Every booking on Finding Retreats starts one of two ways: the guest books instantly, or they send you a request you have to respond to. Which one applies depends on a setting you control room by room, and it shapes your day-to-day dashboard work as much as it shapes the guest's experience.
This section covers the practical side of running bookings once guests start arriving: choosing between instant book and booking requests, working through incoming requests before they expire, and messaging guests before and during their stay. Each guide is grounded in the dashboard screens you actually use, Booking requests, Bookings, and Messages, so you know what you'll see and what to click before you go looking for it.
If you're still deciding how much control to keep over who books your rooms, start with the first guide. If requests are already landing in your dashboard, go straight to the second. And if you want to get ahead of guest questions before check-in, the messaging guide covers where that happens and what it's for.
Instant book lets a guest pay right away, while a booking request gives you 48 hours to approve it or offer another room instead.
What a host sees on an incoming booking request, the two ways to respond within 48 hours, and why response time affects ranking.
Where hosts message guests before and during a stay, what the feature is for, and the rule against sharing contact details.