How to Manage Expired Bookings and Control Booking Duration
Last updated
Was this helpful?
Last updated
Was this helpful?
When customers start the booking process but don’t complete payment, it’s important to understand how long their chosen time slots stay blocked on your calendar. This helps prevent double bookings while still keeping your availability flexible. Let’s break it down.
When a customer adds a service to their cart, Cowlendar temporarily blocks that time slot, marking it as unavailable, even before the booking is confirmed with payment.
This behavior follows Shopify’s default logic for product inventory, designed to avoid overselling. Cowlendar applies the same rule to your calendar to ensure no two customers can book the same time by accident.
If the customer does not complete the booking within a certain time frame, that slot becomes available again. We refer to this as an expired booking.
Keep in mind that the expiration countdown feature works reliably with most official Shopify themes. However, it might not be fully compatible with all custom themes or when using upsell apps and features
You can control how long a time slot stays reserved while it’s sitting in a customer’s cart:
Go to your Cowlendar Dashboard
Click My Services in the left-hand menu
Select the service you want to adjust and click Edit
Scroll down to the Advanced section
Adjust the Slots lock time feature to your preference
This option lets you choose how long the slot will stay blocked before being released back into your availability.
