How a Booking Happens
When a guest visits your booking engine and decides to book a property, a multi-step process kicks off behind the scenes. Understanding this flow helps you know what to expect and when to take action.
The Guest Checkout Process
Here's what happens from the moment a guest clicks "Book" on your booking engine:
Guest selects dates and property — The guest browses your listings, picks a property, selects their check-in and check-out dates, and proceeds to checkout.
Guest enters details and payment info — At checkout, the guest fills in their name, email, phone number, and credit card details. If they have a discount code, they can apply it here.
Payment is authorized — The guest's card is authorized — funds are held but not charged yet. If 3D Secure verification is required by their bank, they'll complete that step automatically.
Reservation is confirmed — Once payment authorization succeeds, the reservation is created with a Confirmed status. You'll see it immediately in your Bookings list, and the guest receives a confirmation email.
You capture the payment — When you're ready, you capture the authorized payment. This is when the guest's card is actually charged.
Booking completes after the stay — After the guest's stay, the reservation moves to Completed status.
OnSeason uses manual payment capture. When a guest books, their card is authorized (funds are held) but not charged. You decide when to capture the payment — giving you control over the timing.
Reservation Statuses
Once a booking is confirmed, you'll see one of these statuses in your Bookings dashboard:
Confirmed — The guest has booked and payment is authorized. This is an active reservation.
Completed — The stay is finished and the booking is closed.
Cancelled — The reservation was cancelled (by you or the system). See Cancellations & Refunds for details.
Failed — Something went wrong during payment or creation. The booking was not completed.
Payment authorizations typically expire after 7 days. Make sure to capture payments promptly to avoid expired authorizations that require the guest to re-authorize.
Booking Codes
Every reservation gets a unique booking code like FA-DB-ABC123. This code appears on the guest's confirmation email, is used in all communications between you and the guest, and can be searched in your Bookings dashboard to quickly find a specific reservation. The format is always FA- followed by two letters and six characters (letters and numbers).
Direct vs Network Bookings
You'll see two types of bookings in your dashboard:
Direct bookings — Guests booked through your own booking engine (your website or your-slug.staycy.app). You receive the full booking amount minus payment processing fees.
Network bookings — Guests booked one of your properties through another Property Manager's site via the OnSeason Network. Commission splits apply for network bookings.
Your Bookings list shows the booking type for each reservation, so you always know where a booking came from.