Booking separate days and the overnight rule

A customer does not always want a straight run of days. Someone might want a kayak on Saturday and again the following Friday. You can book that as one booking with only the days they want, and they are not charged, or blocked from other customers, for the days in between.

Where to find it

Bookings → New booking → the Rental Dates card. Customers get the same day picker on your online booking page.

How to pick days

1. In Rental Dates, click a day to pick it. Click it again to remove it. 2. To pick a stretch, click and drag across the days. If you start dragging from a day that is already picked, the drag removes that stretch instead. 3. Press Done. A green tag shows how many days you picked, for example "4 days."

The booking's pickup date is the first day you picked and its return date is the last. Days with no items are dropped, so pickup and return never cover more than is actually booked.

This day picker is off when a package sets the return time (for example a 4-hour package). The page then tells you "Return is set by the 4-hour package — remove the package to set a custom return." The calendar goes back to a simple start-and-end range.

Choosing which items go out on which days

Under the calendar, Advanced — choose items per day opens a grid. Each row is an item and each column is a picked day. Untick a day for an item and that item is not booked for it.

• Every item needs at least one day.
• A day that no item uses is removed from the booking, so pickup and return shrink to match.

Times for each block

The Start and End times you set apply to the first block of days. Open Advanced — set times per day to give later blocks their own start or end. A custom times tag shows when you have, and Same as first day resets one. Days you leave alone use the first block's times.

The overnight rule

Renta turns your picked days into blocks, and the overnight rule decides how:

• Overnight allowed: each run of back-to-back days is one block. Picking Oct 14, 15, and 16 is one rental from Oct 14 at pickup time to Oct 16 at return time. The gear stays out overnight.
• Return nightly: every picked day is its own block at the booking's start and end time. Picking Oct 14, 15, and 16 is three separate same-day rentals. The gear comes back each night.

Each item follows its own setting first. If the item says "Use shop default," it follows your shop-wide setting.

• Shop-wide: on the Fleet page, the switch Items can be rented overnight.
• Per item: on the item's edit page, Overnight rentals has three choices: Use shop default, Allow overnight, and Return nightly. The first choice shows which way the shop default currently leans.

For a same-day block, the end time has to be after the start time. Renta stops you from booking a window that ends before it starts.

How it is priced and held

Each block becomes its own line for each item. A line is priced for its own days and holds the item for its own days only. So a day you did not pick is not charged, and the item stays free for other customers on that day. On the booking page you will see one line per block rather than one long line.

Example

A customer wants two paddleboards on Saturday Oct 11, and again Friday Oct 17 to Sunday Oct 19. You pick Oct 11 and drag Oct 17 to 19, and press Done. If paddleboards allow overnight, that is two blocks: Oct 11, and Oct 17 to 19. If they return nightly, it is four blocks: Oct 11, 17, 18, and 19. The booking runs Oct 11 to Oct 19, but the boards are only held and charged for the picked days.

Good to know

• The same rule applies to customers booking online, so what they see matches what you see at the desk.
• If a booking is already made and you need different dates, use Changing a booking's dates.
• More about the desk form in Creating a booking yourself.