A booking request lets a traveler ask for a date that has no departure yet. They propose a date, build their order and enter a card. The card is authorized, not charged, and the request reaches you only once that hold succeeds. You then accept or decline.
Accepting charges the card and creates a private departure with a confirmed booking. Declining, or not answering in time, releases the card.
Turn requests on for a trip
Go to Calendar & Scheduling → Manage schedule, select the experience, and in Settings turn on Accept booking requests for custom dates. Then select Save settings.
Once it is on, you can:
Offer up to 8 start times for travelers to choose from. With none, the trip's default start time is used.
Set a minimum party size and a booking cutoff for requests. With no cutoff, a request must be for a date at least 3 days away.
What the traveler does
Picks a date and, when you offer several, a start time.
Builds the order like a normal checkout: package and participants for a multi-day trip, or passenger types and a pickup point for a day tour, plus add-ons and booking questions.
Enters a card. Samba places a hold for the deposit when they chose a payment plan, otherwise for the full total. Their bank may ask them to confirm the payment on the same page. Apple Pay and Google Pay are not offered on requests.
Once the hold succeeds, the request is created, the traveler gets a "request received" email, and team members who subscribed to new-request alerts are emailed too. A declined card is shown to the traveler on the spot, and nothing reaches you. A traveler who abandons the page after entering their card never becomes a request either: the hold is released within about 30 minutes.
The price is locked when the request is sent
Every price, name and answer is frozen the moment the traveler submits. If you later edit or delete a package, passenger type, pickup point or add-on, the request does not change. Accepting always charges and books exactly what the traveler saw. If a price changes while the traveler is still confirming their card, the hold is released and they are asked to start again.
Discount codes never apply to booking requests, even when the traveler has one.
How long you have to answer
You have 6 days by default. You can shorten this under Settings → Billing logic → Booking requests, but not extend it: a card hold does not last longer. The deadline is fixed on each request when it is sent.
What can happen to a request
Event | Card | Emails |
You accept | Charged | Traveler: request accepted |
You decline | Hold released | Traveler: declined, with your message if you wrote one |
The traveler cancels first | Hold released | None |
Nobody answers in time | Hold released | Traveler and subscribed team members: expired |
A request can be decided only once. If two things happen at the same moment, the second person is told the request is no longer pending.
What the statuses mean
Status | Means |
Pending | Card held, waiting for you |
Accepted | Card charged, private departure and booking created |
Rejected | You declined, or the booking could not be created after the charge and the money was refunded |
Expired | Nobody answered in time; the card was released |
Canceled | The traveler withdrew |
Accepted – capture failed | You accepted, but the card could not be charged. No booking exists yet, and the traveler is emailed to update their card |