Can I let my customers hold a hotel room for a day or two before they pay in full?

Sometimes, and it depends entirely on the rate you are selling. A hold, often called an option or a provisional booking, means the room is reserved in your customer's name but the money has not been taken yet. Some hotel suppliers and some direct hotel contracts allow this, and when they do, the hold can be passed through to your white label portal so you or your customer can confirm it later. Many of the rates you see in search results, especially the cheapest non refundable ones, do not allow a hold at all and must be paid at the moment of booking.

Because of that, the honest answer is that you cannot promise a hold on every hotel on your website. What you can usually do is let your staff place a hold from the back office on the rates that support it, so your team can offer it to a customer who is still deciding. Letting the customer place their own hold on the front end is less common, since most agencies prefer to keep control of which bookings are sitting unpaid.

Where a hold is allowed, the supplier sets a deadline. After that time passes the room is released automatically and the rate may no longer be available, so a good setup will show you the deadline clearly on the booking and remind you before it runs out. It is worth asking for that reminder to be switched on, because an expired hold is easy to miss when you are busy.

The next step is to tell us which hotel suppliers you plan to use and whether you also have your own direct contracts, so we can confirm which of them support holds and set the deadline reminders up for your team.