📏 Booking Rules: Approve or Block Trips by Length and Lead Time

Booking rules let you decide which online bookings go straight through, which ones come to you as a request first, and which ones can't be booked online at all. They look at two things: how long the trip is and how far ahead it's booked.

For example:

• Long rentals need a look first. Trips longer than 14 days come in as requests, so you can check the renter before committing a car for weeks.
• No one-day trips weeks out. Trips shorter than 2 days can only be booked within 2 days of pickup, so a short rental doesn't block a longer one that might come in later.

🛠 Set Up Your Company's Rules

1. Go to Settings > Booking rules > Approval & requests and find Booking requests.
2. Under Booking rules, click Add rule.
3. Build the rule from left to right:
4. • Needs approval or Not allowed
   • for trips shorter than or longer than a number of days
   • Optional: tick Only when booked more than and enter how many days before pickup. The rule then only applies to trips booked further ahead than that.
4. Rules save as soon as they're complete. The line under each rule says what it does, for example "Trips shorter than 2 days booked more than 2 days ahead can't be booked online."

Under each rule, a timeline shows sample trips starting from today and whether each one Books instantly, Needs approval or is Not allowed. Use Try a trip to change the length, or pick a date to move it, and check the rule does what you expect.

You can add up to 10 rules. If a trip matches more than one, Not allowed wins over Needs approval.

🚗 Change the Rules for One Listing

Every listing follows your company's rules unless you change it.

1. Open the listing and go to the Setting tab.
2. Under Booking Rules, choose:
3. • Use your company's booking rules (the default)
   • No booking rules for this listing
   • Custom rules for this listing, then add rules the same way as above. They replace the company rules for this listing only.

👀 What Renters See

As soon as a renter picks dates that match a rule, the booking page tells them.

Not allowed: the trip can't be booked, and the message explains why, for example "Trips shorter than 2 days can only be booked within 2 days of pickup."

Needs approval: the renter can still check out, but it's sent as a request. They see "You won't be charged until your request is approved," and no payment is taken at checkout.

✅ Approve or Decline a Request

Requests show up in Orders with the status Pending approval. A request doesn't block your calendar until you approve it.

1. Open the order.
2. Click Approve to confirm it. The dates are blocked, and the renter gets your Booking approved email with a link to their booking.
3. Or click Decline. You can add a reason and choose whether to email the renter.

Since no payment is taken with a request, collect it once you've approved, for example with a payment link. See Send Payment Requests to Customers.

🚀 Next Steps

• Set trip length limits: Set Up Your Fleetwire Calendar
• Book phone and walk-in customers: Manually Creating Orders in Fleetwire
• Collect payment after approval: Send Payment Requests to Customers
• Need help? Contact us at hi@fleetwire.io or via the in-app chat.

Updated on: 29/10/2026