Why booking requests expire, and what that costs
Of all the booking requests that ever reached us, one in three expired without an answer. That is the largest category, larger than rejected and larger than accepted. Answering costs nothing and not answering costs a great deal, and still it happens at half the properties that ever received a request.
The numbers, and they are uncomfortable
So far 67 booking requests have come in on our properties. Of those, 22 expired without the host reacting, 19 were rejected, 15 accepted, 7 cancelled and 4 are still open. Expired is therefore the largest category.
That is a third of everything that came in. For comparison, accepted is 22 per cent. So one and a half times as many requests expire as turn into bookings, and these are requests a guest went to some effort over.
It is not equally bad everywhere either. 37 properties ever received a request, and at 18 of them at least one expired. That is almost half. The other half always answered, so this is not inevitable but a difference between hosts.
An expired request is also quieter than a rejection. The guest does not get a no, he gets nothing. For him that is the worst of the three outcomes, and the only one the host had to do nothing for.
What it costs, in euro
Twenty of those 22 expired requests carried an estimated amount. Together that comes to 26,786 euro, which works out at an average of 1,339 euro per expired request.
That figure is an estimate and not a loss in the bank. Some of those guests might not have booked anyway, and some booked elsewhere in the same period. But it is the order of magnitude at stake, and it is higher than most hosts assume.
Set that against what a year with us costs. A single expired request at an average of 1,339 euro is more than twenty-seven times the annual amount. Anyone letting one request a year expire therefore throws away more than the subscription will ever cost.
And there is a tail you do not see. A guest who gets no answer rarely asks twice. Among guests with an expired request, almost none came back in our figures, whereas a rejected guest sometimes does.
Why they expire
The first reason is simple: the message was not seen. A notification gets lost among the rest, or it lands on an address the host opens once a week. So we send a reminder, but a second message into the same unread inbox does not solve that.
The second reason shows up in the rejections, and it is more instructive. Of the 19 rejected requests, 10 were rejected because the period was not available. That means the calendar with us differed from reality: a link that is not running, or a block nobody set.
Two other rejections were about a wrong price. That too is not a guest problem but an inaccurate listing: the guest asks for what is shown, and the host sees an amount he would never charge. Anyone who sets prices and calendar correctly therefore gets not only more requests but better ones.
The third reason is hesitation. A host who does not trust the guest, or would rather keep the period open, sometimes prefers not to answer over saying no. That is human and it is still the worst choice, because a no takes ten seconds and keeps the door open for next time.
What the others do
The most striking figure in this whole measurement is not about those who do not answer, but about those who do. Of the 41 requests that received an answer, that answer came within 6.2 hours at the median. Thirty-three were answered within a day and thirty-eight within two days.
That says something important: it is not a matter of having time. Whoever answers, answers fast. The spread is not a sliding scale from quick to slow but two groups, one reacting within a day and the other not at all.
The slowest answered request took 1,082 hours, so more than a month and a half. That guest had long since booked elsewhere. A late answer counts as answered in our figures, but to the guest it amounts to nothing.
In practice it comes down to this: put the notification on an address you open daily, and answer even when the answer is no. If your calendar with us does not match, that is the first place to look, because one rejection in two came from it.
We help with that as well. A reminder goes to the host when a request is left sitting, and we track whether that message arrived and was opened. That tracking is recent, from September onwards, and it immediately showed something: among the requests we could follow since then, there was a group that did open the message and did reach the screen, and still decided nothing. A third reminder does not help that group.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a request stay open?
The guest sees a deadline, after which the request expires automatically. We send the host a reminder in the meantime, so that a missed message does not immediately become a missed booking.
What does the guest see if I do not answer?
He sees that his request has expired. He gets no explanation and no alternative, which is why this outcome is worse than a rejection.
Do I have to give a reason when rejecting?
It helps us and it helps you. Of nineteen rejections, ten were about availability, which points to a calendar that is off. Without a reason we do not see that pattern.
Do I see the guest's details?
His name and his question, yes. His address, phone number and date of birth only after you accept, because those are details you only need for an actual booking.
Can I still rescue an expired request?
Get in touch and we will see what is possible. Quicker is to contact the guest directly if you still have his request, but do not count on him still being free.
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