Why a pending booking can expire

A paid booking starts as “pending” the moment a guest begins checkout, and only becomes “confirmed” once their payment actually succeeds. If they never finish paying — they close the tab, their card fails, or they just abandon it — that pending booking doesn't sit there holding capacity forever.

Covered automatically expires a pending booking that's gone stale, freeing up the capacity it was holding for someone else. If the event or ticket type had sold out because of bookings like this, expiring one can trigger a waitlist notification the same way a refund does. The guest may also get an automatic reminder email nudging them to come back and finish their booking before it expires.

If a booking vanishes from your guest list that you were expecting to see, this is usually why — it never actually completed.