Booking window

The booking window, or lead time, is the number of days between when a customer books and when they pick up the car. A hire booked on 1 March for pick-up on 15 March has a 14-day booking window.

Formula

Booking window (days) = pick-up date − booking date

For your whole book, look at the median and the spread. "Half our bookings come in within 10 days of pick-up" is the kind of line you want.

Worked example

Hypothetical. Say last November you took 400 bookings:

The median falls in the 8 to 30 day bucket. So a price change made a week out only touches about 30% of November's bookings. Most of the month was already sold by then.

Why it matters for a rental operator

The booking window tells you when your price actually does its work. Change rates after most of the demand has booked and you've changed nothing. Leisure, fly-drive and international customers tend to book further out than locals and business travellers. Check your own data before assuming.

See it in Rate Pulse

Rate Pulse shows the next 14 pick-up days only, so it covers the short end of the window. It doesn't show a lead-time curve beyond 14 days. For your own window, pull booking and pick-up dates from your booking system.