Instant Book and Booking Requests

Which Kind of Listing This Is

Once you are signed in with a card on file, the button shows which kind it is: Reserve, or Request booking. Before that, it reads "Sign in to book" or "Add a card to book". The note above the button appears in either case whenever the host is not accepting everybody automatically.

• Reserve: The stay is accepted automatically, and you pay at once.
• Request booking: The host reads your request first. The note above the button states that you will not be charged unless the host accepts.

One step follows the button: your payment, for the amount due today. In the Kabora app, the button opens that step directly, on one page with each price line, the total and where your money goes. If you have not chosen dates, the dates sheet opens first and its Continue leads to the same page. Dates you change on that page are carried back to the listing. Pressing the price on the listing still opens the price on its own, to look without booking. Your payment goes through only once the host accepts. Your request is sent as soon as your payment is confirmed. If the host accepts, you are charged and your stay is confirmed at once. If they decline, or do not answer within 48 hours, you are not charged, though your bank may show the payment as pending for a few days. Cancel the request yourself before then, and you are not charged either.

Before you pick dates, the button follows the host's setting for the place. Once you pick dates, it asks what the booking will ask. With a clean record with this host, a place accepting low-risk guests shows Reserve; dates the host reviews first show Request booking.

How a Host Decides

Each host chooses one of three settings per place:

• Automatically accept all: Every booking is accepted automatically.
• Automatically accept low risk: Only guests with a clean record with that host are accepted automatically.
• Review and approve: The host reads every booking.

On a place that accepts guests automatically, dates that start sooner than the host's notice period still go to the host first. The note then states The host reviews these dates first.

What Low Risk Means

"Low risk" means you have completed at least one stay with that host. Every other booking with that host on your record must also have ended in a completed stay. Anything else removes you from the group:

• A cancellation: Including one you made yourself.
• A withdrawn request: One you canceled before the host answered.
• A declined request: One the host declined.
• Never arrived: A stay you did not arrive for.

Kabora reads your record with that host, not your Kabora history overall. A first booking with a host set this way goes to them to read, even after a dozen stays elsewhere. Book with them a second time and your record counts, whichever of their places you choose.

Stays Longer Than the Host's Maximum

A stay over the maximum is never accepted automatically, and on most listings you cannot request one: the dates are refused, naming the host's night limit.

You can send such a request only when a host has switched instant booking on and separately allowed longer-stay requests, and it always goes to them to read.

Waiting Does Not Hold Your Nights

A request does not hold the nights. They remain on sale until a payment goes through, so somebody else can still book them while you wait, and the host is told that answering quickly matters.

Pressing Reserve does not hold them either: the nights are yours when the payment goes through.

A Card Is Required First

Both kinds of booking require a saved card. Until there is one, "Add a card to book" takes you directly to the payments section of your account. Without it, a request with no card could sit in the host's queue for a day, turning away other dates, before anyone found there was no means of payment.

How You Are Notified

You are notified by email and on your trip page:

• Your request went in: An email confirms it was sent.
• The host accepted: If your payment went through on their acceptance, you receive the booking confirmation. If no payment was taken with the request, you receive an email with a link to your trip to pay.
• The host declined: An email says so, states that you were not charged, and confirms the dates are released.
• A booking that went through automatically: The confirmation email follows the payment, not the button press.

The Kabora app also notifies you when the host accepts or declines, and when a booking is confirmed. A request unanswered within 48 hours expires; you are told by email, in the app and in the thread, and nothing is charged.