” | The room is held — a guaranteed booking | Your working status: agreed with the guest, the booking is confirmed | “Awaiting check-in”; after check-in — the “Checked in” icon, after check-out — “Checked out” |
| “Tentative” | The room is held, but without a confirmation — an unguaranteed booking | The guest is interested and the guarantee is not in place yet | “Tentative” |
| “Option” | The room is held until a deadline | You need to keep the room for a guest until an agreed moment | “Option” |
| “Offer” | The room is pending — waiting for the guest’s decision | The offer has been sent to the guest, waiting for a reply | “Offer” |
| “Canceled” | Its spot on the grid is freed | The booking was given up in advance — by the guest or by the hotel | Not shown on the grid |
| “No-show” | The guest never arrived | The arrival day passed and the guest never turned up | “No-show” |
The icon names come from the Planner legend (“On-bar icons”). Note that “Checked in” and “Checked out” are not booking statuses but check-in marks. Check-in and check-out are operations on a room, not statuses: a confirmed booking carries the “Confirmed” status along the guest’s whole journey, while the bar changes its icon as the day goes.
Changing a status
Section titled “Changing a status”The status button lives in the header of the booking card; it shows the current status.
- Open the booking card — from the “Bookings” list or by clicking the bar on the Planner.
- In the header, press the status button — for example “Confirmed ▾”.
- Choose the new status in the menu.
- Confirm: “Change the booking status to “Canceled”?” — the question names the status you picked.
Result: a “Status changed” toast, and the status in the header is updated. If you changed it to “Canceled”, the “Send the guest a voucher?” dialog follows — “Don’t send” or “Send”.
There is no separate “Cancel booking” button on the card — canceling is exactly changing the status to “Canceled”. The step-by-step cancellation path, like the “No-show” status for guests who never arrived, is covered in Change or cancel a booking.
Unguaranteed bookings: keep or release
Section titled “Unguaranteed bookings: keep or release”The system does not release unguaranteed bookings on its own — neither by a deadline nor after the arrival date has passed. A tentative booking whose arrival day is already in the past stays tentative: there is no auto-release and no automatic status change in the product, so the decision stays with your staff.
How to work with it:
- Review the tentative bookings before each arrival day — for every one, decide: confirm it with the status button or release it as “Canceled”.
- A booking released by hand moves to “Canceled” and frees its spot on the grid.
- The guest confirmed — move the booking to “Confirmed” with the same button, and the room becomes guaranteed.
Status and money
Section titled “Status and money”The status speaks about the guarantee, not about payment: a confirmed booking can be unpaid. The Planner makes this visible — the bar of such a booking carries the “Unpaid” alert, listed in the legend next to the statuses.
Cancellation rules also live apart from the status. A cancellation policy is attached to a rate plan, and when the booking is created its terms are snapshotted into the booking itself (the “Cancellation Policy” tab) — those snapshot terms are the ones that apply on cancellation, even if the rate plan has changed since.
- Take money on a booking — Record a guest payment: cash, card, at the desk.
- Set the cancellation terms — Cancellation policies: set up and enforce.
What’s not here
Section titled “What’s not here”- How booking statuses travel to sales channels is outside the scope of this article.
- There is no auto-release of unguaranteed bookings: “Tentative” is only ever changed by hand, via the status button on the card.
See also
Section titled “See also”- Create a booking in 4 clicks — where the status is picked at creation: the “Booking Conditions” block.
- Change or cancel a booking — moving, editing, and the full cancellation path through the status.
- Cancellation policies: set up and enforce — the terms that get snapshotted into the booking.
- Inside the booking card — where the status button lives on the card and what surrounds it.