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Booking Waitlist

The Waitlist is a booking status in Hostel Mate that holds a reservation in a pending state without blocking the bed. The bed stays available for other guests — particularly those who pay upfront — until a staff member decides to confirm or cancel the waitlisted booking.

It applies in multiple situations: direct bookings made via your booking engine using certain payment methods, and OTA bookings that arrive without full payment collected.


Why it exists

A confirmed booking immediately blocks a bed. That is the right behaviour when payment is secured, but it becomes a problem when:

  • A guest books via Pay on Arrival or Manual Card Capture with no money changing hands yet

  • An OTA reservation arrives marked as unpaid or partially paid

  • You need time to verify a guest before committing a bed

In all these cases, placing the booking in Waitlist status keeps the bed open. You review it, then either confirm (blocking the bed from that point) or cancel.


Where a booking can end up on the waitlist

Direct bookings — Booking Engine

When the Hold new bookings in waitlist toggle is enabled on a payment method, any booking made through that method goes to Waitlist instead of Confirmed automatically.

This is configured per method:

  • Pay on Arrival → setting in the Pay on Arrival tab

  • Manual Card Capture → setting in the Manual Card Capture tab

OTA bookings

Some OTA reservations arrive without full payment — the channel confirmed the booking but the property has not yet collected or the payment is pending on the OTA side. In those cases, staff can manually assign the Waitlist status to hold the reservation without blocking the bed while the payment situation is resolved.


What the Waitlist status means

Confirmed
Waitlist

Bed availability

Blocked

Still open

Guest notified

Yes

Yes

Shows in calendar

Yes

Yes

Counts toward occupancy

No

No

Requires staff action

No

Yes — confirm or cancel


How to manage waitlist bookings

Waitlist bookings appear in the Front Desk → Booking Calendar and in the reservation list. You can filter by Waitlist status to see all pending bookings at once.

From the booking detail:

  • Confirm — status moves to Confirmed, bed is blocked from that point forward

  • Cancel — reservation is removed, bed remains open

There is no automatic expiry. Waitlist bookings stay pending until a staff member acts on them.


When to use it

Scenario
Recommendation

High occupancy, Stripe or Nomod is your primary method

Enable — prevents free holds from blocking paid guests

OTA booking arrived but payment not yet settled

Assign Waitlist manually until payment clears

Manual Card Capture with identity checks before charging

Enable — time to verify before committing the bed

Low season, Pay on Arrival as a convenience option

Disable — confirm guests immediately to reduce friction

Walk-in or same-day Pay on Arrival guests

Disable — no value in holding when the guest is already arriving


Notes

  • The Waitlist toggle on the Booking Engine is per payment method — enabling it for Pay on Arrival does not affect Manual Card Capture, and vice versa.

  • Disabling the toggle does not affect bookings already in Waitlist status — those must still be actioned manually.

  • If the parent payment method is turned off, the Waitlist toggle is disabled and has no effect on new bookings.

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