Group Requests: Approval Before You Book a Group

Some agencies want to see a group before an agent commits to it: who the organizer is, which supplier, how big it is, and whether a contract is involved. Group Requests gives agents one form to fill in before they book, and gives owners and admins one queue to review them in.

Group Requests is turned on per agency. If you don't see Group Requests under Group Trips in your sidebar, your agency doesn't have it. Ask us if you'd like it.

Who sees what:

• Agents send requests and see their own, with a plain status: Submitted, Needs info, In review, First group session, Approved, Declined or Closed.
• Owners and admins see every request in the agency on the Group Management page, with automatic checks and the review actions.

For Agents: Sending a Request

1. In the sidebar, open Group Trips → Group Requests
2. Click New request
3. Answer the questions. Your name and email are filled in from your account.
4. Click Send request

You'll get an email confirming we received it. Please hold off on deposits or signing anything with the supplier until you hear back.

The questions

The form asks, in this order:

• Have you booked a group before?
• Organizer or client name, email and phone
• How did this organizer come to you, and do you have any personal or business relationship with them outside this booking?
• Supplier, and the property, ship or resort
• Destination, travel start and end dates
• Number of rooms or cabins, and estimated number of guests
• Estimated total sale value in US dollars
• Have you already contacted the supplier about this group?
• Is a contract, room block or master account involved?
• How will the client pay the supplier?
• Deposit due date, if known
• Anything else we should know

When the reviewer needs more information

If your request comes back as Needs info, you'll get an email with the reviewer's question. Open the request (the email has a button, or go to Group Trips → Group Requests and click it) and type your answer in the reply box at the top. Your reply goes straight back into the review queue.

When it's approved

You'll get an email with the setup checklist, and the group record is already created for you. It shows on your Group Trips page with the organizer, destination, dates, supplier and room count filled in. The checklist:

1. We created the group record for you. If the supplier is not contracting it as a group, use one record per room or cabin instead, set up before the first deposit.
2. Invoice each deposit within 72 hours with client name and supplier confirmation number.
3. Client payments go directly to the supplier or its payment link.
4. Agreements are between the supplier and client/organizer.
5. At group close, collect any signed client contract and the final rooming list.

Creating a group without an approved request? You still can. The New group dialog shows a reminder, "No approved group request yet", with a link to the request form. It never blocks you.

For Owners and Admins: Reviewing Requests

Open Group Trips → Group Requests and click Review requests, or go straight to Group Management. The queue has filter tabs:

Automatic checks

Every request shows these checks as green (pass) or amber (flag) chips. A flag is a reason to look closer, never an automatic decline.

Review actions

Open a request to see the checks, the agent's answers and the full timeline. The actions:

• Approve. Creates the group for the agent (or links one that already exists, see below) and emails them the setup checklist. Every owner and admin gets a "Group request approved" notification.
• Needs info. Emails the agent your question. Required message.
• First group session. Tells the agent you'd like to walk through their first group together. Required message.
• Escalate to Melissa. Moves the request to In review with an optional internal note. The agent only ever sees "In review", never that it was escalated.
• Ask Bati. Adds an internal note for Bati. The status doesn't change.
• Add internal note. A note only owners and admins see.
• Decline. Emails the agent your reason. Required message.
• Mark closed. Available once a request is approved, at the end of the group's life.

Internal notes and escalations show in the timeline with a dashed border and "Only reviewers see this". The agent's view of the same request leaves them out.

Late submissions: linking an existing group

If the agent already started a group before asking, choose Link to an existing group when you approve and pick it from the list. JourneyFuse links the request to that group instead of creating a second one, and shares the group with the agent so it shows on their Group Trips page.

Notifications

Related

• Group Bookings
• Groups