Free Cancelation Window / Auto-approval of Pending Reservations

I'd like to request the ability to make pending bookings automatically confirm instead of automatically canceling.

Or perhaps this would be easier to do as a completely different feature instead. Here's my use-case/thought process: We have a LOT of guests cancel within just a day or two of their reservation (our assumption is that they're booking multiple properties to make sure they're held, then talking to friends/family to finalize details, then canceling all but one). When they use Airbnb, Airbnb covers all the credit card fees, so it's no problem. But if they book direct, that means we either have to charge them a cancelation fee or eat thousands a year in card fees. We're afraid that if we don't offer any window for free cancelations, lots of guests just won't risk it and won't book with us at all.

So the functionality I'm envisioning is this: Guest books on our platform. As part of checkout process they input their card info and the processor immediately verifies it. Guest immediately receive an email confirming their booking and saying they have 24 hours to cancel before there's a cancelation fee. BUT, their card isn't actually charged until that 24 hours expires, thus we have no fees to eat if they want to cancel.

Currently we can sort-of-kind-of do this with the Request-to-Book feature. However, guests will be reluctant to book with us if they can't be assured immediately that they're locked in. Furthermore, this would also require us to manually review every single booking (a ton of extra work for us). Almost certainly we'd miss one here and there and guests would be very upset that their booking got canceled for no good reason.

What if instead you use the cancellation policy grace period, allowing you to grant the guests a grace period time to cancel before you charge the card.

OwnerRez supports a Grace Period option on cancellation policies, which allows guests to cancel within a set timeframe without incurring non-refundable card processing fees.

How It Works

• OwnerRez supports an authorization-only payment option that places a temporary hold on funds through card authorization
• The charge is finalized after the grace period expires
• This applies to both direct and channel-integrated bookings
• Exceptions apply for last-minute bookings arriving within 72 hours

Cancellation Policies > Grace Period

How to Configure a Grace Period

1. Navigate to Settings > Rules > Cancellation Policies
2. Select an existing policy or click + Create Policy
3. Scroll to the Grace Period section
4. Set Free cancellation period after booking
5. Click Save

Maximum grace period: 72 hours after booking Maximum "arrival date is at least X hours away": 800 hours (33 days)

Guest Experience

During the booking process on Hosted Websites, guests will see the Grace Period displayed alongside your Cancellation Policy. In OwnerRez, grace period payments appear as normal payments with scheduled capture dates, shown as "Pending" in the payments grid until automatically captured at the end of the grace period.

Cancellation Policies > Grace Period

Important Notes for Vrbo Users

Vrbo's built-in cancellation policies (e.g., Firm, Moderate, Strict) do NOT include grace periods. Grace periods only apply when using custom cancellation policies.

If you want a grace period on Vrbo, you must:

• Create a custom cancellation policy in OwnerRez
• Include the grace period setting in that custom policy
• You can still align your custom policy with Vrbo's Relaxed (≥14 days) or Moderate (≥30 days) policies to receive Vrbo's associated ranking benefits

Email Blast July 1, 2025 - Cancellation Policy Grace Period Behavior Update > Cancellation Policy Grace Period Behavior Update

Vrbo Setup & Connecting > Cancellation Policy and House Rules

Note on Channel Display

Grace periods are not prominently displayed on listing channels such as Airbnb, Vrbo, or Booking.com — they are visible to guests booking directly through your Hosted Website.

That sounds exactly like what I was looking for!

I'm not sure how that managed to never show up in any of my searching and asking Rezzy, though . . .