The hold condition codes may be used to place rooms on hold for a set period of time —from 1 to 1440 minutes (24 hours) or for an unlimited time, depending on the HOLD condition code configuration.
A hold room can be assigned to a reservation only by the user who has placed it on hold. A special permission is required to take a room off hold if it was placed on hold by another user. The room is automatically taken off the hold, when the hold period expires and when a guest is checked into the room before the hold period elapses.
This feature might be used in the following scenario. Assume you are assigning rooms to a group of four arriving guests who want adjoining rooms. If your property has several agents making room assignments simultaneously, it might be difficult or impossible to work fast enough to assign the desired four rooms to the reservations you are handling. You could, however, place the four rooms you want into a HOLD condition for, say, three minutes. Then you can select those rooms for the reservations to which you making room assignments. After three minutes, if you have not assigned the rooms you placed on hold, they then become available to other agents.
Parent topic: Room Conditions