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Responding to a personalized offer request

When a guest sends you a personalized offer request from an experience page, it arrives in your chat with them. You decide whether to build an offer for the guest or reject the request.

What the request looks like

A personalized offer requested message appears in your chat. It shows what the guest asked for:

  • The requested date and time.

  • The number of adults and, if any, children.

  • The requested duration, when the guest provided one.

  • A free-text message from the guest, if they wrote one.

The message has two buttons that only you can see:

  • Create personalized offer opens the offer form, prefilled with the guest's request.

  • Reject request declines the request without making an offer.

Once you act on the request, or once it expires, the buttons disappear. The message updates to show whether the request was accepted, rejected, withdrawn, or expired.

When to create a personalized offer

Create an offer when you can host the guest, even if you need to adjust some details. You can:

  • Match the guest's date and group size, possibly at a different time.

  • Suggest a different meeting point or duration.

  • Quote a custom price for a non-standard setup.

You build the offer in the same form as a host-initiated offer. The guest's requested values are filled in for you to review and change as needed. See How to send a personalized offer for the full form walk-through.

You don't have to match every detail of the request. The offer you send back is your proposal. The guest can accept it as-is, or they can chat with you to negotiate.

When to reject a request

Reject the request when there's no way you can host this guest. Typical reasons:

  • The date is one you can't host and you have no good alternative.

  • The group size is outside what you can run.

  • The request is for a city, language, or experience type you don't offer.

  • Something in the message tells you this isn't the right fit.

Tap Reject request and the request closes with a "personalized offer rejected" status. The guest is notified.

A short follow-up message in the chat explaining why is good practice. The guest can then look for another host or experience.

Reject vs. ignore

Always act on the request rather than leaving it unanswered.

  • If you reject, the guest knows where they stand and can move on.

  • If you ignore, the guest is left waiting and the request stays open in your chat.

A short chat message explaining why you can't host this guest, alongside clicking Reject request, is the most helpful response. It also makes sure your Timely Response score sees the reply, since chat messages always count toward it.

What if you change your mind

Once a request is rejected, the buttons are gone and you can't create an offer from that message. If you and the guest still want to work something out, send a new offer yourself from the chat. See How to send a personalized offer.

Effect on your host performance

A personalized offer request starts the response timer for your Timely Response score, the same way a regular guest message does. Replying with a chat message, sending an offer, or withdrawing one inside the response window counts as a timely response. Doing none of these in time counts as a late response and costs points. See Response time and timely response score.

A short chat message is the simplest reply and always counts. When you reject a request, also send a brief chat message to the guest. The chat message is what makes sure your reply is recorded for your score.

If you're in your away period, the platform doesn't penalize you for not responding to a request that arrived during that time.

For Withlocals Originals experiences, when a guest sends a personalized offer request, the platform picks one host to receive it. Hosts with a higher Timely Response tier are favored. Slow or no replies to past requests can reduce how often new Originals requests are routed to you.

Rejecting a request is not a cancellation and does not affect your Booking Success score. Booking Success only reflects confirmed bookings.

Good to know

  • Only the host (you) sees the Create personalized offer and Reject request buttons. The guest sees the same message without these buttons.

  • If you don't act on the request, it can expire on its own. The guest sees an "expired" status.

  • If you create an offer and the guest doesn't accept it, no payment is taken and nothing affects your performance.

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