Auto-Expire Pending Requests

Auto-expire automatically cancels booking requests that you haven't approved or declined within a window you choose, so stale requests stop holding your calendar. It's an account-wide setting that applies to every listing, and it's off by default — pending requests never expire from age unless you turn this on.

When to Use Auto-Expire

You take request-to-book reservations (Instant Book is off) and don't want unanswered requests blocking dates indefinitely.
You want a guaranteed cleanup window so dates reopen for other guests if you can't respond in time.
You'd like a reminder nudge before a request is cancelled, instead of having to police Calendar → Inbox manually.

How to Turn On Auto-Expire

Go to Sites → Listing sites (the listings page, /host?tab=listings).
Click the gear icon on the listings toolbar to open Property settings.
In the Auto-expire pending requests row, toggle it Enabled.
Choose how long a request can sit before it expires:
- 24 hours
- 2 days
- Custom — enter any number of days (up to 90).
Your choice saves automatically — there's no Save button.

You can also reach this setting from the Listing editor → Availability tab, which links straight to Property settings.

What Happens When a Request Expires

The request is measured from when the guest submitted it.
A warning email is sent to you a few hours before the deadline, so you still have time to approve or decline.
If you take no action, Haven automatically cancels the request, frees the dates on your calendar, and sends the guest the standard "reservation request expired" email.
The host and guest are both notified. No payment is involved — pending requests are not yet paid.

Key Details

Account-wide — the window applies to all of your listings at once.
Whether a pending request blocks dates at all is a separate choice. By default it doesn't: the nights keep selling on Haven, your PMS, and channels until someone books them, which makes auto-expire a tidiness tool rather than a revenue one. See Hold Dates for Pending Requests.
Inquiries are never auto-expired — only real booking requests are affected.
Instant Book bookings are unaffected; they don't go through the request-approval step.
Turning the toggle off stops all auto-expiry immediately; existing pending requests will simply wait for your action again.
Declining a request is not penalized. Haven has no Superhost-style ding, ranking hit, or decline-rate score. Auto-expire is optional cleanup, not a punishment. See Your property, your rules.

What Auto-Expire Does NOT Do

It does not cancel confirmed (paid) reservations.
It does not expire guest inquiries.
It does not change your cancellation policy or refund behavior.

If your PMS also expires requests

Hostfully and Lodgify expire held requests on their own schedule, set inside the PMS (Haven cannot read those windows, so they are not mirrored here). Whichever window is shorter applies: if the PMS expires a request first, Haven declines it and notifies the guest; if your Haven window is shorter, Haven closes the hold in the PMS. Guesty holds follow your Haven window exactly.