Gain more control over your reservations by precisely setting your Preparation Time Before Arrival (PTBA) and Request to Book (RTB) options. These settings help you manage same-day bookings and ensure you have enough time to prepare your property for the next guest.
Understanding PTBA and RTB
Preparation Time Before Arrival (PTBA): This is the minimum booking lead time. It restricts how close to the check-in time a guest can make a booking.
Request to Book (RTB): This allows you to accept booking requests during the period restricted by your PTBA. This is ideal for property managers who use instant booking but want to maximize opportunities for last-minute stays that they can manually approve.
Understanding the settings priority
Rentals United follows a specific hierarchy when applying these settings. A higher-priority setting always overrides a lower-priority one:
Individual property settings (Property Settings > Manage).
General channel settings (Channel Settings).
General property settings (Step 5: Price and availability).
Note: Changing PTBA and RTB settings in Channel Settings doesn't influence properties which already have individual settings in Property Settings. If you want to change the setting for all properties, make sure the settings in Property Settings are set to Default.
Configuring PTBA for all listings
Follow the steps below to set a global PTBA policy for all your Airbnb listings.
Step by step:
- In Rentals United account, open Channel Settings. Follow the steps here.
Navigate to the Preparation Time Before Arrival / Booking lead time settings.
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Select your desired PTBA settings:
- 0h: This option removes the PTBA restrictions.
- 24h, 48h, 72h, 168h: The property's availability will close on the x number of hours before the end of the check-in day (23:59), for example 6 hours before the end of the check-in day (18:00).
- Default: This option resets the PTBA settings to the value set in Step 5: Price and availability.
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To allow manual requests during restricted times, check the Allow requests to book box. To learn more about the booking request flow - see here.
Note: If you select the Default option in the PTBA settings, only the PTBA time is inherited from Step 5: Price and availability. The RTB is set according to the checkbox setting.
Click Save.
Managing individual listing
If you have specific properties that require different lead times than your global policy, you can set an override.
Step by step:
- In Rentals United account, open Property Settings. Follow the steps here.
Locate the listing you want to edit. Click Manage.
Set the PTBA and RTB values specifically for this listing.
Click Save.
FAQs
What does a 6-hour PTBA actually mean? It means same-day bookings are allowed until 18:00 (6 hours before the end of the day). If a guest tries to book at 19:00 for that same night, the listing will appear unavailable unless you have Request to Book enabled.
Why didn't my global change update all my listings? Check if those listings have individual settings saved under Property Settings > Manage. Individual settings have the highest priority and will block any global changes made in the Channel Settings tab.
Can I set RTB back to "Default"? If you have previously changed the RTB setting for an individual listing, there is currently no "Default" button for this specific field. You must manually match the checkbox status to your desired policy.
Practical use
Example 1: You want to set PTBA = 6 hours for all your properties for the first time.
- Go to Channel Settings and set PTBA = 6 hours.
- Click Save. The policy will update for all properties that do not have individual settings in Property Settings.
All your properties' availability will be closed 6 hours before the end of the check-in day. It means the same-day bookings will be allowed until 18:00.
Example 2: You want all your properties to have the PTBA = 24 hours and RTB turned off. You want one property to have PTBA = 72 hours and RTB turned on.
- Go to Channel Settings and set:
- PTBA = 24 hours
- RTB = Checkbox unchecked
- Click Save. The policy will update for all properties that do not have individual settings in Property Settings.
- Go to Property Settings > Choose property X > Click Manage, and set:
- PTBA = 72 hours
- RTB = Checkbox checked
- Click Save.
All your properties' availability will be closed on the entire check-in day. Only the property X will be available to booking requests 72 hours before the end of the check-in day. For example, if the check-in is on 3rd September, the property X's availability will be closed already on the 1st September.
Example 3: You have different settings for different properties and want to unify them by removing PTBA and turning off RTB.
- Go to Channel Settings and set:
- PTBA = 0
- RTB = Checkbox unchecked
- Click Save. The policy will update for all properties that do not have individual settings in Property Settings.
- Go to Property Settings > Choose property X > Click Manage, and set (for properties with individual settings):
- PTBA = Default
- RTB = Checkbox unchecked
- Click Save.
Example 4: You want to set the default settings for all your properties.
- Go to Channel Settings and set the desired settings:
- PTBA = 72h
- RTB = Checkbox checked
- Click Save. The policy will update for all properties that do not have individual settings in Property Settings.
- Go to Property Settings > Choose property X > Click Manage, and set (for properties with individual settings):
- PTBA = Default
- RTB = If you have ever changed this setting, there is currently no possibility to set the RTB to the default value. You need to manually set the desired value. In this case, the checkbox should be checked to match the policy in Channel Settings.
- Click Save.