Bookings can come in on their own — when a traveler books through your trip page or a widget — or you can create one yourself for a customer.
Creating a booking yourself
Creating a booking yourself needs an activated workspace (a card on file) — travelers booking through your site can still check out even if you haven't activated yet.
Use New booking and follow the steps:
Customer — find an existing customer or add a new one.
Trip — choose the experience and a departure, or set up a one-off private date.
Travelers — add each participant, their package, and any add-ons.
Payment — apply a discount if any (some codes only work for specific departure dates, so they're checked against the one you picked), then choose how to collect:
Send a payment link — the customer pays online, in full or on a payment plan.
Mark as already paid — record a booking you've been paid for offline (cash or bank transfer) and confirm it right away.
What you can do that travelers can't
When you create a booking yourself you can:
overbook a departure or go below its minimum party size when you need to (you'll see a warning, not a block),
mark a booking paid offline, and
create a private one-off date for the booking.
How traveler self-booking works
When a traveler books through your site, they choose their trip, add travelers and add-ons, optionally enter a discount code — or one is applied automatically if they arrived through a link that carries one, like a website widget — and pay. Some codes only work for specific departure dates, so they're checked against the one the traveler picked. They pay either the full amount or a deposit if you offer a payment plan on a multi-day tour. Day tours are always paid in full; payment plans aren't available for them. If their bank asks for extra verification (like a one-time code), that happens right there on the payment step — the traveler never gets sent to another site, even when they're booking through an embedded widget. Their seats are confirmed once payment goes through, and you'll see the booking in your dashboard.
Bookings can also arrive from GetYourGuide
If you connect and list a trip on GetYourGuide, bookings placed there come straight into Samba, already confirmed — travelers never go through your Samba checkout. See Selling on GetYourGuide.
Good to know
If a discount code is restricted to one experience and you delete that experience, the code stops working for everyone — your discount codes list will show it as no longer redeemable.
If a traveler's card needs extra verification and it takes a little while, the price behind the scenes can occasionally change in the meantime — for example, a limited-time or seats-remaining discount on the departure ends. Samba won't charge them the old price for a booking it can't confirm at that price: instead they'll see a message asking them to review and try again at the current price.