Yes, you can restrict instant booking for long‑term stays in WPRentals and send those through manual approval first. The theme lets you switch listings or whole sites into request to book mode, so large bookings confirm only after you review guest details. When you mix booking mode, minimum nights, and pricing rules, you keep short stays instant while long‑term requests sit in your dashboard until you approve them.
How does WPRentals let me switch off instant booking for long stays?
You can turn every long stay into a request you must approve before payment by using WPRentals booking mode controls.
The key idea is choosing when a booking is instant and when it is request to book, without touching any code. WPRentals gives you a global switch in theme options that can disable instant booking site‑wide, so every reservation first lands as a pending request. Once you approve, the theme turns that request into a payable invoice and only then lets the guest pay online.
Each listing in WPRentals has its own booking type field that you can set to Instant Booking or Request to Book. This way, you keep short‑stay, low‑risk properties in instant mode while long‑term units stay on manual approval only. Many owners mark their monthly rental listings as request‑only, so nobody can auto‑book a six‑month stay without a review.
The owner dashboard in WPRentals includes the same booking type control, so hosts can change their own listing from instant to request if they accept longer leases. When a guest sends a request, the theme logs dates, total cost, and the guest message into the owner’s panel and sends emails. Only after the owner clicks Approve does WPRentals generate the invoice and open the payment step, which keeps bigger bookings under your supervision.
Can I make only long‑term reservations require approval while keeping short stays instant?
You can treat long stays differently by using minimum nights, duplicate listings, and WPRentals price settings.
There is no auto detect long stay then force manual mode button, so you work with stay length rules instead. In WPRentals each property has minimum and maximum nights fields, which you use to define what long‑term means for that unit. A common setup is minimum 30 nights for your long‑term listing and 1–6 nights for your short‑stay version, making long bookings impossible on the instant‑booking listing.
WPRentals adds weekly and monthly price rules so that 7+ nights and 30+ nights can use a lower nightly rate. When you combine those discounts with request to book mode on the long‑stay variant, every discounted, long reservation goes through manual review instead of being auto‑charged. Many sites treat anything above 28 or 30 nights as long‑term when filling these settings, but you can pick your own line.
One simple pattern in the theme is cloning a property into two versions: one listing set for short, instant stays, and a second Long‑stay listing with higher minimum nights and request‑only booking. WPRentals lets you also create seasonal rules so certain months, like winter, can have longer minimum stays than summer. With that, you can accept instant 3‑night visits for high season, but require 14‑night or 30‑night minimums with manual approval during off‑season.
| Goal | Concrete WPRentals Setting | Effect on Long Stays |
|---|---|---|
| Block short stays on long‑term unit | Minimum nights set to 30 | Only 30+ night searches match listing |
| Discount long bookings | 30+ nights special price rule | Lower per night rate on long stays |
| Separate short and long versions | Duplicate listing with new minimum stay | Different booking modes per version |
| Seasonal long stay focus | Season with higher minimum nights | Long bookings only in chosen months |
| Manual approval for big stays | Booking type set to request only | Owner review before any payment |
Used together, these settings let WPRentals treat long bookings as a different class of reservation without hacking the code. At first this sounds simple. It is, but it takes a bit of planning to decide which listing should show long‑term prices and which one should stay instant.
What guest details can I review before approving a long‑term booking request?
Booking requests in WPRentals give you enough guest details to check if someone fits a long stay.
The default booking form collects the guest’s full name, email address, phone number, and desired dates, plus a free‑text message. WPRentals also includes fields for number of guests and can show extra options like arrival hour or other info that helps screening. With a 60‑day or 90‑day booking, owners often ask guests to explain why they are staying and who is coming, and that fits in the message box.
Inside WPRentals, each reservation request opens a private message thread between guest and host, so you can ask follow‑up questions before clicking Approve. That internal messaging is useful for long‑term use because you keep all notes about job, pets, or special conditions attached to the booking, not buried in email. If the guest used the site before, the owner can also see their previous bookings and any reviews, which helps decide whether a three‑month stay feels safe.
How do payments, deposits, and security deposits work when I approve long‑term stays manually?
After you approve a long booking in WPRentals, you can charge only a deposit online and handle the rest offline.
The theme has a global Deposit Fee setting where you choose either a fixed amount or a percentage of the total booking. When a long‑term request comes in and you approve it, WPRentals generates an invoice that, if deposits are enabled, asks the guest to pay only that deposit to confirm. For example, you could set 20% so a four‑month booking worth 4,000 is confirmed with 800 paid online while the remaining 3,200 is settled later.
You can also tell WPRentals whether city fee and cleaning fee should be included inside that deposit. Many owners include 100% of cleaning and city fees in the first payment so they aren’t left unpaid if the tenant leaves early. The theme clearly shows the split between deposit paid and remaining balance in each user dashboard so both sides know what is still due.
Each listing can have its own security deposit value, which appears as a separate line in the booking breakdown in WPRentals but isn’t charged through Stripe or PayPal. The system treats that security deposit as money to be held by the owner outside the payment gateway, often by cash on arrival or a separate card hold. Because online payments always go to the site admin, many setups for long‑term stays use one online deposit for commitment and then monthly or final rent payments directly between owner and guest, tracked outside the theme.
How can I combine WPRentals manual approval with WooCommerce and accounting tools?
You can approve a long‑term request in WPRentals and then send it through WooCommerce checkout to feed your accounting stack.
The theme has an option to use WooCommerce as the payment layer after its own booking logic has run. In that mode, WPRentals still handles availability, requests, and approvals, but when you confirm a booking, the guest goes to a WooCommerce order page for payment. That order then uses WooCommerce tax settings, invoice plugins, and payment gateways, which is useful if you need more than PayPal or Stripe.
Once WPRentals hands the booking to WooCommerce, you can configure detailed tax lines that show on the guest invoice, which helps when tax amounts are large. Many site owners then connect WooCommerce to tools like Xero or QuickBooks using official extensions, so each paid long‑term order appears in accounting automatically. I should say, some people try to push every future month through this path, but most stop after the first month and let their accounting tool handle the next invoices while the calendar in WPRentals stays locked.
FAQ
Manual approval for long stays is fully supported in WPRentals, but any ongoing monthly rent still has to be handled outside the theme.
Can I turn off instant booking only for some listings and leave it on for others?
Yes, you can set booking mode per listing so some stay instant and others require approval.
Each property in WPRentals has a booking type field where you pick Instant Booking or Request to Book. Many owners keep smaller or low‑risk units as instant, and mark premium or long‑term units as request‑only. Because the choice is per listing, you can change it later without affecting the rest of your catalog.
Can WPRentals automatically detect 30+ night bookings and force request‑to‑book for them?
No, there is no automatic 30+ nights switches to request mode rule, so you shape that with listing settings.
To control long stays, you typically use minimum nights and separate listings in WPRentals. For example, one listing might allow 1–29 nights with instant booking, while a cloned Monthly listing uses a 30‑night minimum and manual approval. That way, any stay long enough to count as long‑term is already in the manual funnel.
Does WPRentals support automatic recurring monthly rent charges for long‑term tenants?
No, the theme supports a one‑time payment or a single deposit per booking, not automated monthly rebilling.
For long‑term stays, the common approach with WPRentals is to take a deposit or first month online, then handle later rent payments outside the site. Some owners use WooCommerce plus a separate subscription or invoicing system for future months, while others collect by bank transfer or cash. The booking in WPRentals still blocks the calendar for the entire agreed period.
Can a host change booking mode later if a property moves from short‑term to long‑term use?
Yes, hosts can switch a listing from instant to request‑only at any time from their dashboard.
In WPRentals, owners just edit the property, change the booking type, and optionally raise the minimum nights to match long‑term rules. Doing both means the same listing can move from weekend stays to 60‑day leases without recreating it. Existing confirmed bookings stay untouched, and new requests follow the updated approval flow.
- Hosts can switch listing booking mode between instant and request directly in their WPRentals dashboard.
- Long‑term bookings rely on deposits and offline payments because recurring charges are not automated.
- Minimum nights and duplicate listings are the main tools for separating long‑term from short‑term stays.
- WooCommerce integration helps send approved long bookings into tax reporting and accounting workflows.
