How to alter a booking
Alterations can only be made to accepted bookings.
If you need to alter a pending Direct booking, you can either accept it first and then process the alteration, or cancel the pending booking and create a new one with the updated dates.
If you need to make alterations to a Direct booking:
Open the conversation in your Inbox or click it from the calendar.
Click on the Alter reservation button
For Direct bookings, you can currently alter the number of guests, check-in and check-out dates (changing the property is not yet available)
You’ll be presented with the price difference, which may be positive or negative depending on the changes made. If necessary, you can also make modifications to the new price.
Set a timeframe for the hold of the Alteration request. The calendar will be blocked based on this timeframe set.
Click Continue, review the details of the alteration, and press Confirm the alteration
An alteration request email will be sent to the guest and they can confirm or deny it.
Once accepted. we will automatically charge or refund the guest the difference
The guest will not need to take any action. We will attempt to charge their card on file for any additional amount.
If their payment method fails, we send out an email to allow guests to change their form of payment.
If a booking has payment terms, computation may be different. See payment terms for more details.
Note: Altering a Direct booking does not update any rental agreement that has already been signed. If you need the rental agreement to reflect the new booking terms, you will need to create a new agreement and request a new signature. See Overview: Rental Agreements for details.
What Happens When an Alteration Request Is Pending
Once you send an alteration request to your guest, the Alter reservation button disappears from the reservation panel. This is expected — Hospitable prevents overlapping alteration requests.
While an alteration is pending:
You cannot send a new alteration request from the Hospitable interface.
The guest receives an email with a link to review and accept the alteration.
If the guest does not respond, the alteration will remain pending until it expires (based on your quote expiration setting).
If Your Guest Can't Accept the Alteration
Sometimes guests run into issues when trying to accept an alteration request. Common causes include:
Last name validation error — The guest's last name must match exactly what was entered when the booking was created. If there's a mismatch (e.g., hyphenated names, special characters), the system may reject the input.
Browser or device issues — Some older browsers or ad blockers can interfere with the alteration acceptance page.
Ask your guest to try:
Use a modern browser (Chrome or Safari work best).
Disable ad blockers or pop-up blockers.
Try on a different device (switch between mobile and desktop).
Clear their browser cache.
Ensure the last name matches the one used when the original booking was made.
What to Do If the Alteration Can't Be Completed
If the guest is unable to accept the pending alteration request after troubleshooting, your options depend on whether the stay has already started.
Option 1: Wait for the alteration to expire, then alter again
The pending alteration will expire based on your quote expiration setting (24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, or 1 week).
Once expired, the Alter reservation button will reappear, and you can send a corrected alteration or make the change yourself.
Option 2: Cancel and rebook (only if the stay has not yet started)
This option is only available when the guest has not yet checked in.
Cancel the existing booking — as the host, this triggers a full refund to the guest regardless of your cancellation policy.
Create a new Direct booking with the correct dates.
Important: The original payment will be refunded (5–10 business days), and you'll need to collect payment again via the new booking's payment link.
Note: Manual bookings handle payments outside of Hospitable. If you want Hospitable to process the payment, create a new Direct booking (not a manual booking).
Option 3: Contact support (for ongoing stays)
If the booking is already in progress (e.g., you need to extend the stay or remove dates from a current reservation), contact Hospitable support.
Support can void the pending alteration, which allows you to either:
Re-send the alteration with the correct information (if it was processed incorrectly), or
Have support process the change on the backend directly.
This is the recommended path for any date changes on an active, ongoing stay.
How Taxes Are Handled During Alterations
When you alter a Direct booking (e.g., changing dates, nightly rate, or adding/removing nights), taxes are automatically recalculated based on the updated booking details.
What to expect
Direct Premium (Avalara): Taxes are recalculated automatically using Avalara's rates for the updated stay. If the alteration changes the total, the tax amount will adjust accordingly. The guest will see the updated tax amount on their revised invoice.
Direct Basic: Your manually configured tax rate is re-applied to the new booking subtotal. The tax adjusts proportionally.
Why you should avoid using "Send or Request Money" for alteration charges
It may be tempting to skip the alteration flow and use the Send or Request Money feature to collect additional payment from a guest (e.g., for extra nights). We strongly recommend against this because ad-hoc charges work differently from alterations when it comes to taxes:
Alterations calculate taxes based on the actual breakdown — nightly rates and fees may each carry different tax percentages.
Send or Request Money (ad-hoc charges) treats the entire amount as a miscellaneous fee, which may be taxed at a different percentage than what would apply to nightly rates and other fee types.
This means using Send or Request Money for what should be an alteration can result in incorrect tax amounts being charged to the guest.
Whether the alteration is processed as-is or manually adjusted and then collected via an ad-hoc charge, the service fee computation is the same — so there is no service fee advantage to using Send or Request Money.
⚠️ Always use the alteration flow to ensure taxes are calculated correctly based on the actual fee breakdown. Use Send or Request Money only for genuinely miscellaneous charges that are not related to nightly rates or standard booking fees.
Important notes
You cannot manually edit the tax amount during an alteration. Taxes are always calculated based on the rate configuration (Avalara for Premium, your manual rate for Basic).
If an alteration results in a partial refund, the refunded amount includes the proportional tax.
If the booking crosses a tax rate change (e.g., a rate went up on Jan 1 and the booking spans that date), Avalara will apply the correct rate for each portion of the stay.
For questions about tax amounts after an alteration, check your Taxes Export — it reflects the final, post-alteration figures.
Related articles:
Cancelling Direct bookings