Instant Book vs. Request to Book

When live booking opens, Instant Book will confirm an eligible trip immediately while Request to Book will give the host 24 hours to approve it. Private prelaunch listings cannot use either flow.

Instant Book

If a listing has Instant Book turned on, your trip confirms the moment you complete checkout. No waiting on a host to respond.

  1. Select your dates, extras, and protection plan.
  2. Complete checkout — your card is charged.
  3. Your trip is confirmed immediately. You'll see it in Trips with pickup details.

Instant Book is the fastest way to lock in a car, which matters if you're booking last-minute or your dates are firm.

Request to Book

If a listing doesn't have Instant Book on, you're sending the host a request instead of confirming a trip outright:

  1. Select your dates, extras, and protection plan, and submit your request.
  2. Carvia places an authorization for the locked quote on your payment method. It is not captured yet.
  3. The host has 24 hours to accept or decline.
  4. If the host accepts, Carvia captures the authorization and confirms the trip with the cancellation terms saved at checkout.
  5. If the host declines, or doesn't respond within 24 hours, the request ends and Carvia cancels/releases the authorization. Your bank controls how quickly a pending authorization disappears from its display.

You can message the host during this window through Carvia Inbox if you want to share more about your trip or ask a question before they decide.

Why Carvia does it this way

On Carvia, Instant Book is opt-in for hosts — it's a toggle in their listing settings, off by default. A host who wants to personally review every guest before handing over their car can do that. A host who'd rather maximize bookings and skip the back-and-forth can turn Instant Book on.

That's a deliberate difference from marketplaces that require all hosts to accept Instant Book. We think hosts should get to decide how hands-on they want to be with their own car, and guests benefit either way: Instant Book listings are clearly marked, so if speed matters most to you, you can filter for those specifically.

What to expect either way

Regardless of which flow a listing uses, checkout shows the itemized quote before you commit. The current figures and plan designs are provisional during prelaunch; the selections and policies presented with a live trip will govern it.