What a booking candidate is
Checkinea can learn about a stay from two automatic sources that don't carry full guest information: an iCal calendar feed, which only ever has dates and a booking reference, and a forwarded email, which sometimes has more but not always enough. When Checkinea sees a stay it can't turn straight into a real booking, it holds it as a booking candidate — a placeholder that shows the property, channel, and whatever dates are known, waiting for a host to fill in the rest.
The two sources
- iCal block — a stay detected from a connected calendar export (Airbnb, Booking.com, or Vrbo). iCal never carries a guest name, so every iCal-detected stay becomes a candidate.
- Email — created from a forwarded booking email that didn't carry enough to build a full booking on its own. Today this is only Booking.com's initial "new reservation" notification, which has just the booking number and check-in date; its richer first-guest-message email skips the candidate step entirely and creates a full booking directly.
Where they appear
Pending candidates show under Needs details on your Bookings page, with a count in the section heading. Each row shows the property, the source (iCal block or Email), the dates known so far (or "Dates pending" if none yet), and a countdown that turns into "Overdue" after 24 hours — a reminder that nothing else happens automatically once it counts down.
Confirming a candidate
Opening Add details takes you to a short form asking for whatever the source didn't already provide: the guest's full name, at least one of email or phone, the number of guests, and — if missing — the check-out date and reservation number. Submitting it turns the candidate into a real booking and immediately files the RH report with SES, the same as any other new booking. From there the booking has full check-in tools available to send to the guest.
If it isn't a real booking — a blocked-off date range, a test, a cancellation that never reached Checkinea — use Dismiss instead. This removes the candidate without filing anything.
Duplicates and conflicts
Before you confirm a candidate, Checkinea checks whether its dates overlap any of your other active bookings at the same property, from any channel. If they do, the row gets a Possible conflict badge and, instead of the plain form, you get a conflict screen:
- If the candidate's dates match the existing booking exactly, it's titled Possible duplicate — the same stay reported twice, most often because two channels (or a channel and a forwarded email) both saw it.
- If the dates only partially overlap, it's titled Overlapping booking — the two probably aren't the same stay.
Either way you choose how to resolve it: Same reservation merges the candidate into the existing booking instead of creating a second one; Separate booking — import anyway reveals the normal completion form so you can create it as a distinct stay; or you can dismiss it as not a real booking.