--- title: "Calendar and bookings | LakeBooking.com" description: "How the host calendar works (blocking dates, instant-book vs request-to-book, conflict handling, message inbox, and overrunning bookings)." canonical_url: "https://lakebooking.com/support/for-owners/calendar-and-bookings" locale: en meta: "og:description": "How the host calendar works (blocking dates, instant-book vs request-to-book, conflict handling, message inbox, and overrunning bookings)." "og:title": "Calendar and bookings" --- # **Calendar and bookings** How the host calendar works (blocking dates, instant-book vs request-to-book, conflict handling, message inbox, and overrunning bookings). The host calendar is where most of your day-to-day work on the platform happens. This page explains the mechanics. It covers what each interaction does, what the platform does on your behalf, and what the implicit rules are. ## The calendar view The calendar has two views, which you switch between at the top: - **Calendar**: a month grid, one to three months at a time depending on your screen. Click a day, or drag across several, to select a range you can then block. - **Timeline**: 1 to 7 days side by side, depending on your screen, each with its bookings. Useful for the day-of, especially if you have several short bookings. Click any booking to open its details. The calendar colour-codes days and bookings with a legend shown on the page, and the legend follows the lens you pick (Bookings, Swims or Packages). By booking, the states are **Confirmed / Paid**, **Pending** or **Cancelled**. By swim, days show **Free**, **Partially busy**, **Booked** or **Closed**. By package, availability shows **Bookable**, **Limited** or **Unavailable**. There is no "dispute" state on the calendar, because disputes are handled in Messages with our team. ## Blocking dates Use **Block dates** on the calendar to close a time range. A block prevents anglers from booking that span, but doesn't appear in search as "fully booked". The search just doesn't surface blocked dates. Common reasons to block: - **Your own use.** You want to fish your own lake. The platform doesn't ask why. - **Maintenance.** Bank rework, weed cut, lake drained, vehicular access works. - **Fish welfare close season.** Some hosts close their lake for 4 to 8 weeks in late spring to protect spawning carp. - **Private events.** Family use, club matches, paid private rental off-platform. A block covers the **whole lake or just the swims you pick**, over the date range you set (up to 120 days at a time), with an optional note (shown only to you). ## Request to book vs instant confirmation Booking approval is a **lake-level** setting (Lake settings → Booking preferences), and the default is **manual approval**, so every booking arrives as a request you confirm or decline. Switch the lake to **instant confirmation** and bookings confirm automatically the moment the angler pays the booking fee. Pending requests wait for your decision (there's no automatic timeout), but decide quickly. Anglers planning a trip will book another lake rather than wait long for a maybe, and declining always refunds their booking fee automatically. The case for manual approval: - **High-value carp lakes** where you want to vet anglers (review history, return-visit, party makeup). - **Specialist waters** (large catfish, ancient mirror carp) where the wrong angler is genuinely a risk to the stock. - **Logistically complex lakes** where your acceptance depends on whether you can be on-site. The case for instant confirmation: - **Conversion is meaningfully higher.** Anglers planning multi-stop trips bail rather than wait for a maybe. - **Anglers reading two similar lakes pick the instant one.** It's not a small bias. - **Your inbox stays quiet.** Manual approval means every booking is hand-managed. Many hosts start on manual approval to get a feel for the flow, then switch to instant confirmation once they trust their calendar. ## Confirming / declining a request When a booking request comes in, you see it in the calendar (Pending) and on your Bookings page, and you're notified by email. **To confirm**, open the booking and hit **Confirm**. The booking flips to confirmed and the angler is notified. **To decline**, use **Decline and refund** with a reason: - "No availability": you can't host the session after all. - "Requested by the angler": they asked you to cancel it. - "Duplicate": the same session was booked twice. - "Other (custom message)": you write the reason yourself. The other reasons prefill a message for the angler, which you can edit. The angler reads it verbatim, so be diplomatic. Declining refunds the angler's booking fee automatically. ## Conflict handling The platform's calendar is a single source of truth. The cases where you can produce a conflict: **Blocks that overlap a booking or another block.** Not possible. If any date you pick is already booked or blocked on any of the chosen swims, the platform turns the whole block down and tells you so. Block the free dates instead, or sort out the booking first. **Bookings that try to overlap a confirmed booking.** Not possible, because the calendar surfaces the existing booking and the angler can't proceed. Don't worry about double-booking via the platform; you can worry about it if you also take bookings off-platform and forget to mirror them. **Off-platform bookings on the same swim.** If you take a booking by phone or in person without entering it as a block, the platform doesn't know. **Always mirror off-platform bookings as a block immediately.** Most disputes that escalate to us start here. ## The message inbox The inbox is one tab in the dashboard. It contains: - **Per-booking threads** with anglers. Anglers can't message you from the lake page before they book, but you can start a conversation with any angler who has booked with you from the Anglers page of your dashboard. - **Platform messages** from LakeBooking, in your lake's **LakeBooking Support** thread (a welcome, the outcome of your verification requests, updates on your free setup, an approved lake claim, and the reasons for any moderation decision on your content). You can write to our team there too. - **Tabs** for All, Unread, Starred and Archived conversations. There's no public response-time score on your listing, but reply speed still decides bookings. An angler whose question sits unanswered for a day usually books another lake. Aim for a substantive first reply within a few hours. **Auto-reply is not supported.** We deliberately don't ship one, because a canned instant reply doesn't actually answer the angler's question. **A practical tip:** keep your 4 to 6 most common answers (arrival instructions, weather caveat, food on-site, dogs, late arrival) in a note on your phone and paste them in, since most questions repeat. ## Overrunning bookings Anglers who stay past their booked end-time are a common operational headache for hosts. The platform doesn't track overruns or charge for them. There's no grace window, no automatic extra charge, and no way to charge the angler's card afterwards. If you charge for staying late (a flat €25 past 09:00, say, or no overrun allowed at all), write it in your lake's or package's rules, so anglers read it before they book, and collect it at the lake together with the remaining balance. ## Cancellations **Angler-initiated cancellations** follow the [**Refund Policy**](https://lakebooking.com/legal/refund-policy) schedule. The platform handles the refund automatically; you don't have to do anything. The calendar frees up. **Host-initiated cancellations.** To cancel a confirmed booking, open it in the calendar or use the row menu on your Bookings page and choose **Cancel and refund**, with the same reasons as a decline. You can do this until check-in. The angler is told you cancelled and gets 100% of the booking fee back, per the [**Refund Policy**](https://lakebooking.com/legal/refund-policy). Repeated host cancellations may lead to a restriction or suspension of the listing ([**Host Agreement**](https://lakebooking.com/legal/host-agreement), section 6). **Both-sides cancellations** (you and the angler agree to cancel) go through the angler, who cancels from their booking. More than 48 hours before check-in the booking fee is refunded in full; within 48 hours it isn't, per the [**Refund Policy**](https://lakebooking.com/legal/refund-policy). ## Things to know that aren't obvious - **The calendar respects DST.** End times are on the lake's wall clock. A booking ends at its check-in time plus its length, so a 24h overnighter from 18:00 ends at 18:00 the next day. Across the autumn clock change that's 25 real hours (23 in spring). - **The calendar doesn't know about local holidays automatically.** If you want Easter weekend pricing, set a date-range override on the relevant billing units. The dashboard won't surprise you on March 31. - **Refunds to expired cards still work.** Stripe routes the refund to the issuing bank, which credits the replacement card. You don't have to chase angler card updates. ## See also - [**Swims and pricing**](https://lakebooking.com/support/for-owners/swims-and-pricing): how billing units feed the calendar. - [**Payouts and taxes**](https://lakebooking.com/support/for-owners/payouts-and-taxes): where money goes after a booking is paid. - [**Refund Policy**](https://lakebooking.com/legal/refund-policy): the canonical cancellation rules. [**Swims, packages, and pricing** How packages work (the bundle anglers actually book) together with billing units, seasonal pricing, discounts, promos, equipment rentals, and additional-guest rules.](https://lakebooking.com/support/for-owners/swims-and-pricing) [**Payments, payouts, and taxes** How money flows from angler to host (today's simple model, what's your fiscal responsibility vs ours) and what's coming with full online payments next year.](https://lakebooking.com/support/for-owners/payouts-and-taxes) ## Sitemap See the full [sitemap](/sitemap.md) for all pages.