Booking rules: the settings that change how booking works
Every setting that changes what your members can book and when, what each one actually does, and where it lives.
For owners and admins
Four toggles under WebSettings → Booking preferences change how booking works for the whole school. Three more rules live elsewhere: the booking window on a membership plan, the overnight minimum in billing settings, and the school's time zone.
Where booking preferences live#
WebSettings → Booking preferences. Settings as a whole is admin only, so an owner or an admin can change these and nobody else can, including dispatchers.
Every one of these is off by default, and a school that has never opened this tab behaves as though all four are off.
Allow multi-day bookings#
Off, a booking has to start and end on the same local day, and anything that crosses local midnight is refused.
On, the booking form's date field becomes Out on and gains Back on and Back at, so a booking can keep the aircraft for a night or a week. A multi-day booking overrides the resource's normal operating hours: the aircraft is simply gone until it is back, rather than free again the next morning.
A flight that ends exactly at midnight is not a multi-day booking. 10pm to midnight is an ordinary evening flight. 10pm to 12:15am is a night away.
See Book a trip that keeps the aircraft overnight.
Require payment method before self-book#
On, a student or renter booking themselves must have a card saved before the booking is accepted. The refusal reads "Add a payment method before booking. Open Payment methods in your profile, then try again."
What it does not touch:
- owners, admins and dispatchers booking on somebody's behalf
- a booking where the person doing the booking is not sitting in the student or renter seat, for example an instructor booking a dual
Members can only book approved resources#
A check-out is an explicit approval linking one member to one tail, granted from the aircraft record or the person's record.
On, students and renters can book only the aircraft they are approved on. A renter with no approvals is told they are not checked out on any aircraft and asked to talk to the school.
Four groups are not checked, on purpose:
- Owners, admins and dispatchers. They can still assign anyone to any aircraft from the dispatch board, which is what you want when somebody is being checked out in the first place.
- Instructors. A CFI is not held to the approved list, so turning this on cannot ground your dual bookings.
- Guest flights, which have no member to check.
- Rooms and simulators. Check-outs are about aeroplanes.
Instructors can override reservation prices#
On, an instructor can adjust the resource rate and the instruction rate on a booking, using Override payment on the reservation panel in the console or Override Payment on the reservation screen in the app. The setting gates both identically.
Admins, owners and dispatchers can always override, whatever this is set to.
Booking windows on membership plans#
If your school runs membership plans, each plan can carry a Booking window: how many days ahead members on that tier may book. It is the classic club rule, where full members book the season and associates book inside the week.
Set it on the plan under WebSettings → Memberships. Two things to know before you do:
- It applies to every reservation type, so a club that sets "associates book seven days out" meaning aircraft has also limited their ground school and their simulator time.
- It applies even when staff book on that member's behalf, because the rule is about whose membership it is, not who typed it in.
The refusal names the plan and the numbers: "The Associate tier can book up to 7 days ahead. That booking is 12 days out."
A window only applies while the membership is active. A pending or lapsed membership has no window at all, so the restriction disappears rather than tightening.
The overnight minimum#
A floor on billable hours per night the aircraft is kept away. Set the school's figure under WebSettings → Billing, and override it for one aircraft on that aircraft's rates.
Without one, a member can keep an aeroplane all weekend, fly 1.5 hours, and owe you 1.5 hours. AerScheduler discloses the minimum on the booking form and again in the ramp in modal, before any invoice exists, in the form "This will bill 4.0 hours rather than the 1.5 flown."
A booking that comes back the same day is never affected.
How far ahead anyone can book#
Nobody can book more than 365 days ahead, whatever their role and whatever their membership plan says. The date picker simply stops there.
Bookings also snap to 15 minute marks. There is no way to express an 09:07 departure.
Settings a dispatcher cannot reach#
Dispatchers run the board. They can create any reservation type, assign anyone, edit, reschedule, drag, cancel, ramp out, ramp in and fill in who pays what. What they cannot do:
- open Settings at all, so booking preferences, the school's time zone, the overnight minimum and the cost-splitting rules are out of reach
- raise an invoice for a booking by hand
- see financial reports
- override prices, unless they are also an admin
That last one is worth planning around. The cost-splitting rules decide which fields in the Who pays what panel matter, and the dispatcher filling that panel in cannot read them. Tell them once.
Related#
Scheduling permissions by role.
Setting the school's zone, which multi-day bookings depend on.
What your members see when one of these rules catches them.
The overnight minimum from the billing side.
Still stuck on this?
Email support@aerscheduler.com and tell us what you were trying to do. We answer.