Complete, confirm, and cancel an event reservation

Before a customer books

The public event must be published, in the future, and configured to accept bookings. Customers can reserve as guests without registering. A verified Drecha event customer who is signed in sees the account name and email prefilled and protected from editing in the booking form.

Submit a Going reservation

1. Open the individual public event page.
2. Review the availability message above Reserve your place.
3. Choose Going under Will you attend.
4. Enter the customer Name and Email when they are not already filled from a verified account.
5. Enter the number of Places.
6. Select Send RSVP once.
7. Wait for the inline result before leaving or refreshing the page.

The server validates the event, customer details, requested places, form token, timing and abuse controls, idempotency key, and current capacity. If a network response is lost and the browser safely retries the same request, the stored request key prevents an uncontrolled duplicate reservation.

Read the confirmation result

The result depends on the event's New booking status:

• Confirmed shows Your reservation is confirmed.
• Pending shows Your reservation is pending review.

Both statuses hold the requested places. The response also contains the booking reference and refreshed availability, although the compact browser message shows the status rather than every stored field.

Understand customer email notifications

For a Going response with a valid email address, Free sends a plain-text message through WordPress wp_mail.

• A Confirmed reservation uses a Booking confirmed subject.
• A Pending reservation uses a Reservation received subject and says that the request is pending review.
• The message includes the event title, status, number of places, booking reference, public event link, and a secure cancellation link.
• When staff later changes Pending to Confirmed, the customer receives the confirmation message.
• When the booking is cancelled, Free sends a cancellation message and explains that reserved places were released.

WordPress accepting a wp_mail request does not prove inbox delivery. Configure a reputable SMTP plugin when the hosting mail transport is unreliable, and test delivery to the same type of address customers use. Free has no editable event-booking email template screen.

Record a Not Going RSVP

1. Open the same public form.
2. Choose Not Going.
3. Enter Name and Email.
4. Select Send RSVP.

The Places field is hidden for Not Going. The plugin records a cancelled RSVP, reserves no places, shows that the response was recorded, and emails a short RSVP receipt.

Cancel with the secure email link

1. Open the original confirmation or pending-review email.
2. Follow its Cancel securely link.
3. Review the event and number of places on the cancellation panel.
4. Select Confirm cancellation.
5. Confirm that the public page reports the cancellation and released places.

The link contains a random secret token. It can cancel only its matching reservation. Reusing a successful link is safe and does not release capacity twice.

Online cancellation is available only while an event reservation is Pending or Confirmed and the event has not started. Booking managers can handle exceptional status changes in WordPress administration.

Free and Pro differences

Guest RSVP, confirmation and cancellation email, secure cancellation, capacity release, customer-account cancellation, and the underlying booking workflow are all Free.

Pro can add scheduled booking reminders, configurable cancellation and other automation templates, delivery activity, waitlist offer notifications, and pass or membership context. These extensions use the Free booking record. If Pro becomes inactive, ordinary Free confirmations and secure cancellations continue to work; queued premium automation stops creating new Pro-only notifications.

Troubleshoot customer reservations

The form says it expired

Refresh the public event page and submit the newly loaded form. Its public booking token rotates and accepts the current and immediately previous time window.

The form says there are not enough places

Another reservation may have taken the remaining inventory after the page loaded. Reduce Places or ask the organizer about another session. With Pro, a full event can offer a waitlist when enabled.

The confirmation email does not arrive

Check the spelling of the stored customer email and the spam folder. Test the site's WordPress mail transport or SMTP plugin. The reservation remains stored even when email delivery fails.

The cancellation link is invalid

Use the complete link from the original reservation email without removing its query parameters. A link for one event or reservation cannot cancel another.

Online cancellation is no longer allowed

The reservation may already be cancelled, checked in, marked as a no-show, or past its event start. Contact a booking manager for an administrative correction.